Each time a major awards ceremony nears, you'll find a demand for introducing additional classifications to recognize overlooked contributions and satisfy the hearts of followers who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. That would rule. The same goes for tabletop games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification supporting my request remains most pressing above others. This is the request: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that movie academies avoid this approach. But it is an essential concession in the world of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they hardly constitute one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. Which classification works within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another creative title received no nominations that year
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment that year
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, but the art in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games rank among most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators operate at the hard edge interactive creation, producing among the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
