Whenever a significant honors show draws close, there’s always a demand to include additional classifications to acknowledge unsung work and delight the spirits of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist for pushing forward since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse 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 receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these classifications effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges in a particular game, intense tile-matching in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games released every year lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match award groups including Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game received no recognition in any category that year
- A different innovative game was excluded during that ceremony
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of puzzle games scraped into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles count as the most-played games worldwide and have been for many years.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and engaging across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.
