Tetris Wouldn't Win at The Game Awards — Another Award Type May Address This Issue

Each time a major honors show nears, you'll find an outcry for the addition of new categories to honor unsung work and satisfy the passions of enthusiasts with niche passions.

My colleague has already made for a horror game category. It would be amazing. So would board games, representing a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize just as with other blinkered fanatics, I have a cast-iron argument backing this proposal is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and inevitably generate discussions concluding with vague boundaries. There’s a reason film award organizations don’t do it. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute a single creative category.

For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.

Current Gaming Award Categories

Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these six categories successfully include numerous genres, making space possible for most games within them.

Not so for puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Consider three of recent excellent titles, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges in a particular game, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios in another game. What category would fit them between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.

The Representation Problem

There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match classification types such as Handheld titles, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.

• An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked in any category that year
• A different innovative game was excluded in 2019
• A beloved organization game got ignored recently
• Just some puzzle games barely qualified for niche award types

Value of Brain-Teasers

These are often small games, but the art of the puzzle game is of massive significance. Well-known matching games stand as most engaged experiences worldwide continuing this trend for many years.

The famous puzzle experience competes with popular creative games for the title of best-selling game of all time; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Puzzle games are foundational to the art of video games, while interacting across multiple categories.

Proposal and Rationale

Logic titles wouldn't face this problem. One could readily select a field of five engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.

And to reiterate, these represent titles that otherwise have no home in important events. Puzzle game makers are working at the hard edge of video game design, producing among essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they warrant appreciation. Let’s not keep them waiting decades.