"Games should just be fun."

[Ham_authority95]

"Fun" has many different definitions. "Stimulating" can cover all those definitions.

So a better way of saying "Games should be fun" would be "Games should be Stimulating".

 

[ramboondiea]

your making a bit of a generalisation there, alot of people who say games should be fun usually mean a game doesn't need to be overly complicated. although fun is a completely subjective thing, its better to look at the contxt.
now compare a very story/plot heavy game like....heavy rain, now compare that to, splatterhouse.
now alot of people enjoyed the story and plot and the hours on hours of it (im one of them) but then you get splatterhouse, which has one purpose, to drain some hours through mindless carnage gameplay, there is no artistic merit to the game, but its exciting and 'fun'.

there is nothing wrong with these 'art' games, but not everyone things a game should demand it, and usually argue when people say things like 'games should be art' 'cant have childish games if the medium is to be taken seriously'

 

[LadyMint]

At its very core, a video game should be fun. It should be fun for the audience that you intend it to appeal to. If that's the kind of person who likes to go two steps between nine hours of cutscenes, then I hope you make a game of that nature. Or if it's the person who wants to score points for knocking mailboxes with a baseball bat, hopefully you've done that as well.

Basically, there's more to the statement of "games should be fun" just as there's more to the statement of "movies should be entertaining," so don't take them at face value. To me, those should be your ultimate goals but not in trying to make them appeal to everyone. With the right target audience, something that comes off as artsy and/or boring to one person is fun to the next.

 

[Mouse One]

Why can't we just have both types of games? Not all games need to be artsy, fun, or artsy-and-fun. The market is big enough for both Amnesias and Super Mario Galaxys. Silent Hills and Wii Sports. Why does Video Games have to be one thing?

100% agree, especially the part about artsy AND fun. Look at Braid: a fun puzzler that also had some interesting comments on The Human Condition (caps needed there, of course ).

 

[PrimoThePro]

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

It's very hard to juggle both of those things, but I feel that with the way things are going, we will soon get a game that is extremely thought provoking, with a well fleshed out story, and is actually quite captivating.

 

[MrMoustaffa]

With me, the deffinition can pretty much be summed up like this.

If the game isn't fun to play, then it doesnt matter how good the characters, story, or graphics are, because you won't be able to enjoy it.

I've played several games that had good stories, characters, enviornments, messages, etc. but they were boring as hell to play, and ultimately I hated them because of it. What bugs me is when some people say "games are an artform, and everything else is secondary", and believe that making a "fun" game is simply pandering to all the simpletons.

Games can easily have both, and when the two are combined, they are what make the best games. Bioshock had a beautiful enviornment, a cool story, and most importantly, WAS FUN. By combining all these aspects, it made the game better in every way, and helped draw me in more than if they had been extremely serious and said "Stop having fun guys, we have a story to tell you."

I think its what a lot of people mean on the forums when they say they want more "fun games". We dont want serious stories, great characters, and all that hard work to go away, we just dont want to see it continue at the expense of making the games dull and boring. As an example, it's part of the reason games like Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem, and Serious Sam are getting so much hype at the moment. The FPS genre has made big steps in presenting more serious storylines and characters, but it feels like the advance came at the expense of making the games feel like cookie cutter copies of each other (people love to call out COD style games, but think about all the Halo and GoW knockoffs too)

TL;DR I would rather have a fun game with a shitty story over a well written game with dull gameplay any day. Mature gaming experiences with great stories and characters are important, but it's all for naught if the games stop being fun

 

[binvjoh]

It's a matter of terminology mostly.

Fun doesn't always represent the sort of experience you want, I'd say engaging works better.

 

[Netrigan]

I would say that video games should be compelling.

I would say the same of all mediums. Fun is one way to achieve this goal. Excitement, fear, titillation, outrage, whimsy, and the full range of human emotion are all equally valid ways of achieving the same goal.

I've watched some truly disturbing documentaries in my life. Stuff that weren't fun or exciting or even uplifting... but they were deeply compelling and only when I'm at low-ebb do I avoid watching similar documentaries, because they are truly compelling works.

Well... yes, I agree with you, but there's a definite market for cinematic games.

Yeah, I just finished playing Heavy Rain and I can't say it was terribly fun in any conventional sense.

