What is Fun For?

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:43 am

There are plenty of things people enjoy for reasons that are evolutionarily obvious: being fed, sex, etcetera. Apparently, the reasons for enjoying games are not so obvious. I assume that games are enjoyable because they are training: in a hunter-gatherer situation, someone who enjoys playfighting or hide-and-seek will practice it more than someone who thinks it's a boring waste of time, thereby becoming better at actual fighting, hiding, and finding.

Now it's entirely possible that changing technologies have made the things we find fun less similar to the things we should find fun. As an ethical game designer, shouldn't you strive to provide the sort of fun people want that overlaps with the fun people benefit from most?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 8:20 am

Teaching Math and thinking outside the Box you mean?

Teamwork in some cases?
How to game a/the system to succeed?
How to be enough of an asshole to game the/a system to succeed?

Competitiveness(is that a word?) that will allow succeeding over less competitive(this looks wrong too <.<) people?

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:47 pm

Ethics are not my strong suit.

This is my take on it.

I'm not sure what type of game development we're talking about (either tabletop or video), but, the words of my video game design proffesor come to mind, and I think they fit for most things creative.

I forget the exact wording, but it was something to the effect of, "make the game you want to play."

So, if the game you want to play/make is "the sort of fun people want that overlaps with the fun people benefit from most", then, yeah, go all for it.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:09 pm

Well, let's break it down: the F is for friends who do stuff together, and the U is for you and me. N is for anywhere and anytime at all, down here in the deep blue sea.

Rereading that out of context sounds like a creepy come-on. Kids shows can be kind of horrifying once you strip away the cartoony drawings, exaggerated playful voices, and the light-hearted music.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:14 pm

Stahlsteele: Some of those sound like things one would learn from a TTRPG. This thread was started because K, DSMatticus, and Fuchs don't think D&D has any value whatsoever beyond immediate satisfaction.

Shrapnel: That's good game design advice, which I do of course follow. This thread is more about figuring out why it is you should want to play it, though.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 8:56 pm

D&D . . i never played . .
But it should be able to teach you how to be an insidious asshole to others.
Or how to play nice as a team.
Creative thinking outside the box and outsmarting the GM with it probably too.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:25 pm

Foxwarrior wrote:There are plenty of things people enjoy for reasons that are evolutionarily obvious: being fed, sex, etcetera. Apparently, the reasons for enjoying games are not so obvious. I assume that games are enjoyable because they are training: in a hunter-gatherer situation, someone who enjoys playfighting or hide-and-seek will practice it more than someone who thinks it's a boring waste of time, thereby becoming better at actual fighting, hiding, and finding.

Now it's entirely possible that changing technologies have made the things we find fun less similar to the things we should find fun. As an ethical game designer, shouldn't you strive to provide the sort of fun people want that overlaps with the fun people benefit from most?

Fun is ultimately a trick. There are certain things in this world, like catching food, building tools, or brutally beating our enemies to death, that are extremely useful. Our brains are wired to like these things.

Play pushes all the same buttons. Games simulate, sometimes very well and sometimes horribly, things that are brains are wired to enjoy doing in the real world.

It's like the rat with the wire stuck in his head who presses the button that gives him electro-orgams until he dies from it.

Anyway, it ultimately comes down to three things.

Building
Solving
Catching
Escaping
Smashing
Winning
Leading
Mating

You can probably make an acronym out of that.

Building stuff is fun. Houses, tools, things that will keep you alive.
Solving problem is fun.
Catching things that run away is fun, and finding pretty sweet thing, too. That's hunter-gathering
Escaping from danger is a sort of fun as well, and is what fuels most extreme sports crazes
Destroying things is also fun in its own way, because these things can be dangerous, or just in your way.
Winning is always fun, too. Winning is about social dominance, beating others, ensuring that you're on top.
Leading is relating to winning. It's about being in charge of something. That's a rush
Mating, of course, is self explanatory. But it covers surprisingly broad ground, including things like dance.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 1:36 am

It would be a lot easier to make an acronym of that if you had more than one vowel.

So you'd say the most good a game designer can do is to provide fun in the areas that people can't get from the rest of their lives? And providing fun that could be gotten from doing useful things instead is actively harmful: Minecraft provides "building stuff" fun that would otherwise be gotten by fixing up the house; DDR is a form of population control?

Are the creators of Folding@Home some of the best game designers in the world, because they make fun useful?

If you think fun is like electrically induced euphoria death, why do you post on a gaming board?

Do you not think doing something makes you better at it? Does learning to solve problems with spells and items in a TTRPG not carry over to solving problems in other situations at all?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:01 pm

If you can make fun usefull, you are on the road to success . .
Usually, fun ain't usefull and that's the fun part in it. doing something because it's fun, not because it's usefull.
hell, if sitting on those stationary bikes all day could be made enough fun, you would be able to generate huge ammounts of energy with that . . and make people fitter/more healthy too!

The Gaming Den

What is Fun For?

What is Fun For?

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