"Games should just be fun."

[Ericb]

I guess we're just niggling over the exact definition of "fun". Perhaps it wasn't the best word to chose, but it's the one everyone else uses.

The same with problem with the word "art", which actually has a powerful meaning, but most people couldn't care less about it when using it.

Just ask what they mean when talking about "art" and "fun" and you'll mostly get "uh...".

[HEADING=2]"Fun/Entertainment" and "Art/Depth/Complexity" do NOT have to be separate entities![/HEADING]

Monty Python is the most triumphant example of this.

I think, like Movies, Games should be an experience.

More to the point, they provide the means for an experience.

The player and the designer are the key elements here, a game is the middle ground that allows the (hopefully) engaging and communicating experience.

 

[RollForInitiative]

Apparently games should be fun

In the end, yes, that's the ultimate goal of a "game." It is a form of entertainment. However, what constitutes "entertainment" is as variable as the crowd that follows it. Look at movies, for example. Some people love mystery and drama while others love comedy romps.

Games are no different. Some people will respond to and, therefore, enjoy games that are story heavy while others may respond best to games that are packed with action and require reflexes.

That doesn't mean that games can't be art. It means that a game which is intended as art is entertainment for the audience that enjoys such. There's room for everything from Doom to Heavy Rain in this field.

It's important not to lose sight of that.

 

[Ace of Spades]

This attitude is usually wheeled out in the discussion between 'art games' and 'fun games', and frankly, it infuriates me. Some people act like a game with a point and a game that's fun to play are somehow mutually exclusive and you need to reject having a coherent narrative for the sake of the gameplay which couldn't be farther from the truth. I had one person tell me that I apparently "need to accept that games are games, not books or movies." Brilliantly put, because actually having something to say, or at least something to string together the parade of gameplay suddenly undermines the definition of the medium. If you don't like games that have stories, that's fine, but if you expect me to be on-board with your ridiculous notion that all games should be like that, then you can go fuck yourself.

 

[Zhukov]

Just wanted to say thanks for all the replies.

I'm actually impressed at the quality of the posts in this thread. I was expecting... well I dunno what exactly I was expecting, but it wasn't this. Also, I'm glad to see that most of you folks seem to be of the opinion that the deep meaningful stuff and the mindless silly fun can coexist.

So yeah... yay. And thanks.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

So... you know those threads you get when someone encounters an opinion they disagree with and promptly runs to the internet to either seek comforting confirmation or spread the word?

Yeah, well, this is essentially one of those. Couldn't help it. Sorry.

So anyway...

Apparently games should be fun.

I hear this a lot. On this site and elsewhere. It seems to be something of a backlash against the games-as-art folks. Some people seem to be getting sick of games trying to have characters or tell stories or induce some emotion other then "I shot a *****, all hail!"

I was going to post a somewhat rant-ish argument spelling out why I think this is silly. But perhaps it will work better if phrased as a query. That tends to piss people off less. Well... a bit less anyway.

So, to those of you who say games should just be about fun, I have some questions:

What exactly do you mean when you say that? Isn't there more then one kind of fun? Can a genuinely scary horror game be "fun"? Can something be thought-provoking and still be considered fun? Isn't it fun to observe and interact with interesting characters? Isn't it fun to experience an awesome story? If a game could reliably make players cry, would it still be fun? Can a game be fun because it's scary or thought-provoking or tells a story or makes you cry etc etc?

And if you answered "yes" to all or most of the above, why is it apparently a problem that games, well... some games, are trying to be a wee bit more then high-defintion retreads of Doom or Super Mario?

Games should first and FOREMOST try to be fun, that's what the saying should be. When you sit down to play (people should pay attention to that word, as it is a strong implication of why games SHOULD try to be FUN before anything else) any game, what's the first thing you think to yourself?
"I'm going to enrich myself and view the world differently after this."
or
"Let's have some fun."

