Whenever a significant honors show approaches, you'll find an outcry for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge overlooked contributions and delight the spirits of fans with niche passions.
A fellow writer has already made for a horror game category. That would rule. So would tabletop games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and inevitably spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies avoid this approach. But it is a necessary evil for the industry of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these six categories successfully include many game types, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Which classification works between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles published annually that have no home at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored that year
- Just some logic titles barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles count as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles competing to become most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
