Do games need to be fun to be good?

[Noobc0re]

What is your take on the notion that a game needs to be fun to be good?

For me that holds true. I play games to have fun, so if it's not fun I don't think it's a good game. This can be applied to books, movies, anime, TV-series etc. However I know there are plenty of people who think otherwise.

[PixelTheory]

Noobc0re it's not about objectivity it's about value. I am not talking about the subjectivity of liking or disliking something, I am talking about the what defines fun. "I find X thing fun BECAUSE" instead of "I like X thing because it's fun"

[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.

[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?

[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.

[Noobc0re]

What would be the point of discussing games from a purely objective view? You might as well just make a data sheet at that point.

[PixelTheory]

Sorry but you seem to miss the point...
What is the point of explaining why its fun/not fun when that is nothing but your subjective view? It is infinitely more efficient to explain a mechanic and allow people to come up to their own conclusions.

I could say, Mass Effect 2 is fun cause you get to bang chicks.
Would this be the same kinda fun to a straight woman, gay man or someone that's Asexual.
What about to a religious person or someone that simply does not find it fun.

In Mass Effect 2 you get to bang chicks. = TRUE
It's fun to bang chicks in Mass Effect 2. = INCONCLUSIVE

Fun is just a distraction in this situation.

[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.

[fenrif]

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

[fenrif]

Games are supposed to be fun. If you enjoyed ME1 because of the story then it's a bad game with a good story.

If people just say "fun" or "not fun" then yeah, that's a pointless discussion. But if you explain why it's fun/not fun then it's a perfectly valid and reasonable discussion to have.

[fenrif]

Yes, it's incredibly fun. There's no merciless grinding in the game at all though? There's no grinding at all really unless you want too. It's purely optional.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[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.