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Thursday, October 8, 2026
Trie Steadventure

Tetris Wouldn't Win at The Game Awards — Another Award Type Could Fix That

Whenever a major honors show nears, one notices an outcry for the addition of new categories to recognize overlooked contributions and delight the spirits of followers who have specialized interests.

A fellow writer made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. The same goes for strategy board titles, which is a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front because like all blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case for why my demand stands as crucial and significant. The demand is this: There should be a classification for brain-teasing titles.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Classifying creative works isn't exact; it’s very subjective, and it will always spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why movie academies avoid this approach. But it is an essential concession for the industry of gaming, showing incredible range it's challenging to consider them as a single art form.

To recognize the complete range of interactive entertainment excellence to be recognized, while allowing diverse titles to have a chance for representation, classification by type becomes crucial.

Present Award Structure

The major gaming awards presently include award types recognizing Action-oriented games, Action/Adventure, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these classifications actually cover numerous genres, and you can find room accommodating various experiences.

This doesn't apply to logic-based experiences. No suitable classification appears to put them. Consider three of recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition in a different title, thought-provoking social scenarios of a third title. Where could they possibly go among existing types? Unfortunately, nowhere.

Recognition Challenges

Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers published annually lacking appropriate categories during gaming ceremonies, unless they happen to qualify for categories like Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, and the highly challenging Indie races.

  • An iconic brain-teaser got overlooked for anything that year
  • Another creative title received no nominations in 2019
  • Popular arranging title got ignored recently
  • Just some logic titles barely qualified for independent or mobile categories

Value of Brain-Teasers

Commonly they're compact experiences, however the design in brain-teasers is of massive significance. Famous handheld logic titles rank among most popular titles globally and have been for many years.

The legendary block-stacking game rivals famous sandbox experiences for the title of most purchased experience; it additionally competes as greatest title ever. Logic titles represent cornerstones for gaming as medium, and they are in conversation across multiple categories.

Recommendation and Reasoning

Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles each ceremony simply — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude so many good games out.

Restating the point, these include experiences lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers operate at the hard edge of video game design, creating some of the purest expressions within interactive entertainment. Similar to film action specialists, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait decades.

By

Christopher Franklin

A mental health advocate and writer passionate about sharing evidence-based strategies for emotional well-being.

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