Inaccuracies of game categories

Has anyone noticed how ridiculously insufficient game categories are? I mean, come on! How come we have the same numbers and type of game categories as we did in the 80s when there really were only that many categories?
As an example, here's how Steam categorizes their games:
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m...oriesinsuf.png

So, as an example, what is an adventure game?
Is that platforming or point and click adventure games? Is it rougelike where you have only a few number keys for abilities and move with the mouse? Those are all very different types of games and I'm sure there are some people that prefer one over the others. Some may even dislike one of those types but love the other.

Which of those count as 'action' games?
Do fighting games count as action or sports depending on the degree of 'realism' the game has?
Where do sandbox games like minecraft go? How about THIS (which I want very badly)? Where do 'exploratory' games go? I know that's a new thing relatively recently but come on. This stuff is getting popular. Give us a new category already.

Do hunting games like "The Hunter" count as 'sport' or 'simulation'?

Holy hell. I mean, you can't tell me the internet as a whole hasn't figured out that there needs to be more categories for this kind of stuff or at least proper words that accurately describe the type of game it is. I enjoy point and click adventure games. Most people who prefer platformers don't. (This assumption is based solely on the inflammatory comments of those games on steam, mind you).

Come on, internet and gaming companies as a whole! What is wrong with you? Why can't I find JUST the type of games I like instead of having these ridiculously inaccurate lumped crappy categories that tell me absolutely nothing about the type of game I'm playing? Make up new words if you need to. Since when has the internet had trouble with that?

Just... grrrrr!

The thing that surprises me most in those categories is the fact that there isn't an FPS one. FPS has to be one of the most popular "genres" of the day.. o.O

I do guess it's really rather vague... but I never go by categories honestly.

Also, many games in Steam fall under multiple genres too.

You might see a game that is simultaneously listed under RPG, Action, and Adventure.

Or, worse, you'll check the RPG list... then you'll check the Action list,and then you'll check the Adventure list and half of said lists contain games from the other lists.

And it doesn't even list all of the games, either. Each list seems to only list 100-150 games when there are probably a thousand+ games in each list.

Yeah, I remember when fallout 3 was coming out and the idea of an "RPG combined with an FPS" made no sense whatsoever. The very idea was unthinkable and not at all appealing to fans of one category or the other.
Now what is it?
There needs to be a new word for that too instead of just saying, "Oh it goes in all 3 categories". *headdesk*

Perhaps naively, I was under the impression that in the early 90's the sole difference between "action" and "adventure" was the amount of storyline that was put in it. MK was considered 'action' because the only real progress you made in the story was that the enemies got harder and the non-immersive background changed. Adventure was more story driven and required you to fight enemies on the way up a mountain, through a desert etc. and included both platformers and point-and-click.

FPSes really need to be chopped up too between story driven single player games like Half life and PVP/Team exercise type FPS like COD. I really do have a hard time telling the difference and I'm not at all interested in the latter, but grew up on Doom. They're totally different styles of gameplay despite having the same basic mechanic.

I guess what I'm most upset about is my inability to accurately find the types of game I like to play. There's no longer a handful of powerhouses like Sierra Games, ID, etc.
There are now thousands of games and thousands of developers and around a hundred different subtypes of game play styles that don't even have a name to them.
What if I'm looking for Fallout 3 where it's an FPS/RPG hybrid? Am I really expected to look through all those categories of "RPG" and hope to find what I'm looking for even though most of those I would have no interest in because its a completely different game style?

That game that I'm near rabid about owning is a team of two brothers and that's it. How would you even know to look for that type of company? I don't even know what to call that type of game. Exploration? Mystery? Puzzle? Again, the lazy answer is 'all of the above' just like seemingly every other game out there.

What would you call Dwarf Fortress? Simulation? Strategy? None of the above? Why do we still not have new names for these types of games?

Having more genres isn't going to be any more helpful than having fewer, really. Have you taken a look at the genres for music lately? Heavy metal, black metal, death metal, viking metal, thrash metal, etc.

Coming up with a catagorization system for something that continuiously changes and evolves is no simple task. There would be arguing over what categories should be unique or what are so similar they should just be one. Arguing over what game should fall under what category. Should a game be forced under one catagory, regardless of its developer's thoughts on its genre, in order to enforce a strict standard (and who should do the enforcing), or should the standards be more lax and ultimately result in making the catagory system useless?

A tag system instead of a catagory system would get around a number of issues but present plenty of their own. Tags can quickly become oversaturated, for example.

Really, it's unfair to blame anybody for the state of game catagorization. It doesn't have a standards committee like a programming language. Why would a developer spend months to create a new system that nobody would use?

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Yeah, I remember when fallout 3 was coming out and the idea of an "RPG combined with an FPS" made no sense whatsoever.

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Anybody who said that when FO3 was released really ought to open their eyes and look at the game markets; apparently they never heard of TES IV: Oblivion.

When Oblivion came out, it was THE talk of the gaming industry. It boggles the mind that nobody heard of FPS RPGs between Oblivion and Morrowind practically defining the whole concept.

All FO3 did was take Oblivion, add a pip-boy, and put guns and item durability in it. Oh, and the SPECIAL system.

It's not inaccurate any more now than it was then. Games can belong to several genres. FPS not being a genre, those games would mostly be within the action category. A game like oblivion may be within several categories as it has elements of different genres.

All in all they have to keep it simple so a search in one genre can bleed into another. Therefore the customer may see something they didn't expect and might be interested in.

All about ease of use and money.