Tetris Wouldn't Win at The Game Awards — A New Category Might Solve This
As any major honors show draws close, there’s always a demand to include fresh award types to recognize unsung work and delight the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.
A fellow writer made the case advocating for terror-themed awards. 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 for pushing forward just as with other single-minded supporters, I possess a compelling case for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. This is the request: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre is not a science; it’s very subjective, and inevitably spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, genre categories are essential.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards presently include genre categories for Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, and you can find room for most games within them.
Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Think about these outstanding current releases, each quite distinct: structural challenges of one title, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works between these six categories? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games launched regularly that have no home during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.
- One classic puzzle game wasn’t nominated in any category in 2014
- Another imaginative release missed out in 2019
- Popular arranging title received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few puzzle games managed to sneak into small studio or handheld classifications
Importance of Logic Titles
Commonly they're small games, but the art of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Iconic mobile puzzle games rank among most popular titles worldwide maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game challenges well-known building titles for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. One could readily select five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these are games without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators function at the hard edge interactive creation, producing among most fundamental forms of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.