What genre does "shmup" fit into?

[Xonatron]

One of my pet peeves with Xbox LIVE is that "shmups" are under "shooter". I believe shmups deserve to be their own genre, and not a sub-genre.

A different but similar story, I am submitting Score Rush Extended (xona.com/scorerush) to PEGI (pegi.info), the rating boards that cover most of Europe, and the options I have are:

- Action
- Adventure
- Board / Card
- Educational
- Music / Dance
- Other
- Puzzle
- Racing
- RPG
- Simulation
- Sports
- Strategy

I figure it fits under Action or Other. (I am going with Action.)

Thoughts?

[KAI]

Ikaruga is a puzzle game.

[CIT]

Action

[Kollision]

Strategy

[Xonatron]

You guys respect this genre so much. Some of these games truly are puzzle and strategy. And perhaps all are strategical. (In the end, I wish I could just look up "shmup" and find shmups.) I have pushed for the inclusion of shmups at Xbox LIVE in the past.

[Shepardus]

Having to figure stuff out and come up with strategies doesn't make a game a puzzle game or a strategy game. It's clearly Educational.

[Xonatron]

Haha Ok I see where this is going!

[Immryr]

clearly you're playing the role of a spaceship pilot or animu waifu so they're RPGs.

[SMC]

They are all first person shooters in which the protagonist is having an out-of-body experience.

[Captain]

The proper genre is shmup.

[Lord Satori]

Shmups are shmups.

Edit: Sniped!

[Strikers1945guy]

Ikaruga is a puzzle game.

It's basically Pac-Man in shmup form

[Ikazu-san]

Some shmups with grooves like that are bound to be music/dance.

[rjosal]

Game genres are so messed up. There are so many games that are put under "Arcade" that have rpg elements for example. Shmups have strategy, action, and puzzle elements but I don't think they are the top of mind type of game for any of those genres. So for me I think Other would be most accurate. But I understand when listing a game in a marketplace you want to list it in as many popular genres as possible for the most sales, which of course contributes to the blurring of genres.

[HardcoreOtaku]

Music / Dance

[Xyga]

Touhou

[BIL]

Blackened deathgrind with post-industrial overtones

Naw for real "Action" is the best of those options.

[HardcoreOtaku]

What genre do "schumps" fit into?

[Bananamatic]

physical form of autism

[Blinge]

Ikaruga is a puzzle game.

It's basically Pac-Man in shmup form

It's not even a video game, when you really think about it.

[The Armchair General]

Hentai

[MR_Soren]

Action.

These games used to be classified under "shooter" which was a sub-genre of action, and then "first-person shooter" (or FPS) was used for games like Doom, Quake, etc. to differentiate them from the more traditional shooters. Eventually, first-person shooters became so prevalent that most people think of FPS when they hear "shooter", so traditional shooters then needed a different term to differentiate themselves from fps games. The disgusting word "shmup" somehow won out, but I am not surprised that a large entity would not add the word "shmup" to their classification system. It is ugly, horrible to pronounce, not a real word, and many people have no idea what it means.

Overall, getting too specific with genres just makes a mess because so many games have elements from multiple genres and no sane amount of genres and sub-genres will prevent there being significant differences in any given group. A simple classification such as "action" or "action - shooting" (when available) is fine.

[Sumez]

Some shmups with grooves like that are bound to be music/dance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCSgMg7hQGM

[Xonatron]

So... I'm sticking with "Action". But I don't like it. Even "Shooter" would have been better than "Action".

[Shepardus]

Shmups are firmly action games, if you doubt that you're thinking too hard about it. I really don't understand any argument against their being action games when they're pretty much the quintessential example of what makes an action game.

You can search for other shmups on PEGI's website (Geometry Wars, Resogun, Sine Mora, etc.) and they're almost always listed as action games, though there are a few listed as "other."

[Xonatron]

Shepardus,

Thank you! You just solidified my decision!

Shmups are action games. My only gripe with putting it under "action" was the other action games that are not similar to shmups. But out of PEGI's choices, it's the proper choice.

[eebrozgi]

You can think of that as a positive edge for standing out from the crowd of action games. Most people would probably be much more likely to search under "action" than "shmup" anyway, I guess.

[DestroyTheCore]

Manchild 'em up

[Xyga]

Manchild 'em up

[Squire Grooktook]

I'll play this game

How about:

"The one true genre"