As any significant prize-giving event nears, you'll find a clamor for introducing fresh award types to recognize underappreciated efforts and fill the passions of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
Another commentator made the case for a horror game category. That would rule. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification supporting my request stands as crucial and significant. This is the request: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Classifying creative works is not a science; it’s very subjective, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards currently feature award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these six categories successfully include many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them within current classifications? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment recently
- Limited numbers of puzzle games managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
Frequently they represent compact experiences, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games stand as most engaged experiences worldwide and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals famous sandbox experiences for the title of highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
The Solution and Justification
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these are games lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
