As any prominent honors show draws close, you'll find a clamor for introducing additional classifications to recognize overlooked contributions and fill the hearts of enthusiasts who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are tabletop games, which is someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case for why my demand remains most pressing and significant. The demand is this: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically generate discussions resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that movie academies don’t do it. However, it represents a necessary evil for the industry of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, and to ensure all game types to compete fairly, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Between them, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.
Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges of a third title. Which classification works within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.
Recognition Challenges
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked for anything during that awards season
- Another creative title received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience received no acknowledgment that year
- Only a few puzzle games scraped into independent or mobile categories
Importance of Logic Titles
These are often small games, yet the craft of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences in the world and have been for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting with almost every other genre.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories in important events. Logic title developers are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, creating some of most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
