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Friday, October 9, 2026
Zen Global Insight

Tetris Didn't Succeed at This Gaming Ceremony — A New Category May Address This Issue

Each time a prominent honors show nears, there’s always a demand for introducing fresh award types to honor unsung work and fill the spirits of fans dedicated to specific genres.

Another commentator previously argued for a horror game category. That would be fantastic. The same goes for board games, this being a dedicated supporter's campaign. Yet I need to apologize in advance if I try to elbow in front since similar to blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal is the most urgent and significant. The demand is this: There should be a category for puzzle games.

Organizing Gaming Categories

Classifying creative works defies precise measurement; it remains highly personal, and it will always spark debates concluding with vague boundaries. It's understandable that movie academies don’t do it. Yet it remains a necessary evil for the industry of video games, showing incredible range they hardly constitute a single creative category.

For the full spectrum of achievement in video games to receive acknowledgment, and for games of all stripes to compete fairly, classification by type becomes crucial.

Current Gaming Award Categories

The major gaming awards presently include classifications covering Action, Adventure-action titles, RPG experiences, Fighting, Simulation and strategy titles, plus athletic and racing experiences. Together, these classifications effectively encompass a lot of ground, making space possible for most games within them.

This doesn't apply to brain-teasing titles. There’s simply nowhere to put them. Think about these outstanding current releases, all very different: the architectural riddles from a specific release, intense tile-matching in a different title, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles of a third title. What category would fit them among existing types? Nowhere, that’s where.

Acknowledgment Issues

Numerous examples exist of brilliant puzzle games released every year without proper recognition during gaming ceremonies, if they accidentally match for categories like Handheld titles, Virtual reality experiences, or the intensely contested small studio competitions.

  • One classic puzzle game received no recognition in any category during that awards season
  • Another creative title received no nominations during that ceremony
  • A beloved organization game got ignored recently
  • Only a few logic titles barely qualified for independent or mobile categories

Value of Brain-Teasers

Frequently they represent compact experiences, but the art behind logic titles carries substantial weight. Well-known matching games count as the most-played games globally maintaining this status for over a decade.

The iconic tile-matching title challenges popular creative games competing to become highest-selling title ever; it additionally competes for top gaming experience. Brain-teasers form essential building blocks for gaming as medium, and engaging with almost every other genre.

Proposal and Rationale

Puzzle games wouldn’t have such difficulty. You could fill multiple candidates engaging, different, qualified experiences every year with ease — perhaps, with difficulty, because you’d have to leave numerous deserving experiences.

And to reiterate, these are games lacking appropriate categories during prominent ceremonies. Brain-teaser creators function at the hard edge game development, producing among the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they merit acknowledgment. We shouldn't delay generations.

The writer

Kimberly Harris

Lena Hartwell is a mindfulness coach and writer exploring the intersection of spirituality and everyday life.

Zen Global Insight

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