Whenever a major honors show approaches, you'll find an outcry for introducing additional classifications to honor unsung work and fill the hearts of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.
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. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front just as with other single-minded supporters, there's a strong justification backing this proposal is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.
Organizing Gaming Categories
Classifying creative works is not a science; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason movie academies steer clear of genre categories. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of gaming, that demonstrate such variety they barely qualify one unified medium.
For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Existing Game Classification System
Leading game ceremonies offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these award types successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.
Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. No appropriate category exists to accommodate them. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.
The Representation Problem
Numerous examples exist outstanding logic titles released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive Indie races.
- An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated completely during that awards season
- Another creative title missed out that year
- A beloved organization game received no acknowledgment recently
- Only a few logic titles barely qualified for niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Commonly they're compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles in the world and have been for over a decade.
The famous puzzle experience competes with well-known building titles competing to become highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones to the art of video games, while interacting with diverse game types.
Recommendation and Reasoning
Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. One could readily select five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.
To emphasize again, these are games that otherwise have no home during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
