Each time a significant awards ceremony draws close, one notices a demand for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge overlooked contributions and fill the hearts of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. Equally deserving are board games, representing someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case supporting my request remains most pressing and important of all. Here's the proposal: We need a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and typically spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession within the realm of gaming, which are so diverse they hardly constitute a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types successfully include many game types, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded that year
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most popular titles worldwide and have been for many years.
The iconic tile-matching title competes with well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
To emphasize again, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories in important events. Puzzle game makers operate at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
