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Whenever a major honors show approaches, you'll find a clamor for the addition of new categories to acknowledge underappreciated efforts and satisfy the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.

A fellow writer made the case supporting a scary games classification. It would be amazing. The same goes for strategy board titles, which is a passionate advocate's mission. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, I have a cast-iron argument supporting my request is the most urgent and significant. Here's the proposal: There should be a category for puzzle games.

Categorizing Game Types

Classifying creative works isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and it will always start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason movie academies avoid this approach. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of gaming, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.

For the full spectrum of interactive entertainment excellence to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, genre categories are essential.

Present Award Structure

Prominent interactive entertainment events offer these genre categories for Action-oriented games, Adventure-action titles, Role-Playing, Fighting, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications effectively encompass many game types, allowing placement accommodating various experiences.

Different situation exists for logic-based experiences. There’s simply nowhere to accommodate them. Think about these this year’s best games, all very different: the architectural riddles in a particular game, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Where could they possibly go between these six categories? Unfortunately, nowhere.

The Representation Problem

There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition at major award shows, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested Indie races.

• One classic puzzle game got overlooked completely in 2014
• Another creative title was excluded that year
• Well-received sorting experience was overlooked that year
• Limited numbers of puzzle games scraped into niche award types

Importance of Logic Titles

These are often compact experiences, yet the craft behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games stand as most popular titles globally maintaining this status for over a decade.

The legendary block-stacking game competes with famous sandbox experiences claiming status as most purchased experience; it additionally competes for best game of all time. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks within interactive entertainment, and engaging with almost every other genre.

The Solution and Justification

Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter this problem. It would be easy to populate five nominees with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude so many good games out.

And to reiterate, these represent titles lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the challenging frontier interactive creation, producing among the purest expressions of the video game form. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay decades.