JAAKKO STENROS AND MARKUS MONTOLA designers, and players. It seems that, with the exception of alternate reality and assas- sination games, most games today seem to insist on coming up with a new term, adver- tising themselves as the first incarnation of a new species. Conversely, pervasive larps are often not differentiated from contained larps. Thus, the genres presented earlier are constructs based on our analysis. We have taken the activity that games incorporate as the starting point. This is similar to what Greg Costikyan (2005) argued when he stated that a "genre is defined by a shared collection of core mechanics." In his treatise on genre in games, Aki Järvinen (2007) is on similar ground. He sees genre as a technology-independent concept. He argues that "we should not stay blind to common aspects of game elements and systems that lie beyond their material difference." Although we are more focused on the activity and experience a game (or its core mechanism) creates than on the proper- ties of the system, we share the view of not limiting genre thinking to the technology a game is based upon. Rick Altman (1999) has divided the functions of genres in regard to films into four types 17 : genre as a production formula, genre as a marketing tool, genre as a contract between the viewer and the film, and genre as a common structure. Our four first estab- lished genres are divided similarly to these criteria. They are developed and marketed members of a certain genre, they share similar structures, and the players understand this. The four other genres, the emerging ones, understandably do not follow these functions, as they are still in the process of finding their feet and are, to a certain extent, predictions. Even though we have refrained from constructing genres around singular technolo-