As any major awards ceremony draws close, there’s always an outcry to include fresh award types to honor underappreciated efforts and fill the spirits of fans who have specialized interests.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. The same goes for strategy board titles, which is a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front because like all dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request remains most pressing and significant. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Organizing artistic expressions isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. But it is an essential concession for the industry of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse they barely qualify one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
Different situation exists for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Consider three of outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
Recognition Challenges
Many instances occur outstanding logic titles launched regularly without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging Indie races.
- A renowned logic title got overlooked in any category in 2014
- A different innovative game received no nominations during that ceremony
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored in 2021
- Limited numbers of puzzle games scraped into niche award types
Importance of Logic Titles
Frequently they represent small games, however the design in brain-teasers carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles count as the most-played games worldwide maintaining this status for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience competes with popular creative games for the title of highest-selling title ever; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting with almost every other genre.
The Solution and Justification
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the demanding boundary game development, developing some of essential manifestations of gaming itself. Comparable to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay generations.
