The Relative Popularity of Video Game Genres in the Scientific Literature: A Bibliographic Survey

Abstract

Video games come in many genres. Although the popularity of games that belong to different genres is the subject of various research and industry reports, so far, there have been no studies investigating their popularity in research papers. This paper addresses this gap with an analysis of bibliographic data sourced from Scopus, spanning 45 years since the emergence of the topic till today and covering nine widely recognized genres: Action, Puzzle, Rhythm, Role-Playing, Simulation, Sports, Shooter, Strategy, and Traditional. The obtained results not only reveal the current popularity of these video game genres but also illustrate its change over time and geographic distribution as well as highlight the most impactful papers referring to the respective genres and their topics, providing a number of footholds for future studies, including regarding the identified disparities in the research interest in some genres and the number of available games belonging to them, the fluctuations in the relative popularity of the respective genres, and the disparities in the share of research output dedicated to video game genres in the total research output of different countries.

1. Introduction

According to Juul, a game can be defined as “a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable” [1] (p. 255). A digital game is a game played on an electronic device, such as a computer, a mobile phone or tablet, a game console, or even a device designed to allow one to play a particular game, e.g., a coin-up machine. Digital games are also called video games (also spelled videogames), a term defined by Bergonse as follows: “a mode of interaction between a player, a machine with an electronic visual display, and possibly other players, that is mediated by a meaningful fictional context, and sustained by an emotional attachment between the player and the outcomes of her actions within this fictional context” [2] (p. 253). Nowadays, digital games play an important and acknowledged role in culture [3] and economy [4] and have also become the subject of various kinds of research (see, e.g., [5,6,7,8,9]).

Digital games come in different genres. As observed by Wolf, “the idea of categorization by genre, and the notion that there are certain conventions present in each genre, has been used in the study of literature and film and has proven to be a useful way of looking at both” [10] (p. 113). Similar benefits can be expected to be gained from applying categorization to digital games. However, such categorization is not a trivial task—as observed by Lindley, “developing a basic language for describing different types of games requires different dimensions of distinctions” [11]. In fact, there is no universally accepted typology of video games that would cover their versatile aspects [12] (p. 2), and there is a lot of criticism of the classifications proposed earlier [13]. In Section 2, we present a selection of classifications proposed by various authors.

The interest in the popularity of video game genres is usually satisfied by player surveys (see, e.g., [14]) and sales data released by video game distributors, such as Steam [15]. Such sources obviously show the popularity of games of a specific genre among players, which is of obvious relevance to both the game-development industry (see, e.g., [16,17]) and the research community (see, e.g., [18,19]). Interestingly, we were unable to identify any reports published so far dedicated to the popularity of these game genres in the scientific literature. Such studies, while of hardly any avail to the game-development industry, would have considerable value for the research community, mapping the existing research to video game genres and indicating under-researched genres, thus motivating future work on their topic in order to facilitate more consistent research coverage of the whole area. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by reporting the results of a bibliographic survey indicating the differences in the relative popularity of respective game genres in the scientific literature.

The presented study was conducted to address the following research questions:

• [RQ1] What is the distribution of research papers with regard to the video game genres they refer to, and how does it relate to the number of games developed in the respective genres?
• [RQ2] How has the quantity of research papers referring to video game genres evolved over time, and what are the differences among the respective genres?
• [RQ3] With which countries are the majority of the authors of the research papers referring to video game genres affiliated, and how does their share of research in this vein compare to the general scientific publication output in these countries?
• [RQ4] What are the most impactful research papers referring to video game genres, and what topics they are on?

This paper is structured as follows. The already-mentioned review of the available game typologies follows this introduction. In Section 3, we describe the research method applied and the bibliographic data source used. The direct findings are reported in Section 4, whereas their interpretation and discussion follow in Section 5, and the final section describes the study’s limitations and indicates research directions for future work.

2. Classifications of Video Games

2.1. Classic Taxonomies

There is not a single, universally agreed taxonomy of video games. Probably the earliest (1984) classification of computer games was proposed by Crawford [20] (pp. 25–34), who divides them into two classes:

• Skill-and-action games, which are characterized by real-time play, a heavy emphasis on graphics and sound, and demanding of the player mainly hand–eye coordination and a fast reaction time;
• Strategy games, which emphasize cogitation rather than manipulation, do not put emphasis on motor skills, and typically require more time to play than skill-and-action games.

Both of the above contain a number of subclasses, listed in

Table 1. Classification of computer games according to Crawford [20].

Class	Subclass	Description	Example
Skill-and-action games	Combat games	Players must destroy the opposing force; the challenge is to position oneself to avoid being hit by the enemy.	Space Invaders
	Maze games	These games are characterized by a maze of paths through which the player must move, sometimes while being pursued by enemies.	Pac-Man
	Sports games	These are based on real-world sports but bear little resemblance to actual gameplay.	Tennis
	Paddle games	Players use a ball as a weapon to batter and must catch or deflect the ball.	Arkanoid
	Race games	Players must reach the finish line while avoiding various hazards on the route.	Pole Position
	Miscellaneous games	These concern all skill-and-action games not fitting into the above categories.	Qix
Strategy games	Adventures	Players move through a complex world, accumulating tools and booty to overcome obstacles, aiming for the ultimate treasure or goal; obstacles are static and become trivial once solved.	Raiders of the Lost Ark
	D&D games	These resemble non-digital fantasy roleplaying games; players gather treasure and defeat opponents, with the computer serving as the game master.	Pool of Radiance
	Wargames	These feature complicated rules and long play times; they may be computer versions of boardgames or original computer games.	Eastern Front (1941)
	Educational/Children’s	These are designed with explicit educational goals in mind.	Hangman
	Interpersonal games	These games focus on relationships between individuals or groups (e.g., gossip groups).	Trust & Betrayal

.

