The Most Popular Types of Games

There are so many different types of games and so little time to play them. And yet, each year they’re all getting more and more popular.

Today we’re going to run down some of the most popular forms of games of all kinds in the hopes of nailing down exactly what makes each of them so crowd-pleasing. From gambling games to the nichest of the niche, we’ll be exploring what attracts attention and why.

We’re not keeping too serious a tab on genre or style – just picking general groupings in the hopes of, by the end of the discussion, finding some kind of pattern in all the madness. It may be that we start at the broadest possible point, then narrow in.

Online Games

Online games of various descriptions are the biggest genre in the world right now. And I’m not just talking about Fortnite. At the broadest possible point, online games make up the seemingly vast majority of our game time.

That might be things like online casinos, which are so popular they can sit right on the cutting edge of this conversation. Want to play against others in crypto casinos? Then you can do it.

From mobile games that time you for each move, to chess, to the most involved first-person shooters, there’s something about connecting to a server that, at its core, appeals to a huge amount of people.

And this isn’t a new thing. Go back to the earliest days of the internet – pre the Doom download – and you’ll find people using technology to play against one another.

In those days it tended to be asynchronous stuff – games that were easy to play in turns.

Today online features are pretty much expected from major releases, whether they be on console, on mobile or simply on the web. There need to be stakes – the feeling of winning over someone else, or the humiliation of losing.

Role-Playing

The RPG genre is always going to be popular because defining it is contentious. Is Elden Ring an RPG? If so, is Final Fantasy? What about Mass Effect? Pokemon?

They’re all RPGs, with the only common thread that you take on a character and that there’s something a bit numbery going on in the background. The numbery bit might be more or less overt, depending on the title.

Like with the online games section above, the reason I’ve gone so broad here is simple: because it really is that broad. People love the opportunity to take on the role of another human or creature. Nothing else really matters.

Whether you’re creating the story yourself or following something someone else has laid out for you, it’s not the start that matters, it is the adventure.

As a species we love stories. They let us give warnings, recount history or live incredible deeds without leaving our seats. Video games give us a chance to enjoy these in new and exciting ways, with things that wouldn’t have been possible even a few decades ago.

The role-playing genre is always going to be huge, no matter how you boil it down, because role-playing is almost the default human activity. It’s no surprise that so many of us want to experience it within our gaming.

Sports

Sports are, in a way, just another form of role-playing. But really it’s any game that pits two teams together in a kind of organized rule set.  That might be football or rugby, or it might be the smaller versions of Call of Duty.

Shooters and even some of the more strategic like MOBA are influenced by sports in so many ways. They might not fall traditionally into the genre, and there may be a huge overlap with online games, but for our purposes the sports genre is anything that collectively pits and us and a them together in some kind of match.

And it makes sense why this has always been such a popular group of titles. The moment-to-moment action, the ability to get to the absolute pinnacle within a controlled environment… It’s a very attractive proposition.

There’s no endgame, and you can pick up and play. But in that simplicity is a universe of choice and variation.

But more than that, sports games have appeal. Where RPGs might feel involved and too deep in fantasy, a sport game or arena shooter is overt and loud.

The Most Popular Types of Games – Conclusion

It’s funny to think you can boil down almost any game to three broad categories. But like with all things, the variation comes in the telling. The difference between an FPS and a point-and-click game is what shape the input is.

But these popular game types are popular for a reason: because they reflect what we want as humans.

And long may developers allow that to not just continue, but to grow.