PS my not reading was not out of malice and/or ignorance, I simply wish to not get involved in this argument.

Last time I checked, that’s EXACTLY what video games are.

Accurate. The media screws with the perception of video games. Honestly, the media screws with the perception of EVERYTHING.

The troll is back.

I understand you

Also, we’ve established that it’s only gameplay that I don’t think needs to be fun for the game to be good. When it comes to the narrative and immersion I can agree with you that something about it has to be enjoyable in some type of way. It’s just that I would choose to word it differently. Maybe that’s because I also feel that “fun” is actually a shallow word and doesn’t describe a whole lot at all. So where you would say “That game had a tragic story that’s why I found it fun”, I would just say “That game had a tragic story” and would then hope that in me calling it “tragic” I’ve made it clear that I’m complimenting the game for succeeding in telling the tragic story it was created to tell.

What’s wrong with the title?

This is how Mass Effect saved my life when I was 19. My depression was at it’s peak, and I couldn’t afford a therapist, let alone regular routine doctor visits. My ex gave me his XBox 360, and my friend loaned me his copies of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. I would come home from work, turn on my XBox 360 (or my “Mass Effect Machine” as my roommate Bernard called it), and I would play Mass Effect until I could barely lift my eyelids. I would place myself into that world and reality to take myself out of my own difficult and dark life, even if for just a few hours, to help me through it. Mass Effect was my therapy. Mass Effect was my help.

Tl;dr I agree with you 150%, Tony.

I’m not confusing fun with light-heartedness. There are certain feelings an emotions that I associate fun with and a film like 12 Years of Slave is something I could never say was a fun experience. There are so many words I would use to describe the movie, all of which would describe the films quality and why I thought it was good.

If 12 Years of Slave was totally fictional and I was the one who wrote and directed the film, then a friend showed me a review where the writer ended their summary on the film with “and thats why I found the movie really fun”, I would want to find that person and uninstall their internet browser for saying such a thing about my story.

We both have read the same definition of fun but clearly understand it differently so we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Where we differ is our individual understand of “fun” and the different layers in can touch. The unraveling of a narrative, the immersion, and the enjoyment of something all = fun to me, thus to say a game doesn’t have to be fun to be good doesn’t make sense to me. If it is not “fun” on any level (via my understanding of the word, not yours), then I don’t believe it can be “good” and that’s that.

I’ve seen the movie and movies are all fun experiences if I enjoy them. I enjoyed 12 years a Slave thus it was a fun experience to me. As I’ve said before, you two really are just saying games don’t have to be “light hearted” or “simple” in order to be good. Games never stopped being fun.

My personal stance is that gameplay is the thing that doesnt need to be fun for a game to be good. I dont know if thats what Tony was trying to touch or not so I’ll speak for myself. So yes, whenever I say “doesnt have to be fun” I’ve always meant gameplay. I’m pretty sure Tony would agree to be honest. If a game exists to blow your mind with something that it excels at outside of gameplay (like having a great story) then it goes without saying that so long as the story is good enough to keep you playing, then the fact that the gameplay is not fun will not stop you from experiencing the story.

As for your second question, the issue here is the words you chose to use to describe an experience is different to what I choose to use. To me, The Last of Us did not have a fun narrative because it wasn’t supposed to be a fun narrative. It’s not a comedy, or a Fast and Furious type of action film. It was a drama, mixed with action and tragic elements. So of course I would say the narrative wasn’t fun and I would be baffled if you said you found it to be fun. I already touched on “completion” in my previous comment.

Answer me this: Was 12 Years of Slave a fun film to you? Would you use the word “fun” to describe your experience with it? And if you havent seen it, look up a trailer and im sure you’ll be given enough content to provide a decent answer.

Hey look another title that would be more accurate. Smh.

So we can center this on “gameplay” now. The article doesn’t do that and I don’t believe it has intended to do so, btw. Is “gameplay” the only part you can illicit “fun” from? Immersion counts as fun and input is a huge part of the video game’s immersion process, but that’s beside the point. Let’s say you don’t find the button pressing part fun, do the other elements you find fun (narrative, completion, and such) not count?

Glad you enjoyed it man! Games aren’t just simple things for kids anymore.

“So no one HAD FUN DOING THESE THINGS?”

Notice how all of those questions are end goals. Could you survive? What did you uncover? What did you find out? What happens next? I’ll speak for myself and say that THOSE are the things that I found enjoyable. Being able to brag to my friends that I beat the game they couldnt is what I found fun.

But did I have fun “playing” the game? Hell, no. Whenever I say ” a game doesn’t have to be fun to be good” I am referring to the persistent experience. The time you spend pressing buttons. The time you spend interacting with interactive events. NONE of those things HAVE to be fun in the moment you are having them in order for the game to ultimately be an engaging experience.

If you cant understand that then I dont know how else to explain it to you.

http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/21-types-fun-whats-yours

So no one HAD FUN DOING THESE THINGS —> “Could you survive the mansion? Could you uncover the secrets of Umbrella?”. Players didn’t have fun figuring it out? Hmm? No one had fun getting through it?

Also, I’m not retorting the whole idea. I said already that I believe it’s worded incorrectly.

The brand continued because it made money. Period. Fun had nothing to do with the success of that game and it’s clear and obvious in the design. The goal was to survive Resident Evil 1. That was it. Could you survive the mansion? Could you uncover the secrets of Umbrella? Why do you think the term “Survival Horror” was coined after that games inception? Fun and Entertainment are not interchangeable words. They don’t mean the exact same thing.

To be honest, I really don’t understand why people are even trying to retort the whole idea. Nobody is losing out. Nobody is saying that you cant have fun with your games. All I’m telling you is there are games that I have played that I did not find fun to play but nonetheless found a huge amount of richness and was heavily engaged with them. I don’t find ANY of the souls games fun but the idea behind defeating a game that is clearly overly punishing and trying to defeat you is what kept me entertained. When I would kill a boss that had been kicking my ass for a whole week I would get a rush of fulfillment. Now, was that feeling of fulfillment “fun?”… well, you could call it that if you want to and I might agree but it still doesn’t change the fact that through me playing Demons Souls, I am not having fun throughout the majority of it yet I would still choose to play through it.

I am into Video Game design and I hope to become one myself some day. This is why I have this mentality. If I made a game where the intent was to illustrate to the player how painful it is to be a mother trying to deal with having lost her children in a war, I would like to believe that I can make that game extremely engaging without “fun” being a must have component for that.

“At the end of the day, if even ONE person can say that “A thing I did was not fun but it was really engaging or entertaining” then what are you even trying to argue against?”

I can say they’re operating with a limited view of the word. Which is what I’ve been saying this whole damn time so how does that change anything I’ve said at all?

“With all that being said it should be clear why one could view or play something, not have fun while viewing or playing, but still be entertained or engaged with the thing being done. At the end of the day, if even ONE person can say that “A thing I did was not fun but it was really engaging or entertaining” then what are you even trying to argue against? 12 Years of Slave was not a fun film but it was certainly entertaining for a multitude of different reasons so I “continued” to watch and “give it attention” until the end credits.”

Knocked it into orbit with this last paragraph.

No shit they’re two different words. You can co-sign different types of entertainment but not different types of fun. Ok.

Fun and entertainment are different words for a reason. Different types of entertainment. Not all entertainment has to be fun.