Does fun = good ?

[ComicsAreWeird]

Fun and good. Most times they are unrelated. Eating loads of chocolate? Fun but not good for your teeth. As for games...a lot of fun games are not necessarily good games. A non-innovative sequel can be considered bad by its fans, but extremely fun for someone experiencing it for the first time.

 

[Skratt]

If a game is not fun, what is the point of playing it?

 

[Nouw]

If a game isn't fun, it fails as a game for me. Having said that, a game doesn't have to be good to be fun.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I think some more narrative/story based games can get a pass on the 'fun' part. Horror games as well. What comes to mind immediately are games that either make you intensely sad or scared. By definition, neither of those are 'fun', but they can still help make a good game.

The other problem, then, is when do these games stop being 'games' in the traditional sense. If a story is all narrative and little gameplay, is it a different medium? I don't think so, because many of the earliest video games were highly narrative with little 'gameplay', and nobody counts those out.

 

[SeeIn2D]

I think fun always has to be good, but good does not always have to be fun. An example of good not necessarily being fun could be Flower or Flow. A good game artistically with an interesting yet simple concept, but not all that fun at it's core.

 

[Zeema]

yes

Fun always makes a game good.

 

[Zantos]

How much fun I had is my final measure on how I rate a game. You can go on about innovation or polish or aesthetics til the cows come home, but each one is only worth it's salt if it improved how fun the game was.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

A good game isn't automatically fun. You can appreciate a game's design and execution without necessarily enjoying it. If you don't like real time strategy, for example, you're probably not going to enjoy even the best example of the genre.

Everyone has a bad game that they just love to pieces, so clearly bad games can be fun.

I'd agree with this position. Alpha Protocol wasn't a good game. I was just particularly conditioned to overlook its terrible flaws so that I could have fun with it. Then there are games that I can appreciate on a lot of levels but wouldn't care to play because I simply don't enjoy them (Pokemon for example).

 

[skywolfblue]

A game is, at its heart, entertainment. Entertainment = For Fun.

Therefore, a game that is fun has served it's purpose and is therefore "good".

 

[endplanets]

Short answer: yes, fun game = good games by definition.

But the truth is that games are judged in three sectors, each of which people misjudge "goodness" a game on.

There are three standards to grade a game on. 1) production quality 2) morals/offensiveness 3)fun.

1) Production quality is easy to agree on. Everyone thinks Metroid: Other M has solid graphics, good controls and is bug free. Everyone agrees that Battlefield 3 is great to look at. And everyone thinks that Deus Ex 1 looks like shit today.

2) This refers to does it teach morals/ is it offensive/ is it true to the franchise. Some games are not fun and have low production quality but have great morals. Many think that Deus Ex has solid philosophical questions, that Halo might have a solid precautionary tale against zealousness, and that Mario has no morals or anything (most games are like this). Some games are offensive, like Ethnic Cleansing. And lastly there is being true to the franchise. Nobody thinks that Halo has ever strayed far from its canon and saw the RTS Halo Wars as acceptable and a fun change of pace. People were able to adapt to a new setting from Half Life to Half Life 2 easily and many consider Metroid: Other M to be a war crime and X-com the FPS to be a betrayal. This is regardless of if the game is fun or has high production values. There is generally not much debate in this section.

3) Fun factor. This is where personal taste and opinion enter a lot. Did "Streets of Fury" (available for 3$ on Xbox arcade) have a moral lesson, no. Was it a technical masterpiece, hell no. But was is really really fun, HELL YEA. A game that is fun will be played even if it is low in production quality (why people prefer Deus Ex 1 to Deus Ex 2) or has no morals (Mario) or is untrue to the franchise (some liked Metroid Other M. Many liked Fallout 3 even though it betrayed Fallout 1 and 2).

The best example is Perfect Dark for Xbox 360. The game has great graphics, few bugs, great weapon selection, multiplayer and splitscreen co-op. It has generic morals about evil corporations and was true to the franchise. But it was boring and no fun to play and as such was deemed "not a good game".



If you want morals, watch the History Channel and read books on history and morality. If you want high production values, go make a computer or something. The reason you game is to have fun, and as long as the game does that it is good.

 

[Saelune]

A fun game does mean it is good. A game's purpose is to entertain. If it entertains, it has fullfilled its purpose. By this logic, no, a bad game cant be fun, because it is bad because it isnt fun. A bad game that is fun is not a bad game.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

In the context of entertainment products, yes. This should be obvious since entertaining is a synonym for fun.

 

[Normandyfoxtrot]

a game must be enjoyable to be worth playing so no mater how great the construction, or graphics, or storyline, or goals. It's still not worth owning or playing if it's not enjoyable.

 

[Batou667]

Surely if I'm having fun with a game, that makes it good.

I think I see what the OP means though, as it doesn't always work in reverse. For example, there are a great many well-crafted, thoroughly playtested and superbly designed game out there that I just have no interest in whatsoever. Racing and football games, for example. Objectively good, but for me, subjectively boring as sh*t.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

For a game, yes, fun=good. The point of a game is to entertain, so if you're having fun, it's good.

 

[CAPTCHA]

I didn't enjoy KoTOR, mainly because the Star Wars setting is one that doesn't interest me and I was looking for a game with a more involved battle system then the near auto-resolve it has. But does that make it a bad game or a good one that wasn't tailored to my tastes?

 

[Lukeje]

A game can be good without being fun; many examples may be found in indie games that attempt to deconstruct how we play and experience games. However I can't conceptualize a fun game that wasn't good.

 

[Velocity Eleven]

without a doubt