Final Thought.

For this critical studies unit i looked at genre on a broad scale from music to games, what i found out was that genre first came about 19th century, its a french word that means 'kind' or 'class', it was used to define what type of litrature there was. Then in the 50s it was the common word to use to define from different types of media. First of all in music genre is used alot as in hip hop to r&b to metal. But then there are sub genres like grime, crunk, nu-metal, hardcore metal etc. This is when it then becomes hard to define a certain type of music because it can fall into many different genres.Also with different types of genres of music the different type of fan base and culture comes with it. Like them wearing different type of clothes acting in certain way because of the music they listen to. With film it is more easy with Action, Adventure, Comedy, Crime/Gangster, Drama, Historical, Horror, Musical, Sci-Fi, War & Western. But now these lead into sub genres like Biopic, Chick Flicks, Detective/Mystery, Disaster, Fantasy, Film Noir, Guy Films, Melodramas, Road Films, Romance/Comedy, Sports, Supernatural, Thriller/Suspense, These type of films are films like shaun of the dead, superbad and love actually.
The diffence with music and film compared to video games is that you get the interact with the game and get to do what you want within the limits of the game. Where as with film and music you can't really interact with it like video games. Genre in video games if very different to other types of media as in a game it can be changed and moulded to the users likes or dislikes. Like with games like half-life the users can create there own maps and characters and completely re-invent the game. Also some games don't really fall into a genre like grand theft auto series, its alot of genres mixed together you have your first person shooter, driving and action/adventure. Which makes it very hard to put in a genre. I think this makes a game successful because you don't know what you are going to get, because with most games you get told fps and its a fps. Also with games like mirrors edge it looks like a first person shooter but isn't because it involves running and jumping its more like a modern take on the platform game, much like the first games like mario and sonic.. I think games like mirrors edge are changeing the genre, if there was no genre to put things into there would have to be set rules or no common conventions to say what kind of thing the type of media is and would get incredibly confusing. Genre helps you to evole the type of game into somthing different and will also continue to evole as time goes by and culture and society changes.