Guides, history and buying advice for people who actually play games
Video Game Sources Editorial Team 
A horror game stays frightening beyond jump scares when it removes a player’s sense of control and safety over a long stretch of time, using sound, uncertainty, pacing and helplessness rather than sudden shocks. Jump scares startle; good horror design makes players afraid of what hasn’t happened yet. Why do jump scares stop working after … Read more
A CRPG (computer role-playing game) resolves actions through underlying stats, dice-like rolls, and menus, with combat often paused or turn-based. An action RPG resolves actions through real-time reflexes — aiming, dodging, timing — even though stats still exist underneath. The difference is really about what your hands are doing at the moment of decision. What … Read more
Survival games are popular because they turn basic needs into constant, readable goals — hunger, warmth, shelter, safety — and reward players with visible progress for meeting them. That loop is simple to understand, endlessly replayable, and scales naturally into building, exploration, and multiplayer cooperation. What actually makes the survival genre so addictive? The core … Read more
A good video game tutorial teaches through action rather than explanation. It introduces one idea at a time, lets the player try it immediately, and only adds the next idea once the last one has actually sunk in. The best tutorials barely feel like tutorials at all — they feel like the first few minutes … Read more
A metroidvania is a side-scrolling or 2D-style game built around one connected map that the player explores gradually, gaining new abilities that open up previously blocked paths. The name is a mashup of two franchises, Metroid and Castlevania, whose games in the 1980s and 1990s established the format almost by accident. What actually makes a … Read more
A roguelike is a game built around runs that end in permanent death, a layout that’s regenerated or reshuffled each time, and permadeath that actually matters — you lose your progress and start over. The term traces back to a single 1980s computer game called Rogue, and the definition has been arguing with itself ever … Read more
Long-running series reboot because continuing a decades-old story eventually stops working commercially and creatively. A reboot lets a publisher drop confusing lore, modernize the controls and look, and hand new players a clean entry point — all without admitting the old games failed. It is a marketing reset disguised as a creative one. What does … Read more
Indie games became a serious part of the industry through a combination of cheaper development tools, digital storefronts that removed the need for a publisher or shelf space, and a wave of standout titles that proved small teams could make games as good as, or better than, big-budget releases. That shift happened gradually over roughly … Read more
The Dreamcast failed because of a combination of factors that arrived at once: Sega’s reputation was already damaged by the Saturn’s rocky run, Sony’s PlayStation 2 announcement froze the market before it launched, weak disc security invited rampant piracy, and Sega lacked the financial staying power to outlast a costly console war. Was the Dreamcast … Read more
The save game evolved from nothing at all — arcade machines simply reset when you lost — into passwords, then battery-backed cartridges, then memory cards, then hard drives, and now cloud saves that follow a player across devices. Each step removed a limit on how long a game could ask players to commit to it. … Read more
About what you read here. Everything on Video Game Sources is general information and our own editorial opinion. We research carefully and we say when the evidence is unclear, but we can be wrong, things change, and no article can know your particular situation. Please do your own research and make your own judgement rather than treating anything here as the final word. Prices, products and specifications around games and gaming hardware change constantly, and what suits one person will not suit another. Check current details yourself, and where a decision involves real money, safety or something you cannot undo, it is worth confirming with the manufacturer or retailer before you act.