Wolf [10] considered the variety of gameplay and interactivity to derive 42 categories of games. These are listed in

Table 2. Classification of video games according to Wolf [10].

Genre	Description	Example(s)
Abstract	Such games feature nonrepresentational graphics; objectives are not organized as a narrative.	Arkanoid
Adaptation	Representative games are adapted from another medium or gaming activity, closely following a narrative from another work.	Spy vs. Spy
Adventure	These games are set in a world of multiple, connected rooms/screens; solving objectives requires the completion of multiple steps (e.g., finding keys, unlocking doors, etc.).	The Secret of Monkey Island
Artificial Life	Such games involve growth/maintenance of digital creatures that can die without care.	The Sims
Board Games	These games are adaptations or similar to existing board games.	Chess, Monopoly
Capturing	Primary objective: capture objects that try to evade the player.	Keystone Kapers
Card Games	These are adaptations of existing or newly designed card-based games.	Solitaire
Catching	Primary objective: catch objects that do not actively evade the player.	Circus Atari
Chase	Games involve chasing or being chased.	Out Run
Collecting	Primary objective: collect stationary objects or surround areas.	Pac-Man, Qix
Combat	Players shoot projectiles at each other, using similar weaponry.	Outlaw
Demo	Demos allow players to try out a game for free.
Diagnostic	This type is designed to test system functioning and is not a game in and of itself.
Dodging	Primary objective: avoid projectiles or moving objects.	Frogger
Driving	These games require driving skills: steering, maneuverability, speed, and fuel conservation.	Pole Position
Educational	Such games are designed to teach the players; the main objective involves learning.	Museum Madness
Escape	Main objective: escape pursuers or an enclosure.	Maze Craze
Fighting	Such games entail hand-to-hand combat in a one-on-one scenario, with no firearms/projectiles.	Mortal Kombat
Flying	Representative games require flying skills: steering, altitude, takeoff/landing, maneuverability, speed, and fuel.	Descent
Gambling	Games involve betting a stake; assets increase or decrease in rounds.	Video Poker
Interactive Movie	Corresponding games involve branching video clips, with players’ decisions affecting the outcome.	Dragon’s Lair
Management Simulation	Balance limited resources to build/expand an institution/empire, and deal with opposition and competition.	Railroad Tycoon
Maze	Objective: successfully navigate a maze.	Doom
Obstacle Course	Traverse a difficult path with obstacles, entailing running, jumping, and avoiding danger.	Pitfall!
Pencil-and-Paper Games	Such games are adaptations of games played with a pencil and paper.	Tic-Tac-Toe
Pinball	Corresponding games simulate pinball games.	Pinball Fantasies
Platform	Move through levels by running, climbing, or jumping.	Super Mario Bros.
Programming Games	Players write programs to control agents within a game.	RobotWar
Puzzle	Solve enigmas, use tools, and manipulate objects to find solutions.	Lemmings
Quiz	Objective: successfully answer questions.	You Don’t Know Jack
Racing	Objective: win a race.	Mario Kart 64
Rhythm and Dance	Players keep time with a musical rhythm.	Beatmania
Role-Playing	Players create/take on a character with various statistics.	Fallout
Shoot ’Em Up	Shoot at a series of opponents or objects.	Centipede
Simulation	This category includes any form of simulation.	Fortune Builder
Sports	Corresponding games are adaptations or variations of existing sports.	Kick Off
Strategy	These games emphasize strategy over fast action or quick reflexes.	Othello
Table-Top Games	These are adaptations of table-top games requiring physical skill or action.	Pool
Target	Primary objective: aim and shoot at targets.	Missile Command
Text Adventure	Gameplay primarily consists of a text-based interface and world description.	Zork
Training Simulation	Simulate realistic situations for training physical skills (e.g., steering).	Flight Unlimited
Utility	This category has purposes beyond entertainment.	Mario Teaches Typing

. Note that uppercase is used for video game genre names whenever the original author of the respective classification also used it consistently.

2.2. Survey-Data-Based Taxonomies

Some genre classifications were derived using more elaborate methods. Heintz and Law applied clustering to data collected from 321 players, using their GEAM model of game attributes [21] to obtain a list of five distinct game genres [22]:

• Mini-games, in which players are challenged by obstacles and time pressure;
• Action, in which players are challenged by opponents and time pressure;
• Adventure, in which the challenges take the form of a puzzle and/or search;
• Role-play, in which players are challenged by opponents and limited resources but may also have to search;
• Resource, in which players are challenged by opponents and limited resources and, to a lesser extent, opponents and time pressure.

A less elaborate approach, yet one also based on asking game players to identify video game genres, was applied by Gose and Menchaca, with twelve main genres identified this way [23]: role-playing games, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, first-person shooters, sports, puzzle, real-time strategy, action, turn-based, simulation, fighting, kinetic-controlled, and casual.

2.3. Multi-Aspect Taxonomies

Relying on genre only (i.e., organizing games by their similarities to prior forms) for classifying games may obscure their crucial features [24]. For this reason, other aspects have also been taken into consideration. An example of such an approach is the typology of games developed by Aarseth et al. [25], which is based on five meta categories, each including one or more categories (see

Table 3. Typology of games according to Aarseth et al. [25].

