Whenever a significant awards ceremony nears, one notices an outcry to include additional classifications to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of followers dedicated to specific genres.
My colleague previously argued for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would tabletop games, which is a passionate advocate's mission. However, I must insist when I prioritize since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand is the most urgent above others. This is the request: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
The Genre Classification Challenge
Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably generate discussions and end in fuzzy definitions. This explains why film award organizations avoid this approach. But it is a necessary evil within the realm of video games, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories actually cover a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: building puzzles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching from another release, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.
- An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out during that ceremony
- A beloved organization game was overlooked that year
- Just some logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Significance of Puzzle Games
These are often modest productions, but the art of the puzzle game carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games stand as the most-played games worldwide maintaining this status for an extended period.
The iconic tile-matching title rivals 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, and engaging with diverse game types.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. One could readily select multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Puzzle game makers function at the challenging frontier interactive creation, creating some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Comparable to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait 35 years.
