Each time a major prize-giving event draws close, there’s always an outcry for the addition fresh award types to recognize overlooked contributions and satisfy the spirits of fans with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued advocating for terror-themed awards. That would rule. So would strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. This is the request: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why film award organizations don’t do it. But it is an essential concession in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these six categories actually cover a lot of ground, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Examine these examples from recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios from additional release. Which classification works among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year that have no home in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
- Another creative title missed out that year
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Only a few logic titles managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're compact experiences, but the art of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among the most-played games in the world and have been for many years.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences claiming status as most purchased experience; 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.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Logic titles wouldn't face that issue. You could fill a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent so many good games out.
Restating the point, these are games lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge interactive creation, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
