Do games need to be fun?

[jaxmkii]

what is fun?

this is a difficlut and personal question that has many answers. but more improtaintly dose a game have to be funn?

why cant it be meaningfull?

im sure many would diagree but i rarely find FF games to be fun. often repetitive and boring game play. but i do findthem meaningfull. FFX came around durring a time in my life when i myself felt disenchanted with life in general. it was a tough time for me when my closest friends tuned on me. i hated my job to the point where i ws late everyday (like buy 2 hours) why I was not fired is beyond me. iwas a bad myspace emo story in the making. a friend let me borrow FFX once i started i could not stop i just keept wanting to know what happens next. like my own little version of neverending story i was compleatly drawn in the outside world did not exist.

i have achived true immersion in a game. i had felt every range of emotion. titus's homesickness. Lulu's and walka's difficluty in dealing with the passing of his brother and the death of Lulu's lover and the pain that connected them. rikkus fear that her way of life was in danger. Kimahri devotion to yuna and her devotion to spira. Auron you could tell he just wanted rest. that was just the surface of the characters as you move on though the story you begin to see and more improtainly feel there is more to the one dimentional charachers that most games assume is enuff. this is what happens when you stop trying to have funn and just go with the experance.

for many i guess that did not walk away with the same XP as i did with FFX. it was not fun for me it was meaningfull, and that actauly made it buy far my most favorate game of the ps2 gen. i went on buying multible RPGs hoping o have the same XP again but i never found it.

FFX whent on to inspire me to take chances try new things not only in gaming but in life. I rode my 1982 CB900 across the US and Canada. drove my VW to the arctic circle. ventured into Boston and NYC, I used to have a phobia of citys that i was inspired to overcome. this summer i will participate in the Newport to bermuta race (just the first leg)

FFX sparked the adventurist in me and that made it the most meaning full story of all time for me over any movie book or TV show.

it gave me a direction and a belief that life is... well...

This is my story...

[venomv]

Do games need to be fun? Not by a long shot, games need to be able to grab you and pull you in, just like you descibed, for single player modes anyway, any multiplayer games (or game modes) needs to be fun or people won't like it. Probably why I don't like most multiplayer games.

[Garfunkel]

not at all, as long as it stirs emotions that give a joyful experience then it doesn't matter what your playing, or how "fun" it is. You can play games not just to have fun but to:

learn
discover
achieve
scare you shitless
to pass time
to enjoy new experiences
to make you happy
to make you forget about things
etc etc.

I would not have considered FF7 "fun", doesn't mean i didn't enjoy it.

[Overload]

Intresting, we should take this and compare this to the diffrent philosophies of the gamming giants. Of all the companies I think Sony sees this the most.
But then again all 3 have equally insightfull ideas of what gaming should convey.

[venomv]

But then again all 3 have equally insightfull ideas of what gaming should convey.

I would say that all three have ideas, but I would say one company isn't what I would call insightful, focusing on repetitive online multiplayer modes is a fad.......hopefully.

[Z]

I would say they need to be entertaining is better than saying fun because getting creeped out all of the time and wanting to escape and end the nightmare in games like Haunting Grounds or Fatal Frame is certainly not the definition of 'fun' for me. but it is very intertaining nevertheless.

like all other purchases, I would say games have to deliver on their reason of purchase. if you wanted a game to pass some time on, then if you end up with a game that helps you or lets you do that, then that is the purpose of that game. I buy games for excitement and entertainment. if they deliver that to me, then I consider them a well made purchase and look forward to the next ride.

expanding the notion of 'purpose' you can include everything in life actually.