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Thursday, October 15, 2026
Insider World News

Tetris Didn't Win at The Game Awards — A New Category Could Fix That

Whenever a significant honors show draws close, you'll find a clamor for introducing of new categories to honor unsung work and delight the passions of enthusiasts dedicated to specific genres.

My colleague made the case for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. Equally deserving are strategy board titles, this being someone's personal cause. But they will have to forgive me if I try to elbow in front since similar to dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand stands as crucial and important of all. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create an award type for logic-based games.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Classifying creative works isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically spark debates and end in fuzzy definitions. It's understandable that cinema institutions don’t do it. However, it represents an essential concession for the industry of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute as a single art form.

For the full spectrum of gaming accomplishments to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.

Present Award Structure

Prominent interactive entertainment events currently feature classifications covering Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Sim/Strategy, and Sports/Racing games. Together, these classifications successfully include numerous genres, and you can find room for most games within them.

Not so for puzzle games. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Examine these examples from this year’s best games, each quite distinct: structural challenges from a specific release, the pulse-pounding block-matching of another game, engaging interpersonal challenges from additional release. Which classification works within current classifications? Simply put, no category fits.

Acknowledgment Issues

There are dozens excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home at major award shows, except when they manage to fit for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the extremely competitive independent game categories.

  • A renowned logic title wasn’t nominated in any category during that awards season
  • A different innovative game was excluded that year
  • A beloved organization game got ignored recently
  • Limited numbers of logic titles scraped into independent or mobile categories

Value of Brain-Teasers

These are often modest productions, however the design behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for many years.

The famous puzzle experience rivals famous sandbox experiences for the title of best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Logic titles represent cornerstones within interactive entertainment, while interacting with almost every other genre.

Recommendation and Reasoning

Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates with fascinating, diverse, deserving games annually without trouble — or rather, with difficulty, given the need to exclude numerous deserving experiences.

And to reiterate, these represent titles without proper classification at major gaming awards. Brain-teaser creators function at the demanding boundary game development, developing some of most fundamental forms of the video game form. Similar to movie stunt professionals, they merit acknowledgment. Don't make them wait generations.

About the author

Rachel Montoya

Award-winning journalist with over a decade of experience covering international affairs and investigative reporting.

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