Too good for fun

Before I even start, I know in some capacity this article is either silly, or ironically getting worked up in semantics as a response to people being worked up in semantics. Still, as with many of these topics, it comes from a place of bugging me for more than one time too many, and channels through with another more modern hit. The Last of Us 2 (oh, sorry, "part 2") has recently come out with a statement specifically declaring they'd rather not use the word fun. They have trained their team to respond to the dog whistle of "engaging" to avoid a sense of immediate pleasure that follows through the word of fun. In this article, the usual talking head goes on to say stuff like...

"We believe that if we’re invested in the character and the relationships they’re in and their goal, then we’re gonna go along on their journey with them and maybe even commit acts that make us uncomfortable across our moral lines and maybe get us to ask questions about where we stand on righteousness and pursuing justice at ever-escalating costs."

Which sounds nice, except before that bit, this is their reason as to why they can't say fun, but rather "engaging". Because... fun is a rotten word for darker stories apparently. Its further elaborated as...

"Our aesthetic approach to violence is to make it as grounded and real as possible, and we watch – sometimes uncomfortably – a lot of videos from the world, right? The world that we know, and trying to say, 'Okay, we don’t want to make it sexy. How do we make it real? How do we make it uncomfortable because art at times should be uncomfortable?'"

...and like I said before, if this were just a directing choice in and of itself, by all means go for it. I'm proud of that, and fine with dark, agonizing, and thought provoking games. Games that challenge your perspective, and make you walk away thinking about things, questioning the characters or even your own player-choice actions, and the things contained within the magic that is really just programmed storage space on a re-purposed computer. Games are magical in their scope, immersion, and the creative and interesting teams behind it make gaming so cool. That's part of what makes it fun, regardless of whatever brainwashing and violent flick nights go on in Naughty Dog to force themselves to call it by a different name. That's where I take the issue though, where they're brainwashing themselves into a pretentious and somewhat goofy sense of maturity, where games aren't allowed to be fun anymore, and they feel like they're committed to some higher art in the process of snuffing it out. There's a good lesson about that in a sillier place Druckmann & friends may have long lost touch with.

"Its not 'playing' a guitar, its 'engaging' it!" ~ Probably Druckmann

...though the funny thing is, for a guy who is a stickler about what to call fun, he sure throws the word 'sexy' around like it was loose as hell. Violence isn't sexy unless you've got some real dark and specific fetishes, but even then that ain't the stuff of video games. Nobody is asking for that, nor do we describe a game like Doom as sexy. We call it fun, because that's what video games, or even most of consumable media are. Its this situation all over again though, where the truth is they don't care about word play, they just want to sound arrogant and artistically meaningful. So they think of themselves as too good for fun, and bury themselves further down the pretentious artist hole, boasting about how they make "meaningful" games now instead of fun ones. Because ya'know, games are art, until we get to the next step where we're not allowed to call them games either. ...and really, games are art, but art is a fun and exciting medium that pokes at our creativity, and brings a mixture of emotional excitement, thought, and bliss into our lives whereas we just see and do stuff by our own hands. Its real, its complex, and games are a part of it, but there's a misunderstanding with all art that it must be "deep" to be of quality, and then you get idiotic ideas like this where its apparently not allowed to be fun to be at that standard.

Its not just Naughty Dog though, this issue is an odd thing I've seen more of lately around general op-ed pieces, and concerning other games or film. I often now here "Well, you don't call a horror movie fun" ...to which I reply, actually yes, I really fucking do if it was a genuine enjoyable one. As a matter of fact I'll return that with, "so you don't have fun at thrill rides?" If a horror movie wasn't fun, that literally takes a direct translation to it not being worthwhile, or engaging. The two are directly linked, but never does it mean it can't also do more like scare, provoke, or challenge me in some way. I'll enjoy the extra thoughts and depth, but I find such a depth (if done well) to be fun. I never walk away from something I enjoyed saying, "it was too much ___" to be fun. ...and this is ironic, because I must admit if there was ever a close exception, Last of Us 1 might be it. However its still fun! Its just it was also long enough, difficult enough, and story driven enough to make it not worth it to play more than once for the time being. The impact was delivered, and the fun simply wasn't in returning long enough to endure another entire journey through. Partial way, yeah, but not fully. It was still fun though. The mechanics, core health system, inventory management, survival choices, and thrills of proceeding from one major story point to the next, as well as all the exploration in-between, were quality fun. So was Dark Souls, despite its many ups and downs of difficulty and relief-to-frustration ratio, and so was my time with the crazy PT demo. These were fun.

If an emotion ever overrides fun, its probably stress from a bad game design, or a game that is just flat out unpleasant or boring to play. So its a bad game, or a bad game for me. There will never be a fantastic or enjoyable game I want to have that just "isn't fun" or can't be described as such. That's not because it was too deep, or too emotionally gripping, but rather because something like COD lacked the depth to keep me having fun. Again, I automatically evaluate fun with the engagement in a game or piece of fiction. That is their purpose, to excite and transport me into another world of different dramas, puzzles, conflicts, or person's imagination, and the act - if interesting and valued at all - is the value of fun. Trying to argue it can't be fun because "emotions!" or "we're all edgelords about it!" is like trying to tell me I can't call soccer fun because its exercise.

I will have fun, damnit!

I know, at the end of the day the reality is these guys just have a stricter idea of the word fun. They think of the more obvious big smiles all the time, grinning dudebros, and bombastic points and gamey systems overlapped in a quick hour of escapism and beers or energy drinks, or the fun in movies to be popcorn flicks. However its a strange word to get strict over, and honestly when it comes to statements like these, there's only one purpose to them. If they were going for a dark and edgy sort of feel, it speaks to itself, or they'd go more into detail about the steps taken. However instead they're just virtue signaling about what edgelords they are, too good to call things fun with this game. Instead they go around telling interviews and gaining headlines about being serious art now, as if they need to validate it for someone, or compensate for some insecurities. In the process, they might be slowly drifting away from the actual thing I would call fun, which means their game might come closer to sucking, which sucks for the whole big picture as I don't want that. In an environment where they're falling into politicized internet arguments, admitting they're way behind in making anything resembling the game only a few months back, abandoning creativity, and making pay to win multiplayers, the last thing they need to be trying to say is "we're not about fun" to keep a hold on fans. Honestly, I don't hold that against Last of Us 2 (though I'm certainly not compelled to care about it either), but rather the distinct possibility that Naughty Dog is in going to start declining or only go down from here if they don't pick up their heads a little and actually talk about the game rather than their agendas, or how pretentious they are.