As any significant awards ceremony draws close, you'll find a clamor to include additional classifications to acknowledge unsung work and fill the passions of fans with niche passions.
Another commentator previously argued supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. However, I must insist when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions is not a science; it’s very subjective, and it will always generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why cinema institutions avoid this approach. But it is an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards presently include award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these classifications effectively encompass numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles of one title, intense tile-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles 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 launched regularly that have no home during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition completely in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game got ignored recently
- Just some puzzle games scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent compact experiences, however the design behind logic titles is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
Restating the point, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators operate at the demanding boundary interactive creation, developing some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Comparable to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay generations.
