Each time a significant honors show nears, one notices an outcry for introducing additional classifications to honor unsung work and fill the hearts of followers with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. So would strategy board titles, which is a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and significant. This is the request: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that movie academies avoid this approach. Yet it remains a necessary evil in the world of video games, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute a single creative category.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types actually cover many game types, allowing placement for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: structural challenges of one title, intense tile-matching from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly that have no home in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another creative title missed out during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Limited numbers of puzzle games managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, however the design of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among the most-played games in the world maintaining this status for many years.
The famous puzzle experience rivals famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these are games lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators are working at the demanding boundary game development, producing among essential manifestations of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
