Can A Game Still Be Enjoyed If It Isn’t Fun?

Casually glancing through Twitter at yet another Last Of Us II inspired thesis, a rather morbid curiosity these days, I observed a typically passive aggressive discussion conducted in the usual confrontational tone, that has become mandatory for those that feel secure behind the anonymity afforded by their juvenile Twitter handles and comical profile pictures. Amongst the grim propagation of hostility and various accusatory “ism’s” dispersed by people that would be offended by Pingu, yielded a veritable miracle of modern social linguistics: a calm, measured response. A brief yet significant moment that raised an important observation regarding how or more explicitly “why” you play TLOU II. Though the specifics of the original Tweet has since been consumed by the great monolith of social media, the salient points are that someone stated, among many things, that the TLOU II wasn’t good because it wasn’t “fun”. With another individual immediately refuting that claim arguing that it wasn’t intended to be fun. This statement baffled me.

An indication of a great game is traditionally measured by how much fun you are having playing it. Why play any game if it isn’t inherently fun? Seems counterintuitive. Are “fun” and “entertainment” mutually exclusive? What is the fundamental distinction between them? Is there one? Having not played TLOU II I can’t really comment on the accuracy of the assertion that it is or isn’t “fun”, but can attest to the notion that fun isn’t necessarily a prerequisite, but it does help. It’s also entirely subjective. One man’s fun is another man’s golf! I can’t for instance say I had fun watching “A Nightmare On Elm Street” when I was far to young and impressionable to actually watch it, but I was still enthralled by it. Yet with a game, an interactive experience specifically designed to encourage fun, diminishing or completely negating that intention seems contradictory.

Fun is surely a derivative of entertainment, a consequence of the latter’s influence on the participant. The entertainment being the game and the fun, a naturally occurring result of the journey the player takes during the game. As strained and arduous as that excursion maybe, if you’re not experiencing even a modest quantity of fun you’re going to lose interest rapidly. Games can be challenging. They can be disturbing, even frustrating at times. They can depict environments so effusive that it’s difficult to separate, back to the banality of our own reality. Red Dead 2 is perhaps one of the most technically brilliant games I have ever played, and yet remains unfinished because I just wasn’t having fun. Which makes you wonder whether being entertained is enough in a game?

With a movie or novel possessing an innate exuberance isn’t really statutory when the narrative doesn’t rely on the direct reciprocity of the individual watching/reading. With a game details, narrative developments, character motivations are expressed in a much more personable way. We are the characters. Their struggles are our own. It’s not narrated to us by some incorporeal voice, it’s experienced by us. Through us! And if journey isn’t provoking that impetus we need to persist then there really isn’t any point?!

Whether or not something is fun or merely entertaining is all relative I suppose. A bit like trying to distinguish between rain and sleet. In either case you’re still going to get wet!