Whenever a major honors show nears, you'll find a clamor to include additional classifications to honor underappreciated efforts and satisfy the hearts of followers with niche passions.
Another commentator previously argued supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for strategy board titles, representing someone's personal cause. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification backing this proposal remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: It's essential to create a classification for brain-teasing titles.
Categorizing Game Types
Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and inevitably spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. This explains why cinema institutions don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.
For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, classification by type becomes crucial.
Present Award Structure
The major gaming awards offer these classifications covering Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Between them, these award types actually cover a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.
The Representation Problem
There are dozens outstanding logic titles released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.
- A renowned logic title received no recognition in any category during that awards season
- A different innovative game received no nominations in 2019
- A beloved organization game was overlooked recently
- Only a few brain-teasers scraped into niche award types
Value of Brain-Teasers
Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Well-known matching games count as most popular titles worldwide maintaining this status for over a decade.
The legendary block-stacking game competes with popular creative games for the title of most purchased experience; it’s also in the running for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.
Proposal and Rationale
Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. It would be easy to populate a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, since numerous excellent many worthy titles.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification in important events. Brain-teaser creators are working at the challenging frontier game development, creating some of essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Just like cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.
