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Tetris Wouldn't Triumph at The Game Awards — Another Award Type Might Solve This

Each time a major prize-giving event draws close, there’s always a clamor for the addition additional classifications to honor underappreciated efforts and satisfy the spirits of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.

My colleague has already made advocating for terror-themed awards. It would be amazing. So would strategy board titles, representing someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me when I prioritize since similar to blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case supporting my request is the most urgent and important of all. This is the request: We need a classification for brain-teasing titles.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; opinions vary greatly, and typically spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason movie academies steer clear of genre categories. But it is a necessary evil in the world of interactive entertainment, which are so diverse it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.

For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to compete fairly, genre categories are essential.

Existing Game Classification System

The major gaming awards offer these award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these six categories successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.

Different situation exists for puzzle games. No suitable classification appears for their placement. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles in another game. What category would fit them among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.

Recognition Challenges

Many instances occur of brilliant puzzle games published annually that have no home during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive small studio competitions.

  • One classic puzzle game got overlooked in any category that year
  • Another creative title missed out that year
  • Well-received sorting experience was overlooked recently
  • Only a few brain-teasers scraped into small studio or handheld classifications

Significance of Puzzle Games

Commonly they're modest productions, however the design of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Well-known matching games rank among most popular titles in the world and have been for an extended period.

The famous puzzle experience rivals well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting with almost every other genre.

The Solution and Justification

Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. One could readily select five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.

To emphasize again, these represent titles without proper classification in important events. Logic title developers operate at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of essential manifestations of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.

MF
Written by

Matthew Flores

James Whitfield is a market analyst with 15 years of experience in UK market research and strategy.

Market Solutions UK

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