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Whenever a prominent awards ceremony approaches, you'll find a clamor to include of new categories to honor unsung work and satisfy the hearts of fans with niche passions.

Another commentator has already made supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. Equally deserving are board games, this being a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance when I prioritize since similar to blinkered fanatics, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. Here's the proposal: We need an award type for logic-based games.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Categorizing art by genre defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. It's understandable that film award organizations avoid this approach. However, it represents a necessary evil in the world of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute one unified medium.

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

Present Award Structure

Leading game ceremonies currently feature award types recognizing Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these six categories effectively encompass a lot of ground, allowing placement for most games within them.

This doesn't apply to puzzle games. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Think about these outstanding current releases, showing diverse approaches: structural challenges of one title, the pulse-pounding block-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Which classification works among existing types? Simply put, no category fits.

The Representation Problem

Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested independent game categories.

• An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked completely in 2014
• Another creative title was excluded that year
• Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
• Just some brain-teasers barely qualified for independent or mobile categories

Value of Brain-Teasers

These are often compact experiences, yet the craft of the puzzle game holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles globally maintaining this status for over a decade.

The legendary block-stacking game rivals popular creative games claiming status as highest-selling title ever; it’s also in the running as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with almost every other genre.

Proposal and Rationale

Puzzle games wouldn’t have this problem. You could fill a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — perhaps, with difficulty, given the need to exclude many worthy titles.

Restating the point, these are games without proper classification during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators are working at the challenging frontier of video game design, developing some of essential manifestations within interactive entertainment. Just like cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait 35 years.