As any significant awards ceremony draws close, there’s always a demand for introducing of new categories to recognize underappreciated efforts and delight the passions of fans dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it’s very subjective, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why film award organizations don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession within the realm of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely during that awards season
- Another creative title missed out that year
- A beloved organization game was overlooked that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers managed to sneak into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're modest productions, but the art behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among the most-played games worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these include experiences that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the hard edge interactive creation, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.