But I think it could go beyond simple cinematic games. I consider Call Of Duty 4 to be one of the best single player experiences I've ever had... and the gameplay is more serviceable than fun. While time and time again, "fun" shooters (like Doom and Serious Sam) get dismissed by people because they're un-involving. And if MW had that style of action, the game wouldn't have been so compelling. Obviously, the word fun is being mis-used in some way (hence my quotes), but I'm not sure what word would better fit. Whatever that element that Serious Sam has that CoD or Halo don't? Frivolity, maybe. But whatever that is, that's what people mean when they say "fun".

The whole thing is really subjective, but I think that "fun" is one of those spices in the video game recipe. A puzzle game isn't yippie fun, but they're draw people in. Intellectual stimulation is enjoyable. Competition is compelling, even if you spend three-quarters of the game cursing and end with a rage quit. Even FarmVille has to be scratching some sort of itch, otherwise people wouldn't be spending so much time playing it.

I feel bad now

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escapist-news-network/1047-ROJO

Damn people for over-using a word so much that it becomes a punchline.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

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

It's very hard to juggle both of those things, but I feel that with the way things are going, we will soon get a game that is extremely thought provoking, with a well fleshed out story, and is actually quite captivating.

I would go out on a limb and say Metal Gear Solid 4 did that, but I'm a raging Metal Gear fanboy, so I wouldn't be suprised if everyone and their dog thought I was wrong.

 

[fealubryne]

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?

This is my issue with the argument. What is fun? Even in a plotless killing game, different people are going to have different views on what's "fun" for them. Some might prefer to sit on a roof and snipe poor unsuspecting sods. Others might prefer to chainsaw their opponents in a gory bloodbath. And still others might prefer to punch through the other person and pull out their spine.

Frankly, I think the "fun versus art" argument is circular and pretty pointless. On either side you're going to have you narrow-minded extremists, screaming that you can't have fun in an artistic game and you can't have art in a fun game, and then you'll have the level-headed ones in the middle who get the point but don't bother getting into the mess because they realize neither side is really listening anyway. When it comes down to it, the definitions of fun and art are pretty fluid, and I'd say it's very possible to have games that embody both... but it seems most people reject such a possibility right out of the gate. C'est la vie, I suppose.

 

[Netrigan]

"Fun" has many different definitions. "Stimulating" can cover all those definitions.

So a better way of saying "Games should be fun" would be "Games should be Stimulating".

Now you're making games sound like porn

 

[Astalano]

Bioshock had a beautiful enviornment, a cool story, and most importantly, WAS FUN. By combining all these aspects, it made the game better in every way, and helped draw me in more than if they had been extremely serious and said "Stop having fun guys, we have a story to tell you."

Sorry, but the fun in Bioshock undermined the point of the entire game, as opposed to System Shock 2, which is not about being fun but about depth and the story and environment.

I completely disagree and I think you don't know what anyone means by a game that isn't fun and is something else. Games can be boring, but that's not due to an absence of fun in some sort of power fantasy way, that's due to bad design, poor pacing, etc.

 

[Jumplion]

I am going to state this maxim right here;

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

I prefer to use the word "entertaining" as it encompasses the industry much better. Was Schindler's List "fun"? Was A Clockwork Orange a perfectly fun romp? No, but neither of these facts change how great those movies are or their impact on the world.

This can work for games to. Nobody wants "pure art" games or "pure fun" games, even though at times we do enjoy those extreme types of games. What people want is a balance of these things. You can still have an enjoyable game no matter the subject matter and you can still have a meaningful, artistic game without needing copious blood and guts or pretentious garbage.

 

[daftalchemist]

My only requirements for a game being "fun" is that it's not so obnoxiously difficult that you want to pull your teeth out one by one. However, I'm not about to ***** about the existence of Ninja Gaiden, DMC series (although I do ***** about the existence of Dante's mouth and the ways in which he decides to use it, such as talking), Super Meat Boy, etc. People like those games, that's fine, but don't expect me to be thrilled about them. I'll just happily watch someone who actually enjoys those games play them.

 

[tautologico]

The problem is that the people who are opposed to the "games as art" concept create an opposition that was not there in the first place: they seem to think that to say that games can be art is the same as saying that games MUST be art and never be "only" fun.

So they react saying that games should be fun. Ok, but no one said they couldn't be fun. The "games as art" crowd wants games to be recognized as a medium for art. No one will say the only movies that should be made are arthouse films, and no one is saying that the only games that can be done are "artsy" games.

It's just that a lot of people don't seriously consider the idea that a game may be art, even among gamers. And because of this, because of the general perception that games are mere toys and nothing else, the mainstream doesn't want games tackling serious issues, issues that no one objects when covered by other, more respected media.