Meta Category	Category	Options (Examples)
Space	Perspective	Omni-present (e.g., Chess), Vagrant (e.g., Doom)
	Topography	Geometrical (e.g., Doom), Topological (e.g., Chess)
	Environment	Dynamic (e.g., Lemmings), Static
Time	Pace	Realtime (e.g., StarCraft), Turn-Based (e.g., Chess)
	Representation	Mimetic (e.g., Morrowind), Arbitrary (e.g., Age of Empires)
	Teleology	Finite, Infinite
Player Structure	Player Structure	Singleplayer, Two-Player, Multi-Player, Single-Team, Two-Team, Multi-Team
Control	Mutability	Static, Powerups, Experience-Leveling
	Savability	Non-saving, Conditional, Unlimited
	Determinism	Deterministic, Non-Deterministic
Rules	Topological rules	Yes, No
	Time-based rules	Yes, No
	Objective-based rules	Yes, No

). This typology was modified in later work [26] into a slightly different form, now with eight meta categories (see

Table 4. Typology of games according to Elverdam and Aarseth [26].

Meta Category	Category	Options
Virtual space	Perspective	Omni-present, vagrant
	Positioning	Absolute, relative
	Environment Dynamics	None, fixed, free
Physical space	Perspective	Omni-present, vagrant
	Positioning	Location-based, proximity-based, both
Internal time	Perspective	Present, absent
	Synchronicity	Present, absent
	Interval control	Present, absent
External time	Representation	Mimetic, arbitrary
	Teleology	Finite, infinite
Player composition	Composition	Singleplayer, two-player, multi-player, single-team, two-team, multi-team
Player relation	Bond	Dynamic, static
	Evaluation	Individual, team, both
Struggle	Challenge	Predefined, instanced, adversary
	Goals	Explicit, implicit
Game state	Mutability	Temporal, finite, infinite
	Savability	None, conditional, unlimited
Category	Aspect	Options
Virtual space	Perspective	Omni-present, vagrant
	Positioning	Absolute, relative
	Environment Dynamics	None, fixed, free
Physical space	Perspective	Omni-present, vagrant
	Positioning	Location-based, proximity-based, both
Internal time	Perspective	Present, absent

).

Vossen [27] defines a much simpler classification of games, based on just three binary criteria:

• Competitive (involving opponents) vs. noncompetitive (not involving opponents);
• Interactive (involving game participants who serve to present obstacles to be overcome by an opponent, all in pursuit of the same goal) vs. noninteractive (not having this feature) (note that a game must be competitive in order to also be interactive, but not all competitive games are interactive);
• Physical (requiring participants to pursue the game goal through the use of their motor skills) vs. nonphysical (not having this feature).

Aarseth and Grabarczyk [28] propose an ontological meta-model for game research, in which four layers are defined:

• Physical—the game’s physical basis;
• Structural—capturing several formal, abstract aspects of games;
• Communicational—which concerns communication with the player;
• Mental—which concerns the perception of the game as played by an agent.

The layers are then divided into a total of 12 sublayers (see

Table 5. Typology of games according to Aarseth and Grabarczyk [28].

Layer	Sublayer	Description
Physical	Platform	The material medium used to implement a game (e.g., console, computer, gaming board, football field)
	Physical Interface	The physical means used by players (e.g., gamepad, joystick, baseball bat)
	Behavioral	Physical actions required for play (e.g., pushing buttons, moving a piece, kicking a ball)
Structural	Computational	The game’s software
	Mechanical	Game mechanics (rules and systems)
	Economic	How the game is initiated, sustained, and finished in economic terms (e.g., inserting a coin in an arcade)
Communicational	Presentational	Aesthetic aspects of the game
	Semantic	Semantic information communicated (from simple commands to whole narratives)
	Interface	Non-diegetic information communicated to the player
Mental	Phenomenal	How the game is experienced by the player
	Conceptual	How the player understands the game
	Social	How players interact and perceive each other in the game

).

Lee et al. [29] attempted to combine genre-based classification (referred to as the gameplay facet in his work) with eleven other facets (see

Table 6. Classification of games according to Lee et al. [29].

Facet	No. of Foci	Examples of Foci
Gameplay	10	Action, Fighting, RPG, Strategy
Style	100	Under gameplay: Action—Beat ’Em Up, Platformer, Rhythm; Under gameplay: Shooter—Shmup, Light Gun, Run and Gun
Purpose	7	Education, Entertainment, Party
Target Audience	18	Everyone (ESRB), 12+ (iTunes), MA-17 (VRC)
Presentation	10	2D, 3D, Grid-Based, Side Scrolling
Artistic style	9	Abstract, Cel-Shaded, Retro
Temporal Aspect	7	Real-time, Turn-based, Multiple Game Clocks, Timed Action
Point-of-view	4	First-Person, Third-Person, Overhead, Multiple Perspectives
Theme	22 parent 127 child	Nature: Animals, Dinosaurs Food: Restaurant, Bakery Fantasy: Princess, Knights Sports: Baseball, Basketball
Setting–Spatial	16	Casino, Spaceship, Western, Urban
Setting–Temporal	8	Medieval, Modern, Futuristic, Steampunk
Mood/Affect	15	Horror, Humorous, Dark, Peaceful
Type of ending	5	Finite, Branching, Circuitous, Infinite, Post-game

).

The gameplay facet has been further developed since the original publication as part of an effort to develop a controlled vocabulary for video game metadata schema; its current version defines nine types of gameplay [30] (see

Table 7. Gameplay types according to Lee et al. [30].

