I hate fun games

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I hate fun games.

Stop making fun games. Stop playing fun games.

Fuck you. Do I need to put a subway surfers Iframe on this page to keep your attention? Did I distract you from your balatro run? Good.

I hate the endless pursuit of mindless dopamine that has marred our industry.

Oh I’m sorry did your eyes glaze over from having to read a real sentence? Are you used to bright colors, banal quips, and dark patterns? How many playthroughs of Disco Elysium have you started at this point, just to boot up fucking overwatch again? Jesus Christ, pull it together.

I’ll even put my thesis right here so you don’t have to deal with all that pesky subtext. Lucky you!

The game as an artistic medium has languished in comparison with its contemporaries as a direct result of our collective infatuation with the object of fun.

The fuck do you mean “Languished”

You heard me. It’s languishing. And it’ll continue to rot in this rose-tinted, dopamine-addled, “this is fine” ahh hellscape until we do something about it.

Do you not want more games that make you feel something? Think something? Games that change the way you see the world? Games that convey the full depth of the human experience? Are we as game designers and players forever relegated to the artistic children’s table, destined to endlessly throw mashed potatoes at each other while the adults conveniently forget we exist and we gaslight ourselves into believing that “fun” is all a game can do, should do? I don’t want the beautiful games that serve as an exception to this rule to be characterized as a whisper from one kid to another amidst the cacophony of the meaningless food fight around them; At some point those of us who care for the depth of games as an art form need to decide enough is enough, and leave for greener pastures. We must leave behind the notion that a game must be fun.

HOLY SHIT IT’S HATSUNE MIKU FROM FORTNITE
My god you just skipped over that whole paragraph? Just like that? You should really go back and read it, and also ponder your weakness to bold typesetting/ commodified media while you’re at it.

It’s just harmless fun

How many people have lain themselves at the altar of fun? Stopped considering anything past its illusory appeal? It’s popular after all, It sells well. And as we all know, say it with me, “The only value that something has is its mass market appeal and literally nothing else”

How many of our industry’s precious few jobs are predicated upon an unending cycle of crunch and burnout in pursuit of the perpetual necromancy of a game that will never be allowed to peacefully pass away? How many new ideas and designs have we missed out on by desperately clinging to one of a handful of once-successful monoliths? What unique games, genres, themes have gone unexplored?

THE BACKROOMS!
Jingle, jingle! Pay attention! Your favorite word! That’s the second time. You should really do something about that ADHD.

If game players decided that games could be more, should be more, then designers could be afforded the space to create something that doesn’t uniquely cater to fun’s demagoguery. The games industry will pump out commodified imitations of art regardless of the object therein, but demand for nuance will only help individual developers within it advocate for more thoughtful media, as well as give independent developers the confidence to experiment with the medium with less concern for the livelihood of their team.

It may be “fun”, but it is not harmless. We may continue to put food on the table, but we do so at great cost. Cost to our creative fulfillment, cost to our commons, and cost to our sanity as both artists and players.

I just wanna turn my brain off

Meaningful gameplay and mindless gameplay are mutually exclusive.

Read it again.

Meaningful gameplay and mindless gameplay are mutually exclusive. You cannot have one without forsaking the other.

OH MY GOD JIGGLE PHYSICS!
You clicked on that? Really? Phishing has truly never been easier.

Do you ever wonder where that spark of awe that you once saw in games went? Why it abandoned you?

I’ll tell you.

It’s because you abandoned games. You relegated the significance of an entire artistic medium to that of a carnival game. Something to fill the void of exhaustion and boredom. A monkey juggling.

Clap for the monkey. You’re too enervated to do anything else, after all.