10 Archetypes That Built Gaming

Gaming today is a multi-billion dollar industry, offering interactive, mass-scale, cinematic experiences. But there was still a time when it was an odd subculture, consisting of some funny looking blocks moving around a screen. Whether it was a ship blasting asteroids or just two paddles batting a ball, games started as basic, simplistic ideas addictive enough to capture the imagination of early pioneers, inspiring them to start to experiment, building everything you now know from the ground up. By the mid-eighties the industry's basic practices as they exist today had started to emerge, with character and/or narratively-driven games starting to become more prominent. As they evolved, the most successful of these games started to see hundreds of clones and knock-offs that became the building blocks on which certain developers progressed their art. Platformers, RPGs, Beat-Em-Ups, no matter what the genre, the industry realised what worked through trial and error, a bevy of market research and peoples' willingness to lose entire paycheques chasing the next checkpoint. Unassuming archetypes were sprouting everywhere; whether they be characters, levels, genres etc. they became the go-to templates for instant success and now - decades on - those same formulas can be seen repackaged and sold to new generations all over again.