Whenever a major awards ceremony approaches, you'll find an outcry to include of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the passions of followers with niche passions.
Another commentator made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. That would be fantastic. The same goes for board games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward because like all single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and important of all. The demand is this: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that cinema institutions avoid this approach. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise for the industry of video games, which are so diverse they hardly constitute one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications effectively encompass numerous genres, making space possible for most games within them.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly that have no home in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- A different innovative game was excluded during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Only a few puzzle games scraped into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often small games, but the art of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles in the world and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience competes with popular creative games for the title of highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification in important events. Puzzle game makers operate at the hard edge of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Similar to movie stunt professionals, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait 35 years.
