Whenever a prominent honors show approaches, you'll find a demand to include additional classifications to acknowledge unsung work and delight the passions of fans with niche passions.
My colleague previously argued supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. Equally deserving are board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist when I prioritize because like all dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand remains most pressing above others. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why film award organizations don’t do it. But it is a necessary evil in the world of gaming, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them a single creative category.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards currently feature genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories actually cover a lot of ground, and you can find room for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to accommodate them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely that year
- Another imaginative release received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent small games, however the design in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles in the world maintaining this status for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience competes with well-known building titles for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
To emphasize again, these include experiences without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators function at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait generations.