Type	Description	Subtypes
Action	Games that revolve around a fast-paced experience, often emphasizing reaction-based challenges in terms of how the player interacts with the game world.	Action–Adventure, Arcade, Block Breaking, Brawler, Fighting, Hack and Slash, Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, Music, Party, Platform, Stealth, Survival, Vehicle Combat
Puzzle	Games that emphasize solving puzzles and/or organizing pieces.	Block Fill, Hidden Object, Match Puzzles, Point and Click, Word Puzzles
Rhythm	Games that involve the player inputting commands or completing actions while synchronizing to a rhythm.	–
Role-Playing	Games related to tabletop role-playing, involving a heavy focus on the statistical advancement (like “leveling up”) of characters, combined with exploration.	Japanese RPG, Massively Multiplayer Online RPG, Rogue-Like, Western RPG
Simulation	Games that simulate actions or situations based on either an existing or fictional reality.	Breeding, Construction and Management Simulation, Flight Simulator, God Game, Interactive Movie, Programming Game, Sandbox, Social Simulator, Virtual Life, Visual Novel
Sports	Games that simulate real-world sports.	Racing
Shooter	Games that are based on a shooting mechanic where players target and shoot objects or enemies to progress.	First-Person Shooter, Light-Gun Shooter
Strategy	Games that revolve around strategic or tactical planning, often involving building, resource management, and exploration components.	4X, Military Simulator, Real-Time Strategy, Tactics, Tower Defense, Turn-Based Strategy
Traditional	Games based on mechanics that exist in the real world and can be played in a physical setting.	Board Games, Card Games, Exercise, Gambling, Game Shows, Mazes, Pinball, Puzzles, Trivia Games

).

2.4. Vendors’ Classifications

Another source of classification is the categorization applied by video game distributors. For example, among the mobile app types defined in the Google Play Store, there are 19 that refer to a game genre [31]: Game Action, Game Adventure, Game Arcade, Game Board, Game Card, Game Casino, Game Casual, Game Educational, Game Music, Game Puzzle, Game Racing, Game Role Playing, Game Simulation, Game Sports, Game Strategy, Game Trivia, Game Word, Family Action & Adventure, and Family Brain Games. The same number of game-related categories can be found in the Apple App Store [32]: Games -> Action, Games -> Adventure, Games -> Casual, Games -> Board, Games -> Card, Games -> Casino, Games -> Dice, Games -> Educational, Games -> Family, Games -> Music, Games -> Puzzle, Games -> Racing, Games -> Role-Playing, Games -> Simulation, Games -> Sports, Games -> Strategy, Games -> Trivia, and Games -> Word.

Instead of a fixed genre classification scheme, Steam, the world’s largest distribution platform for computer games, uses a dynamic and extensive system of game tags, which currently includes thousands of unique tags, covering genres, gameplay features, moods, and various specific interests [33]. For this reason, we are unable to present this scheme here.

2.5. Specialized Classifications

Some classifications were also proposed for specific types of games. Laamarti [34] introduced a taxonomy for serious games, which considers five categories:

• Application area, e.g., education, well-being, or training;
• Activity, which refers to the character of the player’s activity in a game (e.g., physical exertion, psychological, and mental);
• Modality, which describes the channel by which information is sent from the computer to the player (e.g., visual, auditory, haptic, smell, and others);
• Interaction style, which defines whether the interaction between the player and the game is carried out using, e.g., a keyboard or mouse, a brain interface, or eye-gaze movement tracking;
• Environment, which includes social presence, mixed reality, virtual environment, 2D/3D, local awareness, mobility, and online.

Djaouti et al. [35] propose a simpler model for classifying serious games, which considers just three aspects:

• Gameplay, which provides information about how a game is played;
• Purpose, which refers to the designed purpose of a game apart from entertainment;
• Scope, which refers to the target of a game (e.g., the market, the audience, etc.).

Alharthi et al. [36] propose a taxonomy of idle games, a game genre completely ignored by the other authors. In particular, they define their key features (e.g., waiting is playing—meaning that a game can progress while the player is not present and that there are no game-over conditions); define incremental games as idle games in which the player selects resources to generate, waits for resources to accumulate, and then spends resources to automate part or all of the resource generation process; and classify incremental games into four types:

• Micromanagement games, which involve multiple resources that the player uses to build an internal economy;
• Single-resource games, in which the player can only produce one resource and spend it to complete upgrades in order to progress in the game;
• Derivative games, which involve single or multiple resources with which the player can build resource generators to automate the production of the main resource of the game;
• Multi-player incremental games, which allow multiple players to accumulate resources simultaneously, and the accumulated resources are shared.

The same authors also order idle games by the degree of their interactivity, which allowed them to identify [36]

• Clicker games, which involve clicking, rubbing, or tapping as their core mechanic, with damage caused and/or resources generated by repeating clicking cycles, separated by waiting periods;
• Minimalist games, which reduce the number of available actions to a small subset of options, either through game mechanics that automate gameplay or gameplay phases that reduce player interaction;
• Zero-player games, which require no player involvement after starting or allow limited input during setup but no influence on gameplay. These include

  ○

  Setup-only games, which allow the player to interact with the game only once at the start of the game, and then the game plays itself without further involvement from the player;

  ○

  AI play, in which all progress in the game is controlled solely by the game’s AI.

2.6. Comparison of Classifications

As in the study reported in the following sections, the classification by Lee et al. [30] has been adopted. In

Table 8. The presence of the genres defined by Lee et al. in other game classifications.

Genre	Also in	Alternative Names	Close Genres	Subset or Superset
Action	[22,23,31,32,33]	Skill-and-Action [20]		Capturing [10], Catching [10], Collecting [10], Dodging [10]
Puzzle	[10,23,31,32,33]		Adventure [20,22]
Rhythm	[33]	Rhythm and Dance [10]	Kinetic-controlled [23], Music [31,32]	Miscellaneous [20]
Role-Playing	[10,23,31,32]	D&D Games [20], Role Play [22], RPG [33]
Simulation	[10,23,31,32,33]
Sports	[10,20,23,31,32,33]
Shooter	[33]			Shoot’ Em Up [10], Target [10], Combat [20], First-Person Shooter [23]
Strategy	[10,20,31,32,33]		Resource [22]	Real-Time strategy [23], Turn-Based [23]
Traditional			Adaptation [10]	Board [31,32,33], Card [31,32,33], Casino [31,32]/Gambling [33], Trivia [31,32,33], Word [31,32,33]

, the presence of all its categories in other classifications is shown for the purpose of comparison. The first column lists other classifications using the same term for the same or a very similar scope of games; the second column lists other classifications using a different term for the same or a very similar scope of games; the third column lists genres defined in classifications other than those listed in the first two columns, which have the closest yet slightly different scope; and the fourth column lists genres defined in classifications other than those listed in the first three columns, which include genres of either a narrower or wider scope compared to that presented in the study by Lee et al. [30].

