Games dont have to be fun.

So I guess the question I want to ask is as follows: is it actually fun we search for in a game, or is it something different – a sense of self fulfilment at having overcome a task where the result can be positive even if the game itself was not fun?[/quote:3ae771c0ee]

This is a question that doesn’t apply to the mass market. Mass market will require fun. Especially for occasional gamers, you need something to bring you back to the game and that thing is fun. If an occasional gamer doesn’t find some fun in it, they just won’t come back to a game.

For things like you mention, taxi mission in GTA, training for cards…thats hard-core. The percentage of people who do these things is low. I think I managed to get 70% of GTA:VC done. I probably would have gone for more but circumstances were agaisnt me, but I was quite happy with what I’d done and don’t feel the need to 100% complete that game.

I’m my opinion:
1 – Fun is required in games.
2 – The monotony of 100% completion is something craved by a small percentage of people, but that minority love that aspect.

Interesting one this!

Just take Gran Turismo 3 as another example: Anyone who has completed it 100% which includes all the licenses, all endurance races, all cups and all the specialist competitions will know exactly how incredibly tedious the game can be. However once you’ve got that F1 car sitting in your garage there is a definite sense of achievement.

The answer to your question Dave is in my opinion dictated by the variety of gamers to which it applies. Some people play games for fun only and any of those that own either GTA VC or GT probably have not completed it. Why? Because it’s not fun for them to do so!

The other class of gamer will take pride in the fact that they have completely dominated the game. These gamers see it more as a challenge set down before them by the developers. To this type of gamer having GTA VC or GT or even WRC 100% complete is like winning a trophy. Joining a minority separated from the rest only by skill.

We could call these “Trophy Gamers”.

So to summarise:
No, games do not have to be ALL fun. But it does depend on the audience too.

To me that’s why the layered design of Vice City allows both types of gamers to exist along side each other in harmony and one of the secrets behind the games phenomenal success.

Cheers,
Ian

I’ve just given my copy of Vice City away to a friend. So please not too much talk of it or I’ll start to fret ;)

Cheers
Ian

Here’s a strange thing though….
According to a report writen by Paul Jobling on difference in game playing between the sexes, (which you can find somewhere on this site ) I believe its said that on the whole, females are much more likely to finish a game that a male, which to me means, using Ian’s terminology, females are more ‘trophy gamers’ than males. However, the females gamers that I know contradict this finding. My girldfriend for one is terrible for not finishing a game. I felt a need to do it for her when I saw she wasn’t going to complete Double Dash.
Are females more or less ‘trophy gamers’ ??

Originally posted by omen

I’m my opinion:
1 – Fun is required in games.
2 – The monotony of 100% completion is something craved by a small percentage of people, but that minority love that aspect. [/quote:9e223dc3ab]

Completion of a game is not something I, as a gamer, crave. I want a game to always give me the option of delving in more, now whether I take it up on its offer is up to me – but the option should always be there.

Advance wars- the war room is one of the great things about this game, I have even forgotten about the campaign mode because of the depth of play found in the war room’s various missions that I strive to complete.

Its always there whenever I want to play and thats what I like – the ability to delve if I want. Getting all the stars in Mario Sunshine is not my idea of fun (unlike Mario 64 strangely).

I do think games have to be fun….but fun for their audience. I might call some type of game a piece of crap, just because its not my ‘type of game’ (and therefore my ‘type of fun’).

(Hope some of this makes sense)

I recently bought an XBox and can’t afford to go out and buy the games I want yet, and so am left with the package games that I got with it. One of those games is Midtown Madness 3. This game, in my opinion is a BAD game. I think have played it 3 times. First time to test it out, second time to try do am much as possible so that I’d never need to look at it again, but got bored, and the last time cos my games collection is limited and thought I’d give it another go. I can’t actually see myself playing it again. Why? Because there is no fun in the game. The story characters are just annoying, some of the races are quite hard, the physics doesn’t sit well with me.
In short, its a game that lacks fun in my opinion. To try make it fun, they even added in a comedic film about the motion capture guy….it may have been funny, but the game’s lack of fun ebbed my will and I couldn’t bring myself to smile at it.

Fun is essential!

I understand your pain!

But I have to ask, what kind of fun? Motion-capture-guy fun?

I haven’t played Midtown Madness 3 myself but it sounds like the introduction curve to the gameplay was too steep, leaving players frustrated from the start. Not a clever thing to do.

