Each time a major awards ceremony approaches, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, representing a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent and significant. Here's the proposal: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of video games, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release was excluded during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
- Just some puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're compact experiences, but the art behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles globally and have been for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become most purchased experience; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. You could fill multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these are games without proper classification in important events. Brain-teaser creators operate at the hard edge of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
