Do games have to be fun?

Arkus86

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Define "fun".

If by fun, we mean the gratification from our accomplishments, or the emotions it makes us feel, both positive and negative, or simply just the engagement, then yes, they need to be fun *to be successful*.
On the other hand, games can also be considered a form of art. Yes, you can still make a game purely as an art piece that has none of the above and nobody will want to play it. It will not be fun, in any sense of the word. But it will still be a game.

So technically, games don't need to be fun, but if they're not, they will hardly be successful.
 

LilRora

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This cannot be answered without first defining what exactly "fun" is. Broadly speaking that could be true, but using narrow definitions that is definitely not true; I don't think they have to be fun. Much more important than that is something I would call a "convincing purpose".

When you look at puzzle games, many of them aren't exactly fun. They can be frustrating and confusing, but all that has a purpose, which is completing a puzzle, and which provides gratification, a sense of accomplishment which depends on a huge amount of factors, some of which are personal. If the game is successful in creating a goal that outweighs the struggle, it will be worth playing, and you'll want to reach it.

What is important is that, if a game constantly provides fun, it becomes stale. There is a lot of parallels between books and games, and I think it's obvious if the game or book tries to make you have fun all the time, without any goal or purpose past that, it will become uninteresting and boring quickly unless it's done extremely well. This is why slice of life as well as casual and easy games do not appeal to many people.

To make a game or a book good, the "fun" of all kinds, in the broadest definition, has to outweigh everything that would push us away in a specific building block, such as a chapter, an arc, a level, a mission - if the contrast is too great however, some people may still leave before they get to the reward. This obviously does not fit narrow definitions of "fun".
 

JayMark80

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200w.gif
 

laccoff_mawning

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I'm not a fan of overcomplicating a simple matter. I'm even less a fan of overcomplicating a complicated matter.

If the word "fun" can work to define all types of enjoyment that we get from all different types of games, then let it. Sure, we can use the term "engaging" if we want to emphasise a certain point better, but why on earth shouldn't we also use the word "fun", since that word also works?
 

JHarp

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DO ME A FAVOR AND READ THE ENTIRE POST BEFORE REPLYING!

A couple years ago, Yahtzee Croshaw released a video while he was still with The Escapist on whether or not video games needed to be fun. You can check it out below if you want:

That wasn't a question I ever would have thought needed to be asked. What point does a GAME have if not to be FUN? But what he said really made me rethink my opinion.

His take on the subject is that video games have become too diverse to be summed up by a single word like "fun." Games are now capable of evoking all kinds of emotions, and not all of them are ones that you would generally consider to be positive feelings. He uses Scorn as an example. Scorn is disgusting, disturbing, depressing, and frustrating. He absolutely didn't have fun while playing it, but it was still a good game because those were the exact emotions that the developers intended to make him feel. Just like you wouldn't say Schindler's List is a bad movie just because it's not a comedy, games like Scorn and Silent Hill are still good games even though the emotions they make you feel are generally considered to be negative ones. And this isn't just limited to scary or depressing games. The kind of "fun" you have while solving a puzzle game like Return of the Obra Dinn is so different from the kind of "fun" you'd have hacking people limb from limb in God of War that it almost doesn't make sense to use the same word to describe them both.

All things considered, he thinks that "engaging" is a better word to judge video games by with. A game might not be "fun" in the traditional sense, but it can still be worth playing as long as it engages you in the way it's developers intended.

What do you guys think?

I figured this would happen. People are just react to the thread title and not responding to what I wrote in the post itself.

First, Let's be a bit critical about the question because it feels like you brought it on yourself.
The title should have been framed differently, as should the contents. If you 'figured it would happen' this way, you already had half the motive to change it.

For the title, I would have probably framed it as more than a binary answer. The first tip in psychology is to ask an open question that forces more than a yes/no reply. In this case, for 'do games have to be fun,' you might say, "What makes a game worth playing beyond fun?" Now, any answers feel required to explain what they mean.



Let's break apart a bit from the first post because it seems a bit skewed to me.

"Games are too diverse to be summed up in a single word." First, the fact that they are all called games immediately disproves that statement, even as a joke. Second, what's the point of genres, tags, and all the categories we keep making to intentionally help divide up a large category? Are they suddenly no longer relevant? In what way have they suddenly been made obsolete? The argument being provided is already industry standard. I don't see the point.

Third, people seem to treat media in general as separate ideas.
We didn't have an issue with Books or Movies. Yet we have choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA), rulebooks for D&D and other things.
We have 3.5/4D films and any number of 'variants' for movies. Arguably, these are conceptually different from the standard idea of the medium. Still, things evolve to encompass because language is about making sure you are understood more than conveying relevant information. Otherwise, the 'silent films' of decades ago would be completely different because of the sound and later all the smell-o-vision stuff and whatever is so categorically different.

