Genres in the video game market are used to categorize titles based on their play style or in game challenges. Genres in the gaming market are setting independent, meaning that a game can be classified as an action game whether it set in a fantasy setting of dragons and warlocks or a futuristic city setting with robots and hover trucks.

The following is a list of popular console game genres and an explanation for each. Each one of these categories could be divided up into a several sub-categories but I haven't covered any of these in this list.

Action Games

Playing action games needs quick reflexes, and the ability to overcome challenges quickly and sometimes under a time limit. The action game category is quite open and covers lots of types of titles from advanced first person shooter titles mainly focussed on combat or fighting right the way back to some of the very first video games like pong or PAC-man.

Adventure Games

Lots of people love playing adventure games, being whipped off to some alien land, of trolls, monsters and wizardery. Adventure games were some of the first games created. Starting off as text based adventure games and morphing into the huge adventure, role play and puzzle solving games of today.

Adventure games often require the gamer to directly interact with his or her environment either by conducting conversations with other in game players or by correctly solving puzzles to move to new zones.

Action-Adventure Games

Action-adventure titles combine many of the best aspects of the genres action and adventure. These games often require the player to correctly solve complex puzzles while also being directly involved in fighting situations. These games often have open ended stories where one action at the start of the story can directly affect the outcome not only of the current scenario, but also of the game ending itself.

Role-Playing Games

Role play games (RPG's) have come a long distance in the last 5 years, from being influenced by original tabletop pen and paper games. Role play games are commonly set in ancient or medieval times where players take on roles of travelling characters or mercenaries and take on quests in order to gain experience and progress through the game.

Fighting, problem solving and conversational persuasion of in game characters is quite common. RPG's (role-play games) can either be fairly open where the player has many amounts of actionable options and can wander off exploring on his own (i.e. Baldur's Gate) or follow a fairly strict and linear storyline (i.e. Final Fantasy Series).

Role-play games are very often played over the internet with thousands of other human players. These MMO (Massive Multi-player Online) titles are hugely popular with titles like World of Warcraft having hundreds of online players at any one time.

Simulation Games

Simulation games often put the players character in a god-like position, where they directly control either the world as a whole, a city, a theme park or a railway. These simulation games tend to be grouped into either a construction based sub-genre where the player must build up a city or theme park from nothing to a very popular destination.

There are also simulation titles where you are in control of just one character. Life simulation titles are very popular with young females players, because not only can you control a single character but sometimes you can nurture an animal from being born into a fully grown adult pet. You can sometimes manage a whole ecosystem like an aquarium.

Strategy

Strategy games are frequently played by fast thinking skilled players. Using carefully planned and advanced strategies the aim is to defeat opposing players or teams. Strategy titles can be both real time or turn based.

Real-time strategy games are much more complex than turn based as character decisions are often made quickly and during combat with opposing teams. Turn based games are like chess where you consider every move when placing your units then when the time is right you execute your plans in the hope of victory.

I hope this article gives you a better understanding of the many categories used in the pc game industry, and inspires you to try some different genres or games.