3. Materials and Methods

In order to achieve the stated goal, we employed an approach based on bibliographic analysis, understood as “a systematic study carried out on scientific literature for the identification of patterns, trends, and impact within a certain field” [37] (p. 1014). This is a well-established approach in game studies, as evidenced by numerous examples from prior studies, which, however, differ from this study in their goals and scope [38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46]:

• Hughes provided an annotated bibliography of the major journals publishing video game scholarship [38];
• Frome and Martin analyzed over 580 articles from two relevant journals to identify the canon of the most-frequently cited games in game scholarship, explicating different functions of game citation, providing an empirical basis for identifying under-researched games and identifying the games with which familiarity is most important in order to understand the existing research [39].
• García-Sánchez et al. analyzed 7133 articles from the 2013–2018 period indexed by Dimensions.ai to identify the change in the number of video game papers published yearly; the authors, universities, and countries most involved in this area of research; the journals most often serving as the publication venues; and the number of video-game papers and citations belonging to different fields of research [40].
• Yoon performed bibliographic coupling, co-citation analysis, and visualization of bibliometric networks using data obtained from Web of Science to map and explore the current state of research on advertising in digital games [41].
• Núñez-Pacheco and Penix-Tadsen presented a bibliographical review of several theoretical trajectories in game studies, concluding that as game studies have evolved as a discipline, the initial theoretical debates on narratology and ludology have undergone profound transformations, bringing depth to the analysis of games’ meanings, and diversified the tools and techniques for analyzing games as digital and cultural artefacts [42].
• Montes Buendia et al. analyzed 30 papers on narrative in video games published between the years 2012 and 2022 and indexed in Scopus, ProQuest, Ebsco, or Science Direct, presenting the number of relevant papers published per year, country with which the authors are affiliated, language, publication license (open or not), and sex of the authors [43].
• Damaševičius et al. used the Scopus database to perform a systematic meta-review of 53 survey papers on the application of serious games and gamification in healthcare, assessing the present status of this vein of research and identifying its challenges and future trends [44].
• Eckert et al. examined 77 publications regarding dementia and video games published from 2004 to 2023 and indexed in PubMed to assess developments and trends in video game technology applicable to dementia care and detection, considering bibliographic, medical, and technical variables [45].
• Nguyen et al. systematically reviewed 1152 Scopus-indexed documents on role-playing games from the 1986 to 2023 period, providing insights into growth patterns, global interest, and influential contributors [46].

Scopus was selected as the data source for this analysis as it allows search terms to be precisely defined (unlike, e.g., Google Scholar), has been indicated in prior work as the most suitable for video game studies ([46] (p. 2) and works cited therein), and returned the most hits in a test query on “video games AND arcade”, namely, 281, which can be compared to the 102 documents found using IEEE Xplore and the 83 identified using Web of Science. While using a single bibliographic data provider can be considered a limitation of this study, it enabled the performance of this analysis by one author in a reasonable time, which would not be the case if data obtained from multiple sources had to be combined, which would then require duplicates to be identified and removed.

The crucial choice regarding the quality of the results concerned which video game taxonomy to use. Considering the goal of this study, the more detailed a given taxonomy, the more precise the insights it can yield; however, considering the chosen research method, only a taxonomy widely recognized in the game research community, i.e., one that proposes genre names used by the game researchers in the titles, abstracts, and keywords of their work, could provide reasonable results. For this important reason, the gameplay facet taxonomy proposed by Lee at al. [30] was selected to perform this study, taking into consideration its refinement throughout its ten-year evolution, its use of terms that are frequently found in discussions of game genres and used by game distributors (see Table 8), and the low number of retrieved papers obtained by test-querying for game types that have been defined in some alternative taxonomies.

The research procedure consisted of repeatedly querying the source database for the respective video game genre names, with “game” added in the search phrase (e.g., “Action game”, “Puzzle game”, etc.), unless the risk of using the genre name in another meaning not obviously associated with games was minimal (as with, e.g., “Hack and Slash” or “Multiplayer Online Battle Arena”). To ensure that the papers found dealt with digital games and not other types of games, the presence of any of the following phrases was also required: “Video game”, “Videogame”, “Digital game”, “Interactive game”, “Computer game”, “Console game”, “Mobile game”, “Internet game”, or “Web game”. Note that the Scopus search engine automatically accounts for plurals, so there was no need to include “games” in the query string. Genres for which subgenres were explicitly specified were included in the query string as alternatives unless the genre name was contained within subgenre name. Only in the case of the Traditional facet did special measures have to be taken to avoid a large number of false hits stemming from a number of factors: (1) many of the studies involved both video games and various types of Traditional games (particularly board and card games) but were unrelated to the implementation of Traditional games in the form of video games (which was what was meant to be captured in this category); (2) one of this genre’s subgenre names overlapped with another genre name (puzzle); and (3) the name of this genre (traditional) and one of the names of its subgenres (game show) returned a large number of almost exclusively false hits. To overcome this issue, in the query for publications related to this genre, the four platform-defining words “Digital”, “Online”, ”Computer”, and “Mobile” (the query phrases based on the other ones failed to return any results) were directly combined with the names of the subgenres, and the three problematic terms were not included in the query.

In an effort to avoid false positives, i.e., works that merely mention a given game genre but are actually dedicated to another one, the search phrase was required to be found in the title, keywords, or abstract of a publication to qualify it in the results. To avoid inclusion of non-original or non-peer-reviewed works, the type of accepted publication was also limited to journal, book, book chapter, or conference proceeding. The beginning of the analyzed period was set to 1981 to eliminate false hits and records containing errors in publication year data from the period before video games rose to popularity. The resulting query string for the example of the first genre (action games) is presented below:

(TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Video game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Videogame”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Digital game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Computer game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Console game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Mobile game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Internet game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Web game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Interactive game”)) AND (TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Action game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Action-Adventure”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Arcade game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Block Breaking”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Brawler game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Fighting game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Hack and Slash”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Multiplayer Online Battle Arena”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Music game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Party game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Platform game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Stealth game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Survival game”) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(“Vehicle Combat”)) AND PUBYEAR > 1980 AND (LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE,“ar”) OR LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE,“ch”) OR LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE,“cp”) OR LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE,“bk”))

As the above-described measures for assuring result quality were applied in the construction of query strings, the papers retrieved with them were not subject to any additional filtering.

4. Results

4.1. Genre Popularity Comparison

The final data collection phase, whose results are reported in this paper, took place on 3 March 2025. The nine queries combined resulted in 4867 identified publications (note that papers related to multiple genres were counted once per relevant genre). These include 887 publications (18%) on action games, 355 (7%) on puzzle games, merely 39 (1%) on rhythm games, 924 (19%, constituting the majority) on role-playing games, 648 (13%) on simulation games, 503 (10%) on sports games, 811 (17%) on shooter games, 540 (11%) on strategy games, and 160 (3%) on traditional games. In Figure 1, these results are visualized, indicating the share of the respective types of publications for each genre as well.

As shown in Figure 1, the majority of publications comprised conference papers (2488 or 51% among all genres) and journal articles (2036 or 42% overall), with far fewer publications being in the form of book chapters (other than conference proceedings) (273 or 5.6%) or books (70 or 1.4%).

Figure 2 allows one to compare the above numbers with those indicating the number of games published in each genre. As an estimate of the latter, the data on the number of appearances of respective game genre tags provided by the largest game distributor, Steam, as of 5 March 2025, were used [33]. Among the tags used to describe games on Steam are all the video game genres defined by Lee et al. [30], with the exception of the genre Traditional, for which the numbers for its subgenres for which Steam tags exist (board games, card games, gambling, pinball, and trivia) were instead obtained and summed up. As the values of the two compared variables are of different scales (there are 4867 papers but 278,803 tagged games), to enhance the readability of the chart, instead of the absolute numbers, the shares of the respective genres in the total are shown in Figure 2.

Video games need to be run on a hardware platform. The three widely recognized types of video game platforms are personal computers, mobile devices, and consoles [47]. Note that this distinction is not strict, as handheld game consoles such as the Nintendo Switch [48] can be considered both a mobile device and a game console, whereas ultraportable and convertible computers with touch screens [49] can be used to play both mobile and computer games. Moreover, we can distinguish a fourth type of game platform, i.e., web or browser games [50], which can be played on any type of hardware product that can run a web browser. These include games run on some other web platforms, e.g., Facebook games [51].

As the various platforms differ in their context of use and technological capabilities, it could be expected that they can also differ in terms of genre popularity. In an effort to address this question, the bibliographic queries were repeated with additional conditions limiting the results to respective platforms (e.g., the presence of “browser game”, “facebook game”, “web game”, or “social-network game” in a paper’s title, abstract, or keywords was required to assign said paper to the web platform). The results of these queries are visualized in Figure 3.

By using the platform-specifying queries, we were able to assign 2066 papers to the respective platforms. The remainder used only platform-agnostic game descriptors (e.g., “video games”) in their titles, abstracts, and keywords, so their proper platform assignment would require analyzing the main content of the papers, which is beyond the scope of this paper. As indicated by the numeric labels in Figure 3, the numbers of papers assigned to various platforms were vastly different (ranging from 31 explicitly referring to console games to 1709 explicitly referring to computer games), a phenomenon that cannot be attributed solely to the popularity of the respective platforms in the research on game genres, as it may also (or maybe primarily) be due to the manner in which the authors refer to the games they describe; for instance, while the term “computer games” is popular among authors, those describing console games much more often refer to them as “video games”, sometimes even considering this term to exclude computer games, hence the use of “video and computer games” to inclusively denote both platforms (see, e.g., [52]). Thus, the cross-platform comparison of absolute numbers should be avoided; nonetheless, the relative shares of respective game genres could be compared between platforms, considering the papers with identified platform connection are a valid sample of all papers, including the 4/7 for which the applied approach did not identify any specific platforms.

As illustrated in Figure 3, there are notable differences in the shares of games that belong to a specific genre and were described in the context of a specific platform. Most of the results are nonetheless expectable: The platform associated with the greatest popularity in terms of Action games is console (58% vs. 14% in the publications on web games). Puzzle games are most popular on mobile platforms (15%) and the least popular on consoles (6%). Rhythm games have some popularity on consoles (3%) but no popularity as web games (0%). Role-playing games top the ranking for computers (20%) but have relatively low popularity on consoles (6%); the same applies for Simulation (19% on computers, and not a single publication identified regarding console games) and Sports games (10% on computers vs. 6% on consoles). Shooter games are again the most popular in the form of computer games (7%—this result can probably be linked to the popularity of 3D first-person shooters on computers) and the least popular as web games (0%); similarly, 14% of papers on computer games are dedicated to Strategy games, but only 7% of papers concern web games (which also indicates notable popularity, though much smaller in relation to the others). Finally, Traditional is the most popular genre of web games, accounting for 29% of the dedicated papers (it is also highly popular among mobile games, accounting for 17%)—which can probably be linked to the popularity of various online (and mobile) Puzzle, Board, and Gambling games, whereas there were none among the identified papers dedicated to console games.

