The Style of Tetris is…Possibly Tetris?: Creative Professionals’ Description of Video Game Visual Styles

Abstract

Despite the increasing importance of video games in both cultural and commercial aspects, typically they can only be accessed and browsed through limited metadata such as platform or genre. We explore visual styles of games as a complementary approach for providing access to games. In particular, we aimed to test and evaluate the existing visual style taxonomy developed in prior research with video game professionals and creatives. User data were collected from video game art and design students at the DigiPen Institute of Technology to gain insight into the relevance of the existing taxonomy to a professional audience. Using a think-aloud card sort method, we observed their thought process for describing and categorizing visual styles of video games, and also collected candidate terms for revising the taxonomy. The results of this research will inform ongoing metadata work in the field to develop a standard for cataloging video games and interactive media, and will be useful to information systems that sort and classify games for users and cultural preservation.