Whenever a major awards ceremony approaches, you'll find an outcry to include of new categories to honor overlooked contributions and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, representing a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. The demand is this: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly that have no home during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated in any category during that awards season
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Only a few brain-teasers barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among the most-played games globally and have been for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with well-known building titles competing to become most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, while interacting with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the hard edge interactive creation, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay decades.