4.2. Evolution of Popularity over Time

The number of publications related to video games started at 1 in 1982 and peaked at 350 in 2022. There were two years (1981 and 1988) in the period analyzed for which no relevant publications were identified using the queries presented. The evolution of the overall popularity of video games of various genres as a research topic can be considered to consist of three periods: humble beginnings (1981–2000), with an average of 2.1 publications per year and only two years with 6 publications (1997 and 2000); fast growth (2001–2012), during which the number of published papers grew quickly from 11 to 242 every subsequent year except 2010; and growth intercepted with contractions (2013-), with the most publications (350) attained in 2022 and an average of 293 publications per year. While the end of the query period was not defined, the low number of identified papers published in 2025 (37, which can be compared to 318 in 2024) is obviously due to the fact that this year started only two months before the query was performed; moreover, the bibliographic databases are updated with some delay after the publications are issued. For this reason, Figure 4, which depicts the trend in the number of publications related to respective genres, covers only the part of the analyzed period ending in 2024 and beginning in 2001, as the very low overall number of publications before this year does not allow comparisons between the genres.

Looking at Figure 4, we can observe

• One genre (Rhythm games) that attracted only scarce interest from researchers during the entire period under analysis, achieving a maximum of five publications only in the last wholly covered year (2024);
• One genre (Traditional games) growing (with occasional humps and bumps) with a relatively slow speed, reaching its peak level of 17 publications in 2024;
• Two genres that achieved their peak or near-peak levels early (the research popularity of which has more or less stabilized since then): Sports games, with their peak number of publications, 39, reached in 2014, and Shooter games, with 57 publications in 2012 (second only to 62 publications in 2022);
• Two genres for which research interest seems to have waned in recent years: Strategy games, with 19 publications in 2024 vs. 37 in 2017 and 2021, and Puzzle games, with 30 publications in 2024 vs. 37 in 2019;
• Two genres that attracted the most attention in recent years bur for which attention has decreased last year: Role-Playing games, falling to 61 publications in 2024 from their peak of 77 publications one year earlier, and Action games, falling to 57 publications in 2024 from their peak of 80 publications two years earlier.

In order to make the relative popularity of the respective game genres in subsequent years more apparent, in Figure 5, their shares in relation to the total number of identified papers in each year are depicted with the size of the area assigned to each genre adjusted to the overall number of publications in a given year.

4.3. Research Location and Genre Popularity

The identified papers were written by authors affiliated with institutions based in 100 countries. The number of publications, nonetheless, was not spread evenly across them. Clearly, the leader in research related to the respective video game genres was the United States of America, with 1206 publications having at least one author affiliated with an American institution. In second comes the United Kingdom, with 433 research papers published in the period covered in this analysis, followed ex aequo by Canada and Germany, with 310 papers each. Below the podium are Australia (231 papers), China (207), and Spain (206). Figure 6 illustrates these numbers for all countries for which more than 50 publications were identified, also indicating the shares of papers from each country dedicated to the respective video game genres.

Although, for most countries, the shares of publications related to respective video game genres more or less mirror their overall popularity, there are some visible exceptions, e.g., the preference for Action games in Denmark; the relatively high interest in Puzzle games in Greece; the small but still five-times-larger-than-average interest in Rhythm games in Finland; the more than 70%-larger-than-(already high)-average interest in Role-Playing games in Taiwan; a similarly high interest in Shooter games in Ireland; the relatively highest interest in Simulation games in Russia; the very high interest in Sports games in India—being over twice as high as the average, with a similar case with regard to Strategy games in Poland; and the interest in Traditional games in Greece tripling the average. Observations of this kind are made easier by Figure 7, which shows the shares of publications dedicated to respective genres in countries and territories with over 50 publications.

4.4. Comparing the Impacts of Research on the Respective Genres

While the publications related to the respective video game genres differ in their quantities, they also differ in the research impact generated.

Table 9. Number of citations received by the ten most cited papers in each genre.

Genre	Citations of Top 10 papers	Most Cited Papers
Action	3170	[53,54,55]
Puzzle	2042	[56,57,58]
Rhythm	430	[59,60,61]
Role-Playing	3635	[62,63,64]
Simulation	3920	[65,66,67]
Sports	2526	[68,69,70]
Shooter	2442	[71,72,73]
Strategy	3219	[55,74,75]
Traditional	1079	[76,77,78]

presents, in its respective columns, the combined number of citations of the top ten most cited papers for each genre and the three most cited papers related to that genre. As can be observed therein, the number of citations of the most cited papers varies much less than the number of publications related to each genre. Also, it was not the most prolific (in terms of dedicated research publications) genre, Role-Playing, that attracted the most citations of its top ten papers but Simulation (3920 citations). Role-Playing comes, however, in second (3635 citations), followed by Strategy (3219) and Action (3170). The ten most cited research papers in the least prolific genre, Rhythm, received a reasonable number of citations: 430.

5. Discussion

The retrieved sample of 4867 Scopus-indexed publications that mention at least one of the video game genres (as defined by Lee et al. [30]) shed some light on the popularity of the respective genres in the research papers, providing an opportunity to derive a number of insights.

Regarding RQ1, we can clearly see a disparity in the popularity of the respective genres in the research papers. Only to a certain extent can this be attributed to the scope of a given genre, with a very narrowly defined Rhythm genre receiving the least attention from researchers and the very wide Action genre receiving much more. If we compare the numbers of papers and games (estimated from [33]) in each genre, we can find that there was an average of 57 games per one published paper, but it becomes apparent that some genres have attained much more research interest than others. The genre with the highest relative attractiveness for research writers was Sports (with 18 games to one paper), closely followed by Shooter (20). These two genres seem to have a special appeal for researchers. On the other end, we have Action (93 games to one paper) and Strategy (79). While this finding could be attributed to the existence of clusters of action and strategy games resembling each other in terms of their look and game mechanics, triggering increased game numbers without greatly increasing the associated material for study, further research is needed to explain this disparity.

