Another entry in Felipe Pepe's excellent blog at Gamasutra:
More information.Why RPGs are so hard to classify and evolve?
Computer RPGs are weird.
Even thought I play & love them since childhood, even though I'm editing a book on CRPGs, even though I've been posting on the RPG Codex for NINE YEARS (Oh god, send help), I can't easily answer one of the hardest questions ever - be it for devs, critics or fans: "define RPG".
So I've decided to sit down and rant a bit on why it's so hard to define this genre, and also why it's a genre that sometimes end restricting its games. Some of it will be obvious, but I hope to offer some decent insights. I even recruited Batman for this.
Buckle up, this will be LOOOOOOONG.