As any significant awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a clamor to include additional classifications to honor underappreciated efforts and satisfy the spirits of followers who have specialized interests.
Another commentator made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would be fantastic. So would board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward because like all blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and significant. The demand is this: We need an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. Yet it remains an unavoidable compromise within the realm of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible accommodating various experiences.
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 of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition at major award shows, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely in 2014
- Another creative title was excluded during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
- Only a few brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
Commonly they're modest productions, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games stand as most engaged experiences in the world and have been for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals popular creative games competing to become most purchased experience; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.
And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators operate at the challenging frontier game development, developing some of essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
