It's been a while since I've seen a discussion regarding the use of the word "fun" in terms of video games on this forum, and I've now got the motivation to talk about it.
The discussion seems to often be brought up either when someone says that "not all games need to be fun" or when a person claims a certain criticism of a game or games in general is unwarranted simply because the game(s) were made just for fun.
"fun" can be described as something pleasurable, enjoying, amusing, and entertaining. All these words and the word tied to them like cheerful and laughable give the impression the word only elicits positive responses and emotions. This is why I don't like the word and actually don't find that many games or other art forms for that matter to be "fun" due to the kind of emotions most games get out of us other than pure enjoyment, like stress, curiosity, disappointment, sadness, frustration, composure or anything else. Saying all games need to be or ought to be fun seems as odd to me as saying all games should or ought to be sad or stressful.
I'm sure there will be other people's view on fun, and I'm all ears to hear them, but I just find my view of "fun" as a an easily obtainable lower form of happiness(thanks John Stuart Mill!) that isn't brought about through conflict, but can be obtained without a large amount of worry, loss, or any other feeling that isn't already positive. Fun also has the trait of having very little emotional impact on a person other than enjoyment. That's not really a bad thing necessarily, but I usually prefer more from a game or other pieces of media than that.
[HEADING=3]So, here are some discussion topics along with[/HEADING]
Question: What's your view/definition of the word fun?
My answer: see above. I might also note that the words fun/engaging/etc. are still subjective feelings, but it seems that a good portion of media/forms of entertainment has an intention of wanting to elicit X response from their consumers, but whether or not they get said response is a different story. For example, many people find fun in amusement park rides while I personally do not. This is also why option 3 and 4 exist in the poll.
Questions: What would be your example of a fun game? What about a not fun game? Fun/not fun things from other media or forms of entertainment?
My answers: The closest things I can think of would be GTA series and Saints Row 4 in terms of games intended to be fun. Despite both having in-game consequences and likely having the player experience, games like these allow for you to have an insane amount of power and both largely don't treat themselves too seriously. A game I view as not fun would be the one I am attaching to this thread, Spec Ops. As for fun other media, I find a lot of Weird Al and novelty songs to be fun, along with Guardians of the Galaxy. As for other media I might enjoy but don't find fun, I'd say I've got a bit of a spot for sad punk songs and works that tackle dark subject matter like historical atrocities.
Questions: Would you recommend someone play a game you that wasn't your definition of fun? How about other media?
My answers: Despite asking this, I'm not actually sure what I'd do in these situations. In an informal review for anyone to view and make up their own minds or list features of a work someone I know might like, but given how the few times I recommended media taking note on how serious or sad or deep it was to friends and family, they were uninterested. So I have no idea if I'd try again.
Question: What option dd you pick in the poll?
My answer: I chose option 2, since I largely agreed with Extra Creditz assessment of the game in the videos below:
I would say yes and no. The 3rd person shootery bits could be enjoyable or incredibly frustrating, the dying during scripted events was obnoxious as hell, and the story was a bit of a mess at times. Now all of that being said, my friends and I did a straight play through through the night. This is the best way to experience the game in my opinion, because even though the game isn't always fun, or meant to be for that matter, it is an excellent experience. My friends and I experienced extreme exaughstion and anger at many moments, and were finally glad to be done with the damn thing, but now that I have some distance from it, I realize that It was a good time. So would I recommend it as a "Fun" game? No. But as a unique and effective gaming experience, yes I would. Not the best, but it deserves a play.
I had fun playing the game. The mechanics worked well enough and I don't play many military shooters in general so I was entertained by this one. I got the plot of course and I thought it was really well done but it's not going to guilty me into NOT having fun! I enjoyed playing Spec-Ops the Line enough to play through the game three times. I also plan on playing the game again in the not-too-distant future since I haven't unlocked all of the trophies.
The storyline and pacing was really well executed. It wasn't really fun though, it was frustrating getting killed for the millionth time in the same goddamn area
This, among many other arguments in the gaming "community" is really pedantic. And it's especially dumb, because the level of precision being demanded isn't in service of some kind of careful communication that results in the discussion, and acceptance or dismissal, of ideas, it's a masked form of people yelling about what kind of games they like and how their preference is better just because.
You don't like limbo? Well you just don't understand engagement and maturer games!
You don't like Halo or Cod? Well you're just an edgy edgelord with your nose stuck so high up in the air you'd drown when it rained.
*fistfights ensue resulting in torn graphic tees and something about sjw's*
'Fun' in games is just a shorter way of saying 'I want to keep playing'. And whether you want to keep playing depends on what you want out of any particular game, whether it's action, humor, puzzles, story, horror, or a combination of the sort.
I actually did enjoy the gameplay, it was rather simple but to me it seemed fine and in hard you had to think a bit on how to advance and whom to kill first. The slow-motion on the headshots was a cool detail too. The controls werent the best on the PC but quickly eliminating a few bunch of enemies with headshots in slow motion felt great.
Then, all sense of "fun" went out the window when the event happened in the game. I literally had to stop playing because I felt sick for a bit, but then it became a mission. I was going to stop Conrad and his madness, and I was going to make sure he suffered for it.
It wasn't until the reveal at the end that I realized I had fallen completely into the game's trap. I think it was masterfully done, but then I tend to lose myself in games a lot more than most people it seems--especially in terms of this game.
Do I consider it fun though? Not anymore. Not after what happens in it. I still think it's a great game and I still own it, but I won't be popping it into my system to blow off steam like other games I own.
I always feel that Spec Ops The Line is one of those games that you very much get out what you put into it.
That is to say whether you like the game or not depends entirely on how much you "engage" with games in general. If you're disengaged and looking at it from something of a distance then you find the whole thing cynical and get annoyed that overall the whole point of the game is to tell you not to play it, and that continuing to play is your own decision. If you're engaged with it though...well, you get what happened with you here, based on what you said.
agreed, and I felt like alot of people (not everyone) had either been "let on" by fellow gamers/friends about spec ops, and what the game was about rather than finding out about it themselves, so they went into the game with expectations/a chip on their shoulder on what to expect, which I think indirectly took away from "being engaged" as you two put it.
I did also love it, and I felt it was above average in terms of cover based TPS, and there were certainly some difficult scenarios in regards to that on the hard mode, so if anyone is trying to say the whole game was a cake walk, I would tell them to go through it on the most difficult mode, then get back to me.
I'm more inclined to use the word "Engaging" for this kind of thing.
It's more broad to me.
Games can be engaging because they're fun but they don't need to be fun to be engaging.
I don't know if that sentence makes sense but I'm rolling with it.
I thought Spec Ops was pretty fun though there were a lot of times where I was really frustrated at the game. Manly because cover base shooters are always a little frustrating to me. I really liked the story at the time though I don't know if I would like it as much if I played it again. The thing is I wish other games would address the same things that Spec Ops did
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