I don't know, TLOU is definitely fun. It even has a fun multiplayer mode.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Guys, Do games have to be "fun" ?
- Thread starter Heromanz
- Start date
OP
OP
The Last of Us is a weird case because the story isn't meant to be fun but the gameplay is. Like the game has multiplayer base off how the game plays.
"Fun" means different things to different people.
For example sim racing games are not designed to be "fun", they are designed to be as realistic as possible and I have great fun with them.
Most people wouldn't find any enjoyment in them because they are some of the most brutally punishing games around and it takes a lot of practice to become any good (I'm still working on that :P ) but I find them to be incredibly rewarding and enjoy the time I spend playing them.
So no, games don't need to be designed to be "fun". It's not what everyone wants.
For example sim racing games are not designed to be "fun", they are designed to be as realistic as possible and I have great fun with them.
Most people wouldn't find any enjoyment in them because they are some of the most brutally punishing games around and it takes a lot of practice to become any good (I'm still working on that :P ) but I find them to be incredibly rewarding and enjoy the time I spend playing them.
So no, games don't need to be designed to be "fun". It's not what everyone wants.
No, they don't have to be fun but they should be engaging.
A game like Paper's Please isn't necessarily fun but it's compelling and engaging in its own ways. Soma is bleak, depressing, fascinating. Spintires is a literal slog but I found it incredibly engrossing
A game like Paper's Please isn't necessarily fun but it's compelling and engaging in its own ways. Soma is bleak, depressing, fascinating. Spintires is a literal slog but I found it incredibly engrossing
I don't think I would call Life is Strange "fun" but it's one of my favorite games of all time.
Like any other form of art, games don't have to be anything. You would hope that they would provide you with some kind of emotional response but "horror" or "melancholy" can be just as, if not more impactful than "fun". And of course "fun" is about as subjective as anything could be.
Like any other form of art, games don't have to be anything. You would hope that they would provide you with some kind of emotional response but "horror" or "melancholy" can be just as, if not more impactful than "fun". And of course "fun" is about as subjective as anything could be.
I wouldn't say they need to be "fun" so much.
Enjoyable yes, but a lot of things are enjoyable that aren't fun. Impactful experiences are good as well. I enjoyed games like Last of Us, but I wouldn't call it fun so much, with the setting and everything.
Enjoyable yes, but a lot of things are enjoyable that aren't fun. Impactful experiences are good as well. I enjoyed games like Last of Us, but I wouldn't call it fun so much, with the setting and everything.
I was specifically responding to that poster about his definition of "fun," I'm not trying to say that fun has to, by necessity, denote childishness.
What I am saying is that fun is an ambiguous and not very useful term for analyzing why a game works.
"I like Overwatch"
Why?
"It's fun!"
What makes Overwatch "fun?"
*reasons x, y, and z*
Okay, do you think Super Mario 64 is "fun?"
"Yeah that's a fun game."
Why?
*different reasons a, b, and c*
(please note these are just examples I came up with off the top of my head, you can substitute any two games that are popularly considered "fun" in this example)
The reasons why one game is "fun" can be wildly different from why another game is also "fun," meaning it is such a subjective term you're better off just talking about reasons x, y, and z and reasons a, b, and c instead.
Fun is a broad term.
I think all good games have to be engaging, though, whether that means the game is built around slicing giant robots in half with a katana or slowing plodding your way through a town filled with ghosts and slowly taking pictures of them.
I think all good games have to be engaging, though, whether that means the game is built around slicing giant robots in half with a katana or slowing plodding your way through a town filled with ghosts and slowly taking pictures of them.
The Last of Us is fun in it's uncomfortable brutality because you're just so goddamn good at causing it. And yeah the story is depressing all the way through.
Every game should try to be engaging. Every game does not have to be 'fun'. Typically when people say certain games are 'fun', they don't mean they are 'fun' like playing with a toy is 'fun', they mean the experience was engaging. Horror games, many adventure or VN games, etc. fit this mold.
Now that you mention it, I have no idea what I define "fun" as. I tend to shy away from making statements like "it's just fun" when I talk about games, because I don't think it really communicates something substantial, especially if all games are trying to offer something along those lines? It's like saying "this game has graphics you can really see" like... yeah?
But a statement like "I had fun while playing this" makes a little more sense to me.
Like I would have described Papers, Please as a game I found "fun" personally. I play horror games for "thrills" and will openly admit I like to get sad or angry at a story for "fun". Like i'm not doing it out of any other obligation.
But that said I don't like the sound of saying games need to be "fun" to qualify, I guess because I don't have to personally like a game for it to be considered valuable?
But a statement like "I had fun while playing this" makes a little more sense to me.
Like I would have described Papers, Please as a game I found "fun" personally. I play horror games for "thrills" and will openly admit I like to get sad or angry at a story for "fun". Like i'm not doing it out of any other obligation.
