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Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Future iGaming Canada

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

Whenever a major honors show nears, one notices an outcry for the addition fresh award types to acknowledge unsung work and delight the spirits of enthusiasts with niche passions.

Another commentator previously argued supporting a scary games classification. That would rule. So would tabletop games, which is someone's personal cause. However, I must insist for pushing forward just as with other blinkered fanatics, I possess a compelling case backing this proposal remains most pressing and important of all. This is the request: We need an award type for logic-based games.

The Genre Classification Challenge

Categorizing art by genre isn't exact; it remains highly personal, and typically start arguments resulting in unclear classifications. There’s a reason film award organizations don’t do it. Yet it remains an essential concession for the industry of gaming, that demonstrate such variety it's challenging to consider them one unified medium.

For comprehensive acknowledgment of gaming accomplishments to gain proper attention, while allowing diverse titles to receive proper recognition, specific award classifications remain vital.

Current Gaming Award Categories

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

Not so for brain-teasing titles. No appropriate category exists for their placement. Think about these this year’s best games, each quite distinct: the architectural riddles from a specific release, intense tile-matching of another game, and the sweetly sociological logic puzzles from additional release. What category would fit them between these six categories? Nowhere, that’s where.

Recognition Challenges

Many instances occur excellent brain-teasers launched regularly that have no home during gaming ceremonies, except when they manage to fit award groups including Mobile Game, Virtual reality experiences, and the highly challenging small studio competitions.

  • An iconic brain-teaser wasn’t nominated for anything during that awards season
  • A different innovative game was excluded during that ceremony
  • A beloved organization game was overlooked that year
  • Only a few puzzle games scraped into independent or mobile categories

Value of Brain-Teasers

Commonly they're small games, yet the craft behind logic titles holds tremendous importance. Iconic mobile puzzle games count as most popular titles worldwide continuing this trend for over a decade.

The legendary block-stacking game challenges well-known building titles claiming status as best-selling game of all time; it also contends for top gaming experience. Puzzle games are foundational for gaming as medium, and engaging with almost every other genre.

Recommendation and Reasoning

Logic titles wouldn't face such difficulty. It would be easy to populate multiple candidates interesting, varied, worthy titles annually without trouble — actually, with challenge, given the need to exclude so many good games out.

And to reiterate, these are games lacking appropriate categories at major gaming awards. Logic title developers function at the demanding boundary game development, creating some of the purest expressions of gaming itself. Similar to cinema stunt performers, they deserve recognition. We shouldn't delay decades.

About the author

Jason Lindsey

Aria Chen is a gaming journalist specializing in Canadian iGaming regulations and online casino trends, with over a decade of industry experience.

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