Whenever a significant awards ceremony draws close, there’s always a demand for the addition additional classifications to honor underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.
Another commentator previously argued for a horror game category. That would rule. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, which is someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. The demand is this: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and typically start arguments and end in fuzzy definitions. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an unavoidable compromise for the industry of gaming, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.
Current Gaming Award Categories
Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these award types actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.
Not so for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to put them. Think about these this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges in a particular game, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles published annually without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify award groups including Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated completely in 2014
- Another imaginative release received no nominations that year
- Well-received sorting experience got ignored recently
- Limited numbers of logic titles managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, however the design behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most engaged experiences globally continuing this trend for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience challenges famous sandbox experiences for the title of highest-selling title ever; it also contends for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Proposal and Rationale
Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these include experiences without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers are working at the hard edge of video game design, producing among most fundamental forms of gaming itself. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.