Or, basically, this:

EDIT:

All you need it the brackets is this:

youtube=otyXtzLNxoI

Fixed it. thanks.

 

[Astalano]

[
Frankly, I think the "fun versus art" argument is circular and pretty pointless. On either side you're going to have you narrow-minded extremists, screaming that you can't have fun in an artistic game and you can't have art in a fun game, and then you'll have the level-headed ones in the middle who get the point but don't bother getting into the mess because they realize neither side is really listening anyway. When it comes down to it, the definitions of fun and art are pretty fluid, and I'd say it's very possible to have games that embody both... but it seems most people reject such a possibility right out of the gate. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Sorry, but I have to repeat this:

I think very few of the people on these forums and in this topic has any idea of what fun is and what art is. A game can be extremely enjoyable/compelling, thought-provoking and such, without being fun. A game can be fun without being artistic. You can combine both, but they undermine each other. If you allow the player to murder dozens of enemies (e.g. Homefront) then the point of your narrative is undermined and your artistic focus is much lessened. You can have great fun and great art in the same game (a movie representing this could be Inception), but it is so difficult to pull off (no, Bioshock didn't pull it off and you can cry to the moon and back about why Rapture failed and the themes it portrays, but from the moment that the gameplay is a total disconnect from those themes, it fails as both an art game and probably even a fun game; it may have good moments of both, but if they don't mesh, like Inception did, for instance, then it's just mediocre art, if not mediocre fun) that it's much more efficient to go fully artistic (e.g. in Homefront, instead of making you superpowered, you make the player character extremely weak and shape gameplay around the theme of rebellion, with few but decisive kills, sabotage and a lot of running from enemies while taking ocassional shots back at them; the point of the game is emphasised but the gameplay isn't fun, although it might be well paced, very enjoyable, etc.) or fully fun-focused (God of War, Call of Duty, Halo).

 

[Gigano]

I think the lament for "fun" games is focused mainly on the FPS genre, and directed against all the heavy themes they've adopted, storywise and in terms of tactical "realistic" (or not...) gameplay. There have been few lighthearted offerings in recent years, though 2011 certainly seem to be the remedy for such complaints.

And there should certainly be room for games that are all about... fun & games, but that doesn't mean there can't be room for the heavier, thought-provoking, artful, and/or experimental stuff too. Either in separate games or mixed into the fun.

 

[AngloDoom]

The problem is, 'boring' is subjective.

My girlfriend loves looking at art and can do it all day. I find a few pieces entertaining, some thought-provoking, but after about half an hour I'm just nodding and playing the Jackie Chan Adventures theme-tune in my head, over and over and over...

Games should grab a general audience in a way that makes them want to continue. If this is through entertainment, fear, curiosity, titillation, whatever: it still achieves this goal. It isn't always about shooting terrorists.

Bioshock didn't pull it off and you can cry to the moon and back about why Rapture failed and the themes it portrays, but from the moment that the gameplay is a total disconnect from those themes, it fails as both an art game and probably even a fun game; it may have good moments of both, but if they don't mesh, like Inception did, for instance, then it's just mediocre art, if not mediocre fun

Don't mean to single you out from a crowd there, but I think it's strange that you're telling us in definitive terms what art is and is not. That's been up for debate since the word came about.

I'd personally disagree that art can't be fun, but then again my definition of art is along the lines of 'something that elicits an emotional or thought-provoking response'. If Bioshock, to use your example, made the player question the relationship between the player and the character, then surely the gameplay and the story art both in harmony in this idea?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

The problem is, 'boring' is subjective.

My girlfriend loves looking at art and can do it all day. I find a few pieces entertaining, some thought-provoking, but after about half an hour I'm just nodding and playing the Jackie Chan Adventures theme-tune in my head, over and over and over...

Games should grab a general audience in a way that makes them want to continue. If this is through entertainment, fear, curiosity, titillation, whatever: it still achieves this goal. It isn't always about shooting terrorists.

Fun is indeed a relative term. I like computer games but my sis would rather watch x factor...

 

[FallenTraveler]

okay, as a general response: A game can't be fun/entertaining AND artsy? I'm all for a game that tells a compelling story, and I want games to make me emotional, but can't a game make me emotional while STILL having a compelling gameplay aspect?

It's bullshit that someone can forgive an "artsy" game when it is downright boring other than the story. Give me a solid gameplay mechanic of some kind and I will hail it as the second coming!

And horror games are fun, the first F.E.A.R game was both scary and had solid shooting mechanics, BAM! ART GAME!