Whenever a significant prize-giving event draws close, one notices a demand to include fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and delight the hearts of followers with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize since similar to blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request stands as crucial above others. The demand is this: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and typically spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that film award organizations don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil in the world of gaming, which are so diverse they barely qualify a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass many game types, and you can find room for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these outstanding current releases, all very different: structural challenges from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category that year
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment that year
- Just some logic titles scraped into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent modest productions, yet the craft behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games rank among the most-played games worldwide continuing this trend for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these are games lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the demanding boundary of video game design, developing some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
