As any significant prize-giving event approaches, there’s always a demand for the addition of new categories to acknowledge overlooked contributions and fill the passions of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague has already made supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are tabletop games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize just as with other single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal remains most pressing and significant. The demand is this: There should be a category for puzzle games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an essential concession within the realm of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, intense tile-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games released every year that have no home in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game missed out that year
- Popular arranging title was overlooked recently
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers managed to sneak into independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
These are often modest productions, but the art of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most popular titles globally and have been for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience competes with popular creative games competing to become best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks to the art of video games, and engaging across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. One could readily select a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators operate at the challenging frontier interactive creation, producing among essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay decades.
