Sometimes, I wonder if video games are fun anymore. It seems a kind of stupid thought, for sure. They are games, after all. And games are supposed to be fun.
But I was talking to a friend about games at one point. I think we were talking about Dark Souls. He just couldn’t understand why I liked the game so much. Wasn’t it hard? Yes. Super frustrating, too. But the success you feel when you finally overcome a challenge is totally worth it.
“I don’t get it,” he eventually said. “If it’s so hard to win, what’s the point of playing?”
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My problem with games today is that there seems has to be a “right way” to play everything. It’s like every game has some sort of arbitrary gate keeper that says, “No no, you can’t play that way, you have to do this.” It seems no game is free from that. From Pokemon and Stardew Valley to Undertale and Call of Duty. Someone learns a way to exploit a mechanism in the game, allowing them to achieve easier victory. Others learn it, copy it for the result, and then label anyone not using the method a scrub or idiot.
The “right way” always has to do with winning.
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I’d be a liar if I didn’t think winning was fun. Of course I do. I love to win. I’m horribly competitive and a perfectionist. Coming out on top is the best.
But I’ve also learned that winning isn’t the only way to have fun. I have a lot of fun playing Stardew Valley, which is pretty much a farm simulator sandbox game. Sure, you can fight monsters and make friends and pet chickens, but ultimately, you probably farm at some point. In Pokemon, I love catching a bunch of different creