misfit119 said:Yeah, it was weird. Previously you had stuff like GTA and AssCreed alongside stuff like Minecraft in the sandbox genre. Then a decision was made due to limitations being placed on sandbox thanks to this "all in one approach" to split the two into open world and sandbox. This removed the limitations that were keeping some open world games from being in the genre although it does make for some confusing wording. I still refer to games like GTA as sandbox games in person but on here I use open world.
I'm a team player so I'll fall in line with the TA definitions. Personally, I view the genre taxonomy as a hierarchical classification with a family tree. History and lineage play an important role in categorizing games into genres.
Steve Breslin, while teaching a Game Design and game Narrative course at the State University of New York at Buffalo wrote an excellent article on the History & Theory of sandbox game play:
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132470/the_histo....phpHe feels the sandbox genre originated with The Sims and GTA III:
The metaphor of the "sandbox game" finally emerged at the turn of the century, around the publication The Sims and the following year, Grand Theft Auto III, the two games which are traditionally considered the two original and canonical "sandbox" games.
The invention of the term did indeed accompany a new development in game design, but this was not, as the term suggests, player freedom, which was already available by any number of means: non-linearity; the lack of objectives or central storyline; automatic variation of the game-world and game-behavior.
Unfortunately, the article does not mention the role of Shenmue--the first open world game. GTA III departed from its 2D predecessors and adopted a Shenmue-style 3D open world with open-ended gameplay elements where free roaming upstaged the central story. Shenmue was the primary influence on GTA III with its immersive world where you could explore everything--homes, stores, play video games in arcades, etc. GTA III also adopted Shenmue's real life weather & day/night cycles
In other words, Shenmue was the groundbreaker but GTA III was the commercial success presenting the Shenmue style of play in a super-fun context. Although Shenmue is a sandbox game (by TA's old definition), it is usually not classified as such because it came before GTA III and The Sims that are considered to have originated the genre.
Shenmue was such a massive game that it overwhelmed many players. The open world style of play was unprecedented and some found it bewildering. Nevertheless, Shenmue prepared people for GTA III so they weren't overwhelmed by the ambitious open world of GTA III. GTA III, in my opinion, had a greater fun factor with its exciting car chases through city streets into back allies employing every facet of the open city maps. I feel this additional thrill was what accounted for GTA III's commercial success while Shenmue (though it sold a lot of copies) was unable to break even with its massive development costs.