Games are meant to be fun.

[thekorean12]

I'm playing through Red Faction: Guerilla and I don't know why.

Cause steam had it on sale?

[Yiddishpilot]

Condemned was an amazing gameplay experience, but it was far from fun. I was so stressed and jumpy while playing it that my girlfriend thought I was having a stroke. I wouldn't say that I had any fun while playing it, but I am glad I played through it. Games are meant to be fun but sometimes they can be something else as well.

[MrEco]

Playing an easy game isn't necessarily playing a bad game. Just because you don't get frustrated every other key press doesn't make it a bad game, in fact it probably means the opposite.

Well this is completely subjective. Difficulty (much like genre, story, graphics and everything else) is just one of many aspects of a video game that helps a person decide whether they like a game or not. There is no definitive up or down system where the game is factually better or worse depending on it's difficulty.

Let's not forget that games get way lower scores these days if they don't have an online option.

Yes, every game in every genre always get's a lower score if it doesn't have online multiplayer options. That's why Bioshock, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 3, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, and God of War III all got such terrible review scores across the board. And none of them won any game of the year awards. That honor was completely reserved for Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2, amirite?

Game reviewers are idiots.

*facepalm*
No. No they are not. They review from their opinion. Maybe they don't meet your "holier than thou" high horse ridin' standards but it's still just their opinion and all the denial in the world won't stop that.

And I don't want to ever hear anyone calling them gaming journalists. Those people don't deserve the same job title as people who have covered wars, or even people who gave Spiderman 2 an average review.

Brought to you by dictionary.com with the help of the common sense foundation:
jour·nal·ist
–noun
1. a person who practices the occupation or profession of journalism.
jour·nal·ism
–noun
1. the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.

I trust you don't need an explanation of what "gaming" is do you? It seems only obvious that when you take a person who has an occupation based around reporting and writing news based on video games that games journalist would be the only logical job title.

[Nullface]

I know it's been stated on this site repeatedly, but it's just getting worse and worse. Games are meant to be fun.

If you pop in a game and start laughing out loud for hours on end based on how bad it is, it's a good game.

You mean like the cutscenes of Shinobi Legions?

[EvilRyu2099]

I don't think video games need to be fun to be good. In fact, I think there are instances where a good game has been ruined because too much emphasis was put on making the game fun to the detriment of the storyline and atmosphere. Schindler's list is not a fun movie, but it is very good. Video games should be able to do the same. It can lack fun as long as it is still engaging.

Best post in this thread..

[EvilRyu2099]

Could you list some examples of games that aren't fun but still good?

Watching a cutscene in MGS or a random RPG... I really don't classify that as fun, but it can draw you in if it piques your interest...

[J T]

Could you list some examples of games that aren't fun but still good?

Here's a real good example you can play in your browser:
Every Day The Same Dream

[J T]

I also think there's a difference between what JT sees as a game and what other sees. I've noticed JT has taken some interesting opinions on artsy games and is interested in how the medium itself can be used, not necessarily limiting his view to how awesome a round of Mega Man can be, but not trying to exclude that awesome fun that Slowslow325 is after in his gaming.

That's pretty accurate. I do like games for being fun, just like everybody else. But videogames have developed over the last 2 decades as a serious contendor as a story-telling medium. The old arcade games had to be fun. They didn't have fancy graphics or cut scenes. They had to get you instantly hooked so you would drop quarters. They had to be fun. New games don't require that, but they often still cling to it. It's a "game" after all, right? Well, I think video games are currently challenging the very definition of the word "game". They still operate on rules, but games are getting so complex in their ability to tell a story, get us thinking, or to make us feel that we often have an experience that is intriguing and worthwhile, but isn't necessarily fun. I think gaming is really exciting as an art form, but in order for it to tackle some more serious subject matter, certain games will have to abandon the idea that they must be fun. Not every topic or emotion is fun, so to require games to be fun limits them. I of course will always love fun games as well and I think videogames should continue to be both toy and art.

[CRTGAMER]

Could you list some examples of games that aren't fun but still good?

Here's a real good example you can play in your browser:
Every Day The Same Dream

Looks like a nice flash game! I'll have to give it a whirl. Extracted the SWF from there, right click save to play it offline later.

http://www.molleindustria.org/everydayt ... edream.swf

Agree with the core of the OP statement. Just wrapped on both PS2 Katamaris and even though it has a silly premise about it, dam it was fun! A distraction of entertainment, still wanting to go back and collect all that stuff.

[flamepanther]

The notion that "hey, I've got this great game, but the fun parts are ruining the art of it" should be a HUGE cause for the developers to take a step back and consider what the hell they're doing. Games are one of those things that is defined by its purpose moreso than its form. A game, video or otherwise, is traditionally defined as an organized activity with rules and goals that people do for fun and enjoyment. Hopscotch isn't played for the atmosphere, chess isn't played for the story, and circle of death is seldom a thoughtful and culturally enriching exploration of political or philosophical topics.

Schindler's list doesn't have to be fun because it is not a game. It is something different. It is a film. Fun and recreation were never a fundamental or defining quality of what a film is. A news reel is also a film. A film communicates something through moving pictures. If one wants to be technical, it is recorded on strips of celluloid film from which the name of the medium is derived. 2001: A Space Odyssey can be as boring as all f**k and still be a good film, because film does not need to be enjoyable.

Now, there's nothing stopping a game from incorporating things that are not part of its definition. Just like a film can be fun and enjoyable, a game can also be a vessel for communication, art, education, or whatever else you can manage to work into it. But when you've got this game that creates a conflict between the fun and the story/atmosphere/message/whatever, developers and gamers should both be asking whether this is supposed to be a game, or whether it is supposed to be something else.

See, that fun stuff that's evidently getting in the way of whatever the developers have decided is more important? That part is the game. If you took it out, the work might stand on its own as art, but it would be something else. Something that is not a game. If you have what would be a first person shooter that is so focused on realism in its physics, graphics, and depction of war that it ceases to be fun, you do not have a war game anymore. You have a war simulator. If you have what would be an adventure game that is so focussed on storytelling and artistic expression that the fun all gets sucked out, it stops being an adventure game. It becomes a work of interactive fiction. These things completely miss the point of being a game, and substitute some other purpose in its place. That doesn't mean that they're bad, as long as we acknowledge them for what they are and not try to pretend they are something else.

I don't know how many times I have to hammer it home before I am satisfied, but this is something I feel strongly about. Schindler's List is a very good movie--it would be a terrible game. A good movie is not a good game. A good door is not necessarily a good window (but it could be). A good forklift is not a good sports car (but using it as one might be a good game). A good dog is not a good cat. A good grenade is not a good hackey sack. A good toilet brush is not a good tooth brush. You had better think long and hard about how well crossing from one to the other is going to work out before you try to do it. There are many things that if you don't know what the point of them is, they're--to state the obvious--pointless. And possibly disastrous. If the art and the story can't be done properly as a fun game, you're better off making a movie.

Basically, in many many more words, "Slowslow is correct."