As any significant honors show approaches, you'll find a clamor to include fresh award types to honor overlooked contributions and satisfy the spirits of followers with niche passions.
Another commentator made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. So would board games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal stands as crucial above others. Here's the proposal: There should be a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and inevitably spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of gaming, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards currently feature classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories actually cover numerous genres, allowing placement for numerous titles.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of this year’s best games, all very different: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. What category would fit them among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything in 2014
- Another creative title was excluded during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few puzzle games barely qualified for independent or mobile categories
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're compact experiences, yet the craft in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among the most-played games globally maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with well-known building titles competing to become most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. You could fill five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the hard edge game development, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Just like film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. We shouldn't delay generations.
