As any prominent awards ceremony nears, you'll find a clamor to include fresh award types to acknowledge overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. The same goes for board games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist for pushing forward since similar to single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal is the most urgent and significant. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that film award organizations steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these award types effectively encompass numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
Acknowledgment Issues
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything that year
- Another imaginative release received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
- Just some logic titles managed to sneak into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're small games, yet the craft behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most popular titles worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. One could readily select five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these include experiences that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay decades.
