I have three questions for you guys reading this:
1. What are your favourite genres in any medium (games, books, TV, movies, etc)?
2. How have these changed over time?
3. And why have these changed over time?
In my case, when it comes to games, I spend most of my time playing strategy and RPGs, but I’ll dabble in almost anything except sports – and many of my favourite games, such as Star Control 2, Okami, and God Hand, are neither strategy nor RPGs. My tastes were even broader when I was younger – I grew up playing Civilization and SimCity 2000, but also everything from Street Fighter 2 to Zelda: Link to the Past and Herzog Zwei. The subject matter of a game, more so than its genre, is what usually interests me, and it just happens to be the case that the narratives/historical periods/imaginary worlds that I find most appealing tend to be in strategy and RPGs.
When it comes to every other form of media, if you asked me one or two years ago I would have called myself a pure science fiction/fantasy buff, but since then I have identified less and less with that genre. Most of my recent book purchases have been history books, always a love of mine, and what fiction I have read has increasingly been historical fiction. I read these to satisfy my growing interest in trade, prosperity, the course of empire and the slow birth of the modern world, and these are issues for which I find speculative fiction increasingly irrelevant.
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Favourite game genre:
To be honest, I’m not fussy anymore. Once upon a time it used to be solely strategy games, however as I’ve grown older, and with the ability of earning more money, I can splash out and afford to buy other games. I go through phases where I might enjoy playing an FPS, then switch back to an RTS, and then move onto an RPG.
I don’t really touch sports games however. And I always know Civ IV is waiting for me, always reliable for its entertainment value.
Hmm, looks like we’ve moved in opposite directions…
The aversion to sports games is constant, though. ;)
Over time my interest in narratives about superpowered teenagers has flagged, which has resulted in much less consumption of jrpgs and anime.
I actively play video games much less than I used to. I am still drawn like complex characters and interesting moral conflicts; Bioware rpgs and the Bioshock games are recent favorites. I also play quasi-mindless sim games proportionally more.
Fantasy is still my genre of choice in reading and writing, but I read much less of the epic variety than I once did. I also read more horror. The authors that have gripped me the most in recent years were the ones that incorporated interesting experiments with form, an emphasis on city-level social worldbuilding, and surrealist elemements. Jeff Vandermeer, Chine Meiville, etc.
I still like quiet, intellectual science fiction in the vein of Arthur Clarke. I read more for symbolism than action movie plots. Most of what’s popular seems to be military scifi, and it’s been a while since I have found any new authors to love.
Most of my reading, currently, is either literary fiction (my current library pull consists of Nabokov and Susan Sontag), essay compilations, biographical nonfiction, or media criticism (Bell Hooks, Joanna Russ, etc.) I blame grad school for that.