Each time a prominent awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a clamor for introducing fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.
My colleague has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for strategy board titles, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial and important of all. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it’s very subjective, and typically spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that movie academies steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of video games, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards presently include award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these award types actually cover many game types, making space possible for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens outstanding logic titles released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release received no nominations in 2019
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of puzzle games barely qualified for small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent modest productions, but the art behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges famous sandbox experiences competing to become most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and engaging with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. You could fill five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers operate at the demanding boundary game development, creating some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Comparable to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