As regards RQ2, the research involving video game genres is increasing in volume. Comparing the publications over the whole period (2003–2022) for which reference data are available (from [79]) reveals that the number of research papers related to any video game genre increased 16.5-fold, whereas the general scientific output worldwide increased only 1.7 times. However, in 2003, the research related to video games was still in its initial, “humble beginnings” phase; if we select a more recent period and compare its growth rate between 2012 and 2022 (45%) with the general growth rate of global scientific output (59% [79]), it becomes evident that this research area has not expanded as quickly as the other ones recently.

Concerning the changes in the output of publications related to the respective genres, there are numerous short-term ups and downs in the relative popularity of specific genres, which call for further research to explain their causes: cultural, technological, or other (e.g., a game gaining a vast amount of research attention makes its genre more popular).

With regard to RQ3, it has been shown that research referring to the video game genres is spread across the globe, though almost half of it is located in one of the following six countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, and China. Compared to the data on overall scientific publishing activity (found in [79]), the share of American papers in the analyzed set is over one half larger than the share of global scientific publications in 2022 (21.2% vs. 13.7%), indicating an exceptionally high interest in research referring to video game genres in the USA. An even greater similar positive disparity can be observed for the four other countries most often indicated in the papers of the set analyzed, namely, the United Kingdom (7.6% vs. 3.2%), Canada (5.4% vs. 2.1%), Germany (5.4% vs. 3.4%), and Australia (4.1% vs. 1.9%), whereas an extreme opposite can be observed for China (3.6% vs. 26.9%), indicating a relatively very low interest in research related to video game genres in this country. Among the top six of the most-publishing countries [79], there are two that were less frequently indicated in the analyzed papers: India, with a large negative disparity (1.3% vs. 6.2%), and Japan, with a small one (2.8% vs. 3.1%). Further research is needed to investigate the reasons for such vast differences between countries, particularly with regard to whether they are caused mostly by cultural (that is, the different perceptions of video games in the respective countries), political (i.e., the different research agendas pursued in the respective countries), or economic (i.e., the different research-financing rules in the respective countries) factors.

Regarding RQ4, the most cited papers in every genre received more than 100 citations each (according to Scopus data), indicating a marked research interest in publications in this field. To put this into context, the average number of citations per article reported for both “Game Studies” and “Games and Culture” in [39] was eight. The highest number of citations in the analyzed set (2244) was received by the paper “Games, motivation, and learning: A research and practice model” [65], which addressed Simulation games. Future research could investigate the determiners of the high citability of research publications regarding video game genres.

After analyzing the topics addressed by the most cited papers, it becomes apparent that there are versatile uses in research for the games belonging to each genre. The most cited papers in relation to the Action genre deal with the topics of spatial cognition [53,54] and attention skills [55]. While these are similar to the topics addressed by papers referring to games from the Puzzle genre, namely, player attention [56], memory [56], cognition [57], and executive control skills [56,58], those regarding Rhythm are notably disparate: enabling music games for the visually impaired [59], the effects of dance gaming on the social life and physical health of players [60], and defining principles of interactivity in music video games [61]. Role-Playing video games were used in research on social interactions in virtual space [62], improving students’ learning performance [63], and determining the association between problematic video game use and mental and physical health [64]. The most cited work regarding Simulation (and in the whole analyzed set of papers) deals with game features that stimulate user engagement and help achieve desired instructional goals [65]; the other two most cited papers in the same category concern players’ skill acquisition [66] and demand-side management in smart energy hubs [67]. Sports games were used in research on the rehabilitation of adolescents with cerebral palsy [68], loop-closure detection in appearance-based localization and mapping [69], and the physical and cognitive functions of older adults [70]. The most cited papers related to the Shooter genre were devoted to analysis of the dimensions of 3D video games [71], using 3D game worlds as an AI research platform [72], and the effects of display and interaction fidelity on user experience [73]. The most cited paper among those regarding Strategy is the one already mentioned with regard to the Action genre, dealing with attention skills [55], with the two others dedicated to cognitive decline in older adults [74] and cooperative pathfinding [75], respectively. The video games based on Traditional games were used in research on how speakers co-ordinate their use and interpretation of language in a restricted context [76], the mitigating effect of digital communication technologies on negative affect during the COVID-19 outbreak [77], and casino gamers’ migration to online gambling [78]. Such game genre–research topic associations indicate an interesting direction of future research.

6. Conclusions

This is a first-of-its-kind study on the popularity of different genres of video games in the scientific literature. Based on a bibliographic analysis, it shares its limitations with other works in which a similar approach was employed, in particular stemming from the selection of the specific bibliographic data source (Scopus, in this case), query scope (limited to publications in the English language), and the specification of the query phrases, which was not easy in this case, especially for the genre Traditional, as described in Section 3, which indicates another type of limitation stemming from the adopted classification of game genres. Future work could elaborate on these findings and develop a sounder specification of query phrases capable of extracting papers related to video game genres from the bulk of the scientific literature.

Despite these difficulties, the survey performed managed to identify 4867 relevant papers and assign them to one of the nine genres defined by Lee et al. [30]. The analysis of the collected data allowed a number of insights regarding the measured growth in the research literature related to different video game genres, the changes in the relative popularity (or lack thereof) of the respective game genres over time, the geographic distribution of the authors whose studies involved at least one of the video game genres, and the citability of the work on this topic. We were also able to indicate several research gaps that form interesting topics for future work.