Tetris Couldn't Win at This Gaming Ceremony — Another Award Type Might Solve This
As any major prize-giving event draws close, you'll find a demand for introducing fresh award types to acknowledge overlooked contributions and satisfy the spirits of followers with niche passions.
Another commentator previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, this being someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent and significant. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and it will always generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. But it is a necessary evil for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they hardly constitute one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Present Award Structure
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these award types successfully include many game types, allowing placement for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles from a specific release, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.
Acknowledgment Issues
There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated for anything that year
- Another creative title missed out during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game got ignored that year
- Limited numbers of brain-teasers managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, yet the craft behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles globally continuing this trend for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience rivals popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, while interacting with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, since numerous excellent so many good games out.
Restating the point, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier game development, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Just like film action specialists, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting generations.