Why are you excited to play a game? because it's meant to exist for your amusement (as the dictionary definition goes), and you want to be amused. No one buys games with the express purpose of going "this game is going to enrich me", they buy it because "this game looks fun"

games should try to be fun before trying to be anything else because otherwise they are not games (circular logic, i know, but it's true by the dictionary definition). and besides, why can't making the ultimate form of fun be an art form? what makes Grand Theft Auto any more of a piece of art than Mass Effect? What makes Limbo any more a work of art than Red Dead Redemption? What makes Braid any more a work of art than Minecraft?

and are not all these games aiming to have a sense of fun and escapism first and foremost?
sometimes, when going for "art", games forget to be games. and there's one thing we can agree on from that guy who made god of war, that if we try so hard to be art we may well lose "game" games.

movies are there to move us by using music, picture, and cinematography to push emotions on us. books are there to stimulate our minds with passionate wordplay and imaginative settings. Yes, there are some movies that exist to try to be "dumb fun", but they seldom work, and that is where video games come in. Games are here to fill the "fun as an art form" category of art. Sure they can enrich us by trying to do the same things movies and books do, but do you REALLY want to have a gaming scene populated entirely by games like Heavy Rain and Jurassic Park?

no, we still want our Saints Rows and our Dead Risings and our Just Cause 2s. Fun CAN exist as an art form, and games are here to prove that. What's wrong with the idea of fun being enriching?

 

[Stephanos132]

Of course games should be fun. Who'd want to be involved in a game they didn't enjoy?

It seems to me you're simply asking, 'Should games be only mindless fun?' to which my answer is 'No, of course they shouldn't. There should be games that cater for all definitions of fun/enjoyment, whether on a primal 'me smash you' level or something more intellectually compelling.'

 

[Jumplion]

[HEADING=2]"Fun/Entertainment" and "Art/Depth/Complexity" do NOT have to be separate entities![/HEADING]

Monty Python is the most triumphant example of this.

As proven by this lovely example;

 

[fealubryne]

They might, in fact, find the idea of being forced into splattering heads across a wall pretty uncomfortable.

If it's in a Red Orchestra sense, they might find it uncomfortable because RO is all about a realistic multiplayer struggle depicting the horrors of WW2 on the Eastern Front. If you get shot in the head, it really is quite realistic and disturbing and it's not over the top.

If it's in a Bulletstorm or Call of Duty sense, then there is no weight to the shooting and killing and thus, you can't get emotionally involved in it unless they evoke images that are as far removed from the games as possible.

Emotional investment might have nothing to do with it; there are, believe it or not, people who really don't find mindless killing, regardless of how emotionally involving the game might be, enjoyable. Those same people may prefer stories or strategy. Part of the problem in all of this is that the gaming community is pretty selfish as far as their views - just because the general consensus is that mindless games of death and destruction are fun for them doesn't mean that's the same for everyone.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I feel that games should do something for you, just like movies or music. If it's thought provoking and really pulls you in; that's great, good for it. If it's just a cathartic release with twitch-based violence; then so be it, some people want that. So long as you enjoy yourself in some fashion, whether through intellectual stimulation or low-brow fun, then the game is doing it's job. It's entertainment.

 

[Xman490]

Considering that "fun" is part of "funny", I consider fun to be something that makes me laugh. Fun would be realizing the best weapon against some tough enemy and plowing through them instead of running from them in fear. Fun would also be watching some terrified person fly from getting hit by your car and still get up while slowly limping away.

 

[luckshotpro]

Well, I guess, I have a lot of fun being scared in horror games and engaging in thought provoking games as well. All I got is that games shouldn't do anything not fun, like have shitty controls and boring gameplay.

 

[Accountfailed]

aaaaaaaaand I'm in.

Right, the concept of games "just being fun" isn't the worst thing in the world, but I hardly believe that devs go out thinking "fuck everything else! let's just make it fun!"

In MY opinion (yes mine, get your own.) A game being fun should be its priority rule; when you sit down to make a game the first thing you do is try figure out how to make it fun, story elements and what-have-you comes afterwards depending on the type of game you're making, you would put things at a higher priority. for instance, if you are making a turn-based strategy game naturally it actually being fun is a low concern, considering you are basically making a board game, but with anime.

fun is a term relative to the person saying it, where one person likes a good story, another person likes to be in the battle, neither are above the other. So it comes to me to point out that your question is rather silly in it's own right, you are basically asking "why do people find different things fun?" but your question is actually "why do people not find what I find fun, fun?" which in the non-ones-and-zeros world would earn you a slap upside the head and a lecture on proper english.

I haven't ever heard or seen someone say that games should *just* be fun, as in nothing else but entertaining gameplay, but consider this, as a pro "games-are-art" gamer, what is Minecraft to you? is it a no content just entertainment sandbox game? or a beautifully creative representation of gaming culture as a whole? is it art? or is it a pencil to draw with? Your definition of art, like ALL definitions of art, mine included, is skewed towards your natural likes and dislikes. On the opposite end of things, how was Heavy Rain to you? A thrilling story with immersive power augmented into it via timed actions? or a hopelessly flat piece created purely to pull 60$ out of the "games-are-art" target market?