This is just one fatal mistake in game design. The other is adding short comedic films about your motion-capture-guy ;)

Look at Gran Turismo the beginner level offers a gentle introduction into the game, as does the Arcade mode. All this leaves the player free to progress when the player feels he/she is ready. One way to keep you gamers feeling like winners and loving your game! This is key to holding peoples interest and eventually encouraging them to complete the game 100%.

As you saw from some of the other posts, Fun is JUST one ingredient in a good game, however game designers or level designers don’t have to be slaves to it either.

Cheers,
Ian

But I have to ask, what kind of fun? Motion-capture-guy fun?[/quote:60d9465628]
Silly movie about the motion capture guy being a hollywood type star…very unamusing…

but it sounds like the introduction curve to the gameplay was too steep, leaving players frustrated from the start. [/quote:60d9465628]
Nope, introduction curve isn’t too steep. Its just not fun. Reward for doing well is minimal, the atmosphere just isn’t there. Lacks…hmm, whats is it….its lacks ‘fun’.
I did just read a review for it on gamespot this morning. They kinda slate the game, but apparently its xbox live play is good. Thats really not enough.

I agree that fun is just one ingredient. But it is a damned important one. I love a game with a challenge, but if i’m not enjoying the challenge, i’m not going to go back to it, or if i do, i’ll get passed it and never go back to it. Fun will lead to replayability which I feel is important seeing as the length of games seems to be shortening these days. I noticed in Edge this month it was said that a 10 hour length was becoming standard. I have noticed short length in some games, but I’ll replay them if I am enticed to do this, through the enjoyment, not through the feeling of accomplishment of 100% completion which is only achieved once.

I dont agree.
Beyond Good and Evil was about 10 hours, maybe less….I thought it was short. Max Payne was about 10 but I thought it worked well…maybe because I played it through in one sitting…
Some great games have had much more play-time:
Zelda Wind Waker is about 20, 30 if you want to complete
GTA was well over 10, can’t remember how long…20-30 I would guess
Star Wars KOTOR is lots of hours
Diablo II was lots of time plus lots of replayability.

Maybe its again a mass market thing, shorter games appealing to ‘occasional gamers’ so they finish more games. But there is nothing to stop developers to create great games with more play-time

I dont agree.
Beyond Good and Evil was about 10 hours, maybe less….I thought it was short.

[/quote:176fbd16e6]

BG&E?!?!? – I’m in my 40th hour and I’ve yet to complete it! (kidding).

I dont like Diablo2’s single player approach, Ive never really played it online – I know that would be really great.

But then isn’t D2 cheating cheating on the ‘fun count’ since it really only comes into its own online…well for me anyway.

Bass fishing [/quote:49f26c8c12]

I think a Kayaking game could be cool !

I play for the sence of achievment!

In Champo they actually count the number of minutes, hours and days you have spend playing (actual playing time… which is quiet frightening when you see you have spent over a week of your time with the game on!)

:rolleyes:

When I say game length, I mean the time taken to finish a game, whether it be a RPG, RTS, FPS, racing game….

Games that once finished, leave you wanting to replay (espeically multi-player games) add another dimension to the time length.

Civ type games are probably the exception.

With Beyond Good & Evil, I thoroughly enjoyed my 10 hours of play. Addictive play, limited number of enemies, limited power-up, but great story and great fun. I didn’t even notice the the lack of enemies at the time. However, when I came to the end, I felt I should be playig for longer….i wasn’t through with it. I’ve replay it, to get 100% completion, but I still feel like i want more of it. There was potentially so much more to the game.

As for Diablo, the first play, you know when you complete a level you are going to receive a stunning FMV, always worth fighting for. The game is potential massive as new weapons and armour appear in the game as you continually progress, with lots of special items. The beauty of the game is really seen in multi-play though. Some of my most fun gaming moments have been with a 6 player diablo game.

Are we drifting here?

Don’t we always :)

True!!!! Just checking! Carry on ;)

Going off topic isn’t always a bad thing. It lets us explore matters we have yet to discuss that may not be on the top of our heads. Such as this game length discussion which stemmed from a debate about fun in games.

Rock on off topic discussions! ;)

I just didn’t feel I had played long enough for the game to finish. And there was the obvious end bit to give the sequel a starting point. I just felt there should have been more, felt like i was on level 6 of a 10 level game….if you know what i mean.

And i veto – “joe public” shall be the name from now on for mass gamers.

Nominate skyclad for gd of the year for giving us a name for this mass :p

Nah, the story was good.
Just felt like I should be playing for longer.

