A tech journalist and startup advisor with over a decade of experience covering Silicon Valley innovations.
Whenever a significant honors show approaches, there’s always a clamor for the addition of new categories to honor unsung work and delight the hearts of followers with niche passions.
My colleague made the case for a horror game category. It would be amazing. The same goes for board games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. However, I must insist for pushing forward since similar to single-minded supporters, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request remains most pressing and important of all. Here's the proposal: There should be an award type for logic-based games.
Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it’s very subjective, and typically start arguments concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an essential concession within the realm of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.
To recognize the complete range of achievement in video games to be recognized, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.
Prominent interactive entertainment events presently include award types recognizing Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, plus athletic and racing experiences. Collectively, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, making space possible for numerous titles.
This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere for their placement. Consider three of recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: structural challenges in a particular game, intense tile-matching from another release, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.
Numerous examples exist excellent brain-teasers published annually without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested Indie races.
These are often modest productions, yet the craft in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among the most-played games worldwide continuing this trend for an extended period.
The famous puzzle experience challenges well-known building titles for the title of highest-selling title ever; it also contends for best game of all time. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and engaging across multiple categories.
Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. You could fill five nominees engaging, different, qualified experiences each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, since numerous excellent so many good games out.
And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of the purest expressions of the video game form. Just like movie stunt professionals, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay 35 years.
A tech journalist and startup advisor with over a decade of experience covering Silicon Valley innovations.