As any prominent awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a demand for the addition additional classifications to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the spirits of followers with niche passions.
My colleague has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward just as with other single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand stands as crucial above others. The demand is this: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these classifications actually cover a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: building puzzles in a particular game, intense tile-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles worldwide and have been for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games claiming status as most purchased experience; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and engaging with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators function at the hard edge game development, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait decades.