Maybe it was influenced by the fact the last game that I played through fully was SW:KOTOR and that had LOTS of play time.

A point I missed from earlier….
Champ Manager was mentioned. Can I just ask….seriously, what is the attraction with this game. I just don’t get it. Paying money for a smart database. The game is a complete success, that can’t be denied, but why??
SI Games obviously love what they do, and I’ve met Miles Jacobson and he’s a guy who’s seriously passionate about what he’s doing, but….its just stats….

Nah, the story was good.
Just felt like I should be playing for longer.

Maybe it was influenced by the fact the last game that I played through fully was SW:KOTOR and that had LOTS of play time.

A point I missed from earlier….
Champ Manager was mentioned. Can I just ask….seriously, what is the attraction with this game. I just don’t get it. Paying money for a smart database. The game is a complete success, that can’t be denied, but why??
SI Games obviously love what they do, and I’ve met Miles Jacobson and he’s a guy who’s seriously passionate about what he’s doing, but….its just stats…. [/quote:9e644671d3]

Its the embodiment of alot of peoples desires and interests.

Football fans are so used to look at stats – League tables, who paid X amount for X player etc…

It doesn’t have to feature fancy graphics because it is ‘real’ – infact more real than 98% of games out there, since it is so ingrained in culture and peoples lives that they can relate to it.

Football fans have always criticized team managers and said “‘oh, he shouldn’t have played Sutton ’cause he wasn’t match fit, he should have given the young lad a shot” so CM gives them the chance to do that.

no?

Its just that I’ve seen guys sit in front of a computer playing it for days on end. I don’t understand how you can do that with a game that consists of tables and numbers.
Its just not my type of game..perfer to be doing something than trawling through team sheets looking for that one player that will complete my team. Surely its monotonous?

I totally get what you’re saying though, putting them in the managers shoes and giving them ‘power’ in that sense.

Is it a game that females play, or is it a guy game? I’ve never met a girl thats played it…

I have a game on my site called Virus. There’s no humour in it. It’s just an aggrivating game where the computer mostly beats you into submission. I get many complaints about it every day; it’s too hard, what’s a good strategy etc.

However,

Almost 250,000 people play it every month and many of those are people that played it before and are coming back for more.

They still complain though. But don’t stop playing.

I suppose it’s a little like learning to juggle, it’s annoying when you start but something in human nature make you want to achieve an ending.

“I have a game on my site called Virus. There’s no humour in it”

But “Humour” is not really the same thing as “fun” either as can be seen by some of todays posts in the empty pages thread :)

Nice game BTW Jab!

fascinating topic…. it’s hard to know where to begin!

But there is nothing to stop developers to create great games with more play-time[/quote:ee526bf173]

a trend that some game developers are taking at the moment is to deliberately make their games shorter – 10 to 12 hours seems to be the emerging norm.

I’d hazard a guess that this is for a number of reasons – all of them revolving around… faster development cycles = less outlay = less risk for both developer and publisher…. although some developers have also cited wanting players to see all of their carefully crafted content.

If the game then breaks even and moves into profitability, the returns are higher also because of the lower initial outlay. If we continue to learn of such statistics as “only 20% of games get finished” or whatever it is, then it’s a difficult policy to argue with… and leaving ’em wanting for more is the principle franchises are built on

I’m not sure where I stand on this personally as yet. While both Max Payne 2 and Call of Duty felt a little short to me at 9 – 12 hours each approx., both games left me thoroughly satisified from a gameplay perspective

I kind of think that 30 – 40 hours is a bit long for most titles. Even the great Half-Life (a classic example of the 30 – 40 hours title) could have benefitted from a bit of judicious trimming near the end…

So currently I’m thinking that somewhere between 12 – 20 hours would be my personal ideal.

As a producer/developer…. I’d happily cut levels/content from a game if the schedule and/or budget was threatened rather than some feature that was going to add something more to the player experience – assuming, of course, that the content could be trimmed without damaging the overall gestalt of the game

as per feral’s earlier post… Ludology is indeed emerging as an academic discipine. Ludology is, I think, literally the study of games but more and more is coming to be associated with video games analysis and study.

It is often contrasted with narratology , the study of narrative.

A good article contrasting the two can be found here: http://www.jacaranda.org/frasca/ludology.htm

I’m sure Shane and/or Aphra (and Julian if he’s still around?) could shed more on this for those who are interested

More info:
http://ludology.org/index.php
http://www.digra.org