Whenever a prominent prize-giving event draws close, there’s always a clamor for introducing of new categories to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the passions of enthusiasts with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types successfully include many game types, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition completely in 2014
- Another imaginative release was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Just some brain-teasers scraped into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among most engaged experiences globally and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences claiming status as most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these include experiences that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the demanding boundary game development, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Similar to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
