Do games need to be fun to be good?

[ThyToaster]

I would say yes on a couple different concepts. It needs to be fun for it's player base. I saw someone mention dark souls. The Dark Souls player base actively enjoys dark souls BECAUSE it's so difficult. I don't think there's a game that is going to certified as good that ISN'T fun for who it's marketed towards.

Outside of that, there's the obvious and objective notions that are just requirements. The graphics and mechanics need to be appropriate and up to snuff for the game. And in some games, like racing games, Dirt Rally, F1, etc, the mechanics are almost the most important to making the game good. The cars need to drive appropriately, the physics need to feel right.

So I think there's objective components that can be called good, but they all have to be balanced correctly to make the game fun to it's target audience.

Main point, yes, it needs to be fun, BUT it's also subjective to the target audience. If it's not fun to you, it might be fun to someone else. I don't particularly enjoy Dark Souls, but I don't like games that are hard for the sake of being hard. They're not fun to me, but they're fun to a lot of other people, so I'd say it's a good franchise. Also, I don't want to sound overly passive on this. When a game's bad, you should know it's bad. Whether it's your type of game or not. When something's just bad, you know it. But If something is GOOD is a bit more dependent on the targeted consumer.

[Noobc0re]

I would say yes on a couple different concepts. It needs to be fun for it's player base. I saw someone mention dark souls. The Dark Souls player base actively enjoys dark souls BECAUSE it's so difficult. I don't think there's a game that is going to certified as good that ISN'T fun for who it's marketed towards.

Outside of that, there's the obvious and objective notions that are just requirements. The graphics and mechanics need to be appropriate and up to snuff for the game. And in some games, like racing games, Dirt Rally, F1, etc, the mechanics are almost the most important to making the game good. The cars need to drive appropriately, the physics need to feel right.

So I think there's objective components that can be called good, but they all have to be balanced correctly to make the game fun to it's target audience.

Main point, yes, it needs to be fun, BUT it's also subjective to the target audience. If it's not fun to you, it might be fun to someone else. I don't particularly enjoy Dark Souls, but I don't like games that are hard for the sake of being hard. They're not fun to me, but they're fun to a lot of other people, so I'd say it's a good franchise. Also, I don't want to sound overly passive on this. When a game's bad, you should know it's bad. Whether it's your type of game or not. When something's just bad, you know it. But If something is GOOD is a bit more dependent on the targeted consumer.

Those are still not objective though. You can't have things that are objectively good. You can have things that are objectively there, but they can only ever be subjectively good.

[Verhoven 69]

@OP

But of course!

[MetroidJunkie]

To some degree, it should be fun. I can forgive a game being a little less fun if it has a compelling plot or beautiful aesthetic or the like but that only goes so far. If the game is flat out making me want to eat my own face off, it's not good and I won't keep subjecting myself to torment. If I want to absorb the plot or the visuals or anything of the like, there are Youtube videos for that.

[DarkFlice]

There needs to be a decent amount of entertainment value to a game for it to be good, but I don't know if "fun" is the word for it. I get a lot of entertainment value out visual novels, like the Science Adventure series, the Fate series, the Zero Escape series, etc. because the plots are amazing and the core game mechanics are enough to get by, but there isn't really that much "fun" to be had in those games as it's mostly just visuals and reading, while I hated the first three Gears of War games for a good number of reasons (poorly written plot, poorly written characters, everything looking some shade of brown/grey, etc.) and haven't felt the desire to either return to the games I have played or play more entries in the series even though I don't particularly remember not having "fun" while playing them.

[Necromancerx69]

To me a game doesn't need to be fun to be good.

Look at visual novels for example. These can be considered a videogame, but is it fun? no.

I just enjoy reading a good interesting story (The smut is just an extra for me, but let's not talk about that here, lets stay on topic).
Believe or not some visual novels have good stories to tell.

To me liking / enjoying something doesn't always = Fun.


Another good example is walking simulators like The Stanley Parable.
Sure, I had a good laugh out of it, but was it fun to play? no.

I enjoyed the narrative, but that was it.
I don't see my self playing that game again.

So to answer your question.
I do believe a game doesn't need to be fun to be actually good (it depends on the game).

[TheCruelTutelageofPai-Mei]

A lot of the fun of older and harder games was in getting good gradually. Of course though the classics are classic because of the immediacy of the fun, and then you had that depth too.

[fenrif]

Yes a game has to be fun to be good. Yes what each person thinks is fun is subjective.

[Eggy the Merry]

Yes

As everyone stated above in everyone's comments. Even a challenge has to have some elements of fairness. The hardest game ever made has a win state otherwise it's not a game.

[aileron]

Um... I hope you're deriving some "fun" from your video games, otherwise why are you playing them? A tiny fraction of people might get paid to play games because they're play testers or have some job where they play games, and some of that tiny fraction actually don't find playing the video games fun. But other than that minority, you must get some fun from a game that you keep playing, no matter how hard or grindy or buggy it is, even if it's just to say "I did it" at the end.

[Inkdipper]

I don't think a video game needs to be fun necessarily. It just needs to give the player a valuable interactive experience. A game can be rewarding without being fun. Games can be used to convey many different themes and emotions. I didn't feel like I was exactly having fun while playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, but I did enjoy the experience as a whole. Having said that...What is fun and what is a game?

[Major]

define "fun". I mean, it needs to be engaging and you need to, o one level or another, enjoy what you are playing lest the game be discarded, not played and classified as "not fun".

I would say yes. It needs to be fun to be good.