Ian Bogost - Water Cooler Games - An alternative to fun

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Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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An alternative to fun

by Ian Bogost November 3, 2003

categories: Console & PC Games , Game Design , General

I gave a talk today at the ITU on persuasive games (I'll post a version here in the near future), and afterward we had an interesting discussion about fun in games. One of my precepts regarding rhetorical games is that they reject fun as a first principle of games. This doesn't mean that rhetorical games are therefore not fun, but rather that they don't measure themselves on the total fun they generate. Instead, rhetorical games need to measure themselves based on the impact they have in the material world.

One question that came up is how non-leisure games can communicate successfully if players need to alter their attitude toward gameplay in a rhetorical game. I can think of many films and works of studio- and fine art I don't enjoy experiencing, but whose core messages stay with me despite my distaste for the phenomenal experience of the work itself. I think the force of rhetorical games will take a similar form.

Later, we replayed the Doom III demo, remembering that the play experience of that game is not a comfortable one to play (the same might be said for games like Resident Evil). Doom III's greusome environment surely doesn't inspire the kind of jovial pleasure of, say, Super Monkey Ball. It's more about fear and disgust.

Nevertheless, I think that the responses of fear and disgust are little more than the other side of the same coin of enjoyment -- different kinds of primordial response. When it comes to rhetorical games, we need to target more subtle emotional and intellectual responses.

Still, I think games like Doom III can teach us a lot about how unpleasant or even downright torpid material can still incite players to continue playing.

Comments (4)

I attended the lecture by Gonzalo Frasca at the Level Up conference, which dealt with this issue (among many others).

Although "fun" doesn't have to be the game designer's motivation, I think for the player it will always have to be entertaining. Games are a really active medium so you need to have constant player motivation.

Doom III might be unpleasant but that emotion is invoked by the mise-en-scene. It works because the gameplay itself is still satisfying.

The 12th September game might have been created from the terrorist's point of view, i.e. getting bombed and not being able to do anything about it. That would also get the idea accross but it wouldn't be very fun. It would just be frustrating.

Yes, I think you can incite unpleasant emotions, but it's very difficult to employ actual gameplay for that. Unless someone knows examples that prove me wrong? I'm a game design student and I'm still in the process of shaping my opinion on this topic.

Marek Bronstring on November 5, 2003 8:56 PM

"Nevertheless, I think that the responses of fear and disgust are little more than the other side of the same coin of enjoyment -- different kinds of primordial response. When it comes to rhetorical games, we need to target more subtle emotional and intellectual responses."

You've played Silent Hill 2, right?

That game caused me to think many of the things that you are writing here. It's good to see that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Mr. Toups on December 1, 2004 8:19 PM

I think perhaps the definition of fun is a little narrow, and that it's also going a little off-target. If we think about the Horror-Fantasy genre in terms of 'escapism', or 'fantasy-fullfilment' then I think we are closer to having a useful definition of the fun in those games.

With a rhetorical game, something else is happening, there isn't really that form of escapism happening. Instead, it's more like satire. The fun comes from getting the joke, from 'working-out' the rhetorical statement.

davemon on August 12, 2005 3:30 PM

There is a little problem in your approach. I play PC games a lot. My favorites are the games like Doom III. Horror, fear, and high tension. It is all about adrenaline. In these days, only very young people play for fun. Actually, half of the games are not for fun.

Bruce Anderson on April 25, 2006 2:44 AM