As any prominent awards ceremony nears, you'll find an outcry for introducing of new categories to honor overlooked contributions and fill the spirits of followers dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. So would tabletop games, representing someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent above others. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason film award organizations don’t do it. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise within the realm of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these six categories effectively encompass many game types, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- Another creative title received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored recently
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're compact experiences, but the art of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences globally and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. One could readily select a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these include experiences that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators function at the hard edge game development, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay decades.
