Each time a significant awards ceremony approaches, there’s always a demand for the addition fresh award types to recognize unsung work and delight the passions of fans with niche passions.
Another commentator previously argued supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. The same goes for tabletop games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist when I prioritize because like all blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case supporting my request stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Categorizing Game Types
Organizing artistic expressions defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil within the realm of video games, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Leading game ceremonies currently feature award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these classifications actually cover many game types, and you can find room for numerous titles.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly without proper recognition in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game got overlooked in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations in 2019
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent small games, however the design behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games stand as the most-played games in the world and have been for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience competes with famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. One could readily select a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.
Restating the point, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among essential manifestations of gaming itself. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Don't make them wait 35 years.
