Whenever a significant awards ceremony nears, you'll find an outcry for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge unsung work and delight the passions of fans with niche passions.
Another commentator made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are board games, which is someone's personal cause. However, I must insist if I try to elbow in front since similar to single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal stands as crucial and important of all. This is the request: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and typically generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. But it is an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they hardly constitute a single creative category.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, allowing placement for most games within them.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens of brilliant puzzle games released every year that have no home during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked in any category during that awards season
- A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment in 2021
- Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games stand as the most-played games worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience challenges well-known building titles claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it also contends as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, while interacting across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these are games that otherwise have no home at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators function at the demanding boundary interactive creation, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
