Game Genres: What've you got?

I'm building a list of genres for video games, or possibly for digital games. Either way I'm trying to start at the top level by focusing on the big conventions that organize around pillar verbs or core mechanics. to clarify I'm making a tool for thinking about game genre for design. It focuses on the pillar verbs that are intentionally built into games via core mechanics rather than the emergent verbs that best characterize the player experience. I have the highest regard for understandings of games focused on the player experience. After all, I've already spent a bunch of time studying players myself, and more importantly every designerworth their salt knows that players are highly unpredictable creatures, and at the end of the day there's no telling exactly what they'll make of your game.* In fact, that's exactly why this list is focused on choices that the designer makes. Here are the top level genres thus far:

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captain obvious

I know this might come across as kind of a shock to some of you, but I'm going to have to say it anyway. Not all games are the same. I say this in light of having just read Ian Bogost's article on conservative and aberrant reformists in game design (and the aesthetic filter). But really, that's just the trigger for this post. I've been talking about this for months, although my fervor was slightly diminished when I found that Jim Gee had already touched on the topic.

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