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Tuesday, October 13, 2026
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Tetris Didn't Triumph at The Game Awards — Another Award Type Might Solve This

Each time a significant honors show draws close, there’s always an outcry for the addition fresh award types to recognize unsung work and fill the hearts of enthusiasts with niche passions.

My colleague made the case supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. So would tabletop games, representing a dedicated supporter's campaign. But they will have to forgive me for pushing forward just as with other dedicated enthusiasts, there's a strong justification for why my demand is the most urgent and important of all. Here's the proposal: It's essential to create a category for puzzle games.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Classifying creative works isn't exact; opinions vary greatly, and typically spark debates resulting in unclear classifications. This explains why cinema institutions steer clear of genre categories. However, it represents an essential concession in the world of interactive entertainment, that demonstrate such variety they hardly constitute as a single art form.

For comprehensive acknowledgment of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and to ensure all game types to have a chance for representation, specific award classifications remain vital.

Existing Game Classification System

Leading game ceremonies presently include genre categories for Action, Action/Adventure, Role-Playing, Combat games, Simulation and strategy titles, and Sports/Racing games. Collectively, these classifications successfully include a lot of ground, making space possible for numerous titles.

Not so for brain-teasing titles. No suitable classification appears to put them. Think about these recent excellent titles, each quite distinct: building puzzles of one title, fast-paced pattern recognition of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. Where could they possibly go within current classifications? Nowhere, that’s where.

Recognition Challenges

There are dozens excellent brain-teasers released every year without proper recognition in entertainment awards, if they accidentally match classification types such as Mobile Game, VR/AR Game, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.

  • A renowned logic title got overlooked completely that year
  • A different innovative game missed out in 2019
  • A beloved organization game got ignored recently
  • Only a few brain-teasers scraped into independent or mobile categories

Value of Brain-Teasers

Frequently they represent small games, yet the craft behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Famous handheld logic titles count as most engaged experiences in the world maintaining this status for over a decade.

The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games competing to become highest-selling title ever; it also contends for best game of all time. Puzzle games are foundational within interactive entertainment, and they are in conversation with diverse game types.

Recommendation and Reasoning

Brain-teasers wouldn't encounter that issue. It would be easy to populate a field of five with fascinating, diverse, deserving games each ceremony simply — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave many worthy titles.

And to reiterate, these are games that otherwise have no home in important events. Brain-teaser creators function at the demanding boundary game development, producing among most fundamental forms within interactive entertainment. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. Let’s not keep them waiting 35 years.

DS
About the author

Deborah Stevens

A tech journalist and innovation strategist with over a decade of experience covering emerging technologies and startup ecosystems across Europe.

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