Tetris Wouldn't Succeed at This Gaming Ceremony — Another Award Type Might Solve This

As any prominent honors show approaches, one notices an outcry for the addition of new categories to honor unsung work and delight the hearts of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.

A fellow writer previously argued supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. So would board games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward since similar to blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case supporting my request stands as crucial and significant. Here's the proposal: There should be a category for puzzle games.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Categorizing art by genre is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil in the world of gaming, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.

For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to gain proper attention, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.

Existing Game Classification System

The major gaming awards currently feature classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types effectively encompass numerous genres, and you can find room for numerous titles.

Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Examine these examples from outstanding current releases, all very different: structural challenges from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.

Recognition Challenges

Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games published annually that have no home in entertainment awards, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging independent game categories.

• An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
• Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
• Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment recently
• Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into niche award types

Value of Brain-Teasers

Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as most engaged experiences in the world and have been for over a decade.

The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games competing to become most purchased experience; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.

Recommendation and Reasoning

Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate a field of five interesting, varied, worthy titles every year with ease — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude so many good games out.

And to reiterate, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, producing among most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Don't make them wait generations.