Like novels, video games can be categorized into different genres. One of the genres of video games that exist is the role-playing games. Before there were video games, role-playing games were played, usually using dice. One example of role-playing in the real world was Dungeons and Dragons. In this game, you pretended to be a person who existed in a world where dragons, magic and other fantastical elements existed. Each of your actions in that world was mostly determined by the roll of the dice. You played with other people and they took on roles as well in that world as well. In the video game version, you take on the role of a person and use joystick or game console to do your actions on the screen. They just translated games that existed in the real world into video.

Sports video games are just video versions of games like tennis, football and American football. You can be Michael Jordan and play against other superstars of the NBA. Do you want to be favorite American football player? You can be that player or any other player in the video game version? You can be Tiger Woods in a video game version of golf. Video game version of real sports let you pretend to be a super star that you will probably never be in real life.

Sim is short for simulated and the video or computers usually have the word Sim in their title. It probably all started with a game called in Sim City. In Sim City, you pretend to be a person running a city. You had to build everything that made up a city and had to deal with disasters that would come out of nowhere so you wouldn't get so bored just building things. A fire would happen in a building and would have to deal with that disaster. Some sim games deal with you being roller coaster or train baron. The popular games in this genre are simply called Sims these days. In these sim games, you pretend to be a person going through the stages of life and the troubles that you have in each stage of life.

Puzzle video games are games where you simply have to solve the puzzle to move to the next level. Some games are like the famous game called Concentration where you have to match all the pieces. Once you match all the pieces, you can go on to the next level. It can be like tic-tac-toe where you have to put three matching things together and then you can move on. Some are actually video game versions of jigsaw puzzles.

One popular genre is the strategy game genre. In this genre, you must you're your mind against the computer or other opponents to win the game. One example of this game is the Civilization game series. In Civilization, you pretend to be a civilization like the Egyptians, Russians, Germans or any past civilization. Your civilization starts out at the cave man and you must find ways to evolve your civilization. While you are trying to evolve, other civilizations exist and they exist to destroy your civilization. You won this game by either beating all the other civilizations or by entering the Space Age. All you have really is your mind and you must use it or be destroyed in a strategy game.