Whenever a significant honors show draws close, you'll find an outcry for introducing fresh award types to honor unsung work and delight the hearts of fans with niche passions.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. So would tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front just as with other single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal remains most pressing and important of all. The demand is this: We need a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason cinema institutions avoid this approach. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise within the realm of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications actually cover a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: the architectural riddles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games released every year lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything during that awards season
- Another creative title missed out in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles rank among the most-played games globally continuing this trend for an extended period.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. You could fill five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
Restating the point, these are games lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers function at the hard edge interactive creation, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay generations.