The question to the third point is why games need more than genres now, setting them apart from other industries with similar conventions, understanding, rules and conduct. This question could easily be applied to films/movies by the fact that not all of them are 'fun'; you mention Schindler's List, but especially some documentary ones, and any number of reasons people theoretically shouldn't 'enjoy' horror or other varied genres in a more general inaccurate sense of the term.

Sure, they might be different types of the same kind of emotion, but at that point, you are arguing subjectivity from the audience's perspective. Even adults and kids who watch the same movie have different experiences. To quantify precisely what emotions each demographic would be afflicted by, we would have to create an extremely burdensome task and case study for every film and movie, every game and book, with some hundreds of people in different combinations of demographics, to comprehensively list the type of 'engagement/enjoyment/fun' they might get from it.



Finally, what seems to be your main point about the definition of words.

Engagement often refers to a long-term effect. If a game is 'engaging,' I can play it for 12 hours straight.
Shorter games often rely on replayability or strong emotional impact to maintain engagement. While some short games achieve broad engagement without replayability, this perspective doesn't sell a product to people.

Engagement has no bearing on someone's qualitative experience. As people brought up, Gacha games are 'engaging' and not because they are positive in all respects. Some forms of engagement rely on psychological manipulation rather than enjoyment, such as gacha mechanics and FOMO-driven systems. There is no requirement for enjoyment when a game is engaging, and there is no reason a person needs to feel positively at all about engaging games. Even if many games can do both, it was never a requirement.

Engagement is usually used for mechanically heavy or story-rich games because of the general bias, regardless of how compelling and engaging arcade fighting games can be in short-form content. The perception of the word and its definition would need to be shifted culturally to a large degree to not favour specific types of games. Now, we have distinctions like 'engagement' vs. 'deep engagement' or even 'gacha engagement,' which just reintroduces the purpose of game genres. This is why redefining 'fun' with these terms wouldn't be constructive.


On the other hand, 'fun' is a more social term that conveys positive emotions, especially in reviews and discussions. When people promote or market a game, they intentionally prime their audience by framing it in a good light. 'Fun' is preferred because it highlights enjoyment, while 'engagement' is more neutral or harmful in some contexts.

It is about positive emotions, especially in hindsight. When redefining words or choosing the best term for a discussion, we must consider how the audience understands them. Based on Grice's Maxims for cooperation, our words should align with what the audience expects rather than what we believe to be the most accurate definition.
 
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owotrucked

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JHarp's thread title is way better lol

Entertainment fulfill various psychological needs. The process doesn't need to be pleasing. In fact, modern monetization tactics is to force you to pay to avoid the meaningless suffering F2P players are willing to endure.
 

JHarp

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JHarp's thread title is way better lol

Entertainment fulfill various psychological needs. The process doesn't need to be pleasing. In fact, modern monetization tactics is to force you to pay to avoid the meaningless suffering F2P players are willing to endure.
Glad you didn't directly quote me as I had to do a second editing run over the thing because of how badly I felt I dropped the ball on parts of what I was saying. XD (Can't let people see those kinds of egregious mistakes)

While I'd not consider myself an expert at anything, my general knowledge is focused a lot on linguistics, primarily etymology (The culture and development of words through history), as well as my past studies into psychology considering that used to be a career path I wanted to go down.

A lot of how people *understood* the way I said words was something I fought a lot over while younger dealing with autism and why people wouldn't take words by definition and instead by perceived intent.

Although for the most part I'm sure most could complain I'm 'too formal' when I talk in forum chats and otherwise, it does help make sure I'm less misunderstood.
 

Ssthat

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Just because those games bring about emotions generally considered "negative", that doesn't mean it's not "fun" to play them. Fun doesn't necessarily have anything to do with positive emotions, although it is generally associated with them. I have fun playing elden ring, even though I want to punt my monitor across my room every time radahn and his twink boyfriend hit me with their space laser nuke. I still enjoy the game, even though it invokes the negative feelings of anger and frustration.
 

Anon2025

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Yes.
Some people have fun playing difficult games.
Some people have fun steam rolling.
Some people have fun shooting.
Some people have fun playing games that other people hate and telling them that they don't understand how great that game is and are uncultured individuals who need re-education, which is actually a long way of saying that person just has fun baiting people or something like that but I don't want to keep going on this because this is kind of a bait in it of itself maybe but run on sentences are difficult to undestand so like please don't read this sentence essay.
 
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