I think you can see what I'm driving at here, a game being "fun" is dependent on two things, the quality of the game, and the relationship between the player and the genre, I hate Heavy Rain, the story was full of holes and the plot was predictable (oh no! who'd of thought that the murderer would be the only person who's story didn't tie in with the other characters) and yet I have a friend who has played through all twenty combinations of the story and won't say a bad word against it. The quality of the game is great, but my relationship with the genre is terrible and this is the same thing that is happening with you. You clearly don't like first person shooters, and why should you? I have been keeping up with them for most of my days and the only two that I've enjoyed in the past year or so were Bulletstorm and Borderlands. With that said, it has been about 5 years since I've found a game a with a story engaging enough to make me want to dismiss gameplay outright.

In conclusion, a game needs both atmosphere(a setting, a story, an artistic direction etc..) and gameplay, whether or not you like games that are more story than game or more game than story is a matter of opinion, and as such, asking a question like "why are games I don't like, not like games I do like" is akin to asking why we don't just push the earth away from the sun to stop global warming.

Because that would be stupid.

 

[Blue Musician]

The problem is that many 'art-games' are boring. I have no problem with thought-provoking games, but it has to hold my interest.

let me recommend you Silent Hill 2, Pathologic and The Void; in my opinion those are the best games ever made.

 

[Auxiliary]

Games should be "enjoyable" is a better phrased choice.

 

[SaberXIII]

I think a better way of saying it would be 'games should be stimulating'. I agree that being crap-yourself scared by horror games can't really be classifiied as 'fun', but it gives the player a kick. What I think people mostly complain about is when games sacrifice this stimulation for looking pretty or trying to be innovative but only palette swapping something they've or somebody else has done and calling it original.

 

[Trolldor]

A fun game should be one you look forward to engaging yourself in - complexity and depth of emotion is something that can trigger such a reaction to a game.

 

[michael87cn]

Actually, there are multiple problems with this...

Game devs have limited funding and limited time. The fun route is often the best way to go if they can't get the game to feel fun and complex at the same time. Often times we end up with games that make our heads spin and we never touch them again, because while they give us a lot of options, we were looking to sit down, relax and enjoy ourselves, not study, learn and practice a fictional environment.

Games span more than one generation of people now. You'll never see people agree on this subject because one group grew up on pacman and asteroids, and another group grew up on halo and call of duty. It's a big argument between 10-20-30-40-50-60 year olds. It's really just simpler to accept that some people like easier games, because they don't have easy lives, and some people have easy lives and want challenging games, or some people live easy lives and want easy games, hard lives and hard games. What matters isn't what joe shmoe that lives 500 miles from you is doing in his living room with his games, but what you do with your games. If you need to post on a message board (basically ranting) about an argument you had with someone else, and you even need to go to such length as to curse them out behind their back... well, I feel dirty for even posting here.

I find now that I'm older I don't prefer to pretend I'm in the game worlds that I play, I'm a little more rooted in reality now, so.. when I play games, its purely for fun, not for becoming emotionally involved with pixelated people/worlds.

I just don't have the time to waste on it. So, games like New Vegas and Dragon Age Origins bore me to DEATH with their linear and bland worlds, because I don't really care how believeable that NCR dudes life story is, I'm not playing the game to (yes here is that argument) read a book or watch a movie. If my game starts feel like I'm doing that, I genuinely feel that something is wrong.

I mean, say you're reading an e-book and you turn the page, and it loads a video clip all of the sudden. Were you expecting that when you bought a BOOK? So what if it 'brings to life' the characters of the story? What if you were happy with YOUR version of those characters in your head? What if you just wanted to read a damn book, play a damn game or watch a damn movie? If the game plays like a book or becomes more of a movie, then it fails as a game, because it's AVOIDING its own purpose.

/shrug, I ranted a little more than I wanted to there, oh well.

 

[Tharwen]

I spent about 4 hours today mining out a massive hallway for my underground city in Minecraft.

As far as I can remember, I enjoyed it, but there's no way you could describe it as fun.

 

[MrGameluvr92]

The problem is that many 'art-games' are boring. I have no problem with thought-provoking games, but it has to hold my interest.

This.