Whenever a prominent honors show nears, you'll find an outcry for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge unsung work and delight the passions of fans with niche passions.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for tabletop games, this being someone's personal cause. However, I must insist when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I possess a compelling case for why my demand is the most urgent above others. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise for the industry of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify as a single art form.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass numerous genres, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. No suitable classification appears to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser received no recognition for anything during that awards season
- Another creative title was excluded in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Just some logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, however the design behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most popular titles globally and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience competes with well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. One could readily select a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers function at the hard edge game development, producing among essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Just like film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
