Each time a prominent honors show nears, you'll find a clamor for the addition of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and fill the hearts of fans dedicated to specific genres.
A fellow writer previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. So would strategy board titles, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of interactive entertainment, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these award types effectively encompass numerous genres, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. Which classification works between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Acknowledgment Issues
Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category in 2014
- Another creative title missed out that year
- A beloved organization game was overlooked recently
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent small games, however the design in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games globally and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these include experiences that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators are working at the demanding boundary game development, producing among essential manifestations of the video game form. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait 35 years.