But that said I don't like the sound of saying games need to be "fun" to qualify, I guess because I don't have to personally like a game for it to be considered valuable?
OP
OP
I wouldn't say that. You could make that game not fun but Nd never does it. Like many of the combat Encounters in the game are meant to be fun. Like there's too many things that game does that it impossible for it not to be made to have fun.
It's gotta be an enjoyable experience. Whatever emotional response the game is tapping into at that time, it has to be enjoyable. Otherwise the game gets shelved (I give any game 3 tries before I give up on it, and this is over a course of several years), possibly even sold.
Gameplay needs to work well, story can be whatever it wants. If it feels bad to control then I'm not going to spend very long playing.
As funny as Octodad was - once the humor wore off and I was stuck with those controls I grew tired of it quickly.
As funny as Octodad was - once the humor wore off and I was stuck with those controls I grew tired of it quickly.
The developers even made Ellie "invisible" to enemies, all in the name of fun.
Do you only play fun games? Do you only watch awesome movies and read epic books?
These are descriptors for children.
Nothing has to be anything. If the creator wants it to be a way, it can be that way. Doesn't mean it will be successful or not - that's irrelevant.
The worst thing a game can be is boring, but 'fun' is not necessarily the antithesis to 'boring'.
This thread is getting bogged down in semantics rather than a real philosophical disagreement. To me, the word "fun" implies a level of lightheartedness, but it seems that for others this is not a requirement. Still, I think the consensus is that games can convey other emotions besides joy.
When I first read this thread, I was thinking 'no, but it has to be enjoyable', but 'engaging' is 100% the word I was thinking of. Twelve Years A Slave is absolutely not an enjoyable or fun film, but it's one of the most engaging pieces of cinema I've ever watched.
Games don't always have to be fun, but if they are not fun and in my opinion have to have another thing they are going for such as horror games or an interesting story such as a walking simulator.
In reference to The Last of Us, I think people are conflating 'fun' with 'giving the player positive and happy feelings' and then concluding that The Last of Us is not fun because it does not give the player happy and positive feelings (it does have some moments of levity but they are often followed by starker moments of sadness). The Last of Us is absolutely engaging though, both through it's narrative and gameplay.
Games have had this figured out for over 30 years though, there were horror and adventure games made in the 80s that did not give positive or happy feelings and yet were still engaging. Games haven't needed to be 'fun' in that sense for a long, long time.
Yeah, that's largely where I've always landed. "Fun" has some baggage with it that "engaging" does not.
Considering there are games that exist that aren't fun, I would say we already have the question answered. Books don't have to be interesting and pictures don't have to be well-taken.
Games don't have to be fun, no, but that also means I'm not going to play them. Nothing about the Witness is "fun" for example. There are a multitude of other mediums with puzzles that I can explore if I want a brain challenge.
You are getting hung up on semantics. It's more important what the person means when they say 'fun' or 'awesome' or 'epic' then it is whatever vague adjective they've chosen to describe their experience. Also there is nothing inherently juvenile about any of those adjectives.
Whats the point to PLAY a game if isn't FUN?
Im not gonna play a game if i not having fun with it. Now, a different question would be what kind of things we find fun on games. For example, i do not find fun playing FIFA 19 against the CPU, therefore, i do not play against the IA.
Im not gonna play a game if i not having fun with it. Now, a different question would be what kind of things we find fun on games. For example, i do not find fun playing FIFA 19 against the CPU, therefore, i do not play against the IA.
OP
OP
Absolutely not. Games like This War of Mine are at no point 'fun'. Fantastic experience. Just like a book can be a feel good romp like the first Harry Potter, they can also be dismal, bleak character studies like Blood Meridian.
"Fun" is apparently the only metric Blizzard uses, according to Ion Hazzikostas. I wonder if they also report fun to the shareholders.
Not "fun" per se, but if you're enjoying your time with the game for whatever reason, that is the only requirement. Is an educational game "fun"? Well, if you like being intellectually stimulated, or you find it interesting or whatever...you could maybe call that "fun", but what really matters is that you're enjoying it or willing to be engaged by it.
I only play games I find fun. They're games. Not that you can't get anything else out of them but they're meant to be fun to play.
I don't know what that has to do with what movies or books one enjoys. Saying you like playing fun games certainly is not childish.
This has probably been said a lot, but they have to be engaging and not specifically fun. Some people seek for fun first, others for other elememts, but engaging the target audience is the goal ultimately.
RT tho: fun is a state of mind and to me it's essentially "am i getting what I wanted out of the game"
if I just wanna be mario and jump and go "wahoo" and I get that, the game is fun
if I play a horror game to get spooped and I get spooped real good, the game is fun
if i play an utsuge to get emotionally wrecked and not leave bed for the entire day after finishing it, the game is fun
i feel like trying to say that things shouldn't/don't need to be fun just means you have a very boring definition of what fun is and what it can be