Each time a prominent honors show approaches, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. So would board games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of gaming, which are so diverse they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories actually cover many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these outstanding current releases, all very different: structural challenges from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. What category would fit them among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles published annually that have no home in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category that year
- A different innovative game was excluded during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title got ignored recently
- Limited numbers of puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Well-known matching games stand as most engaged experiences in the world and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge game development, developing some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait 35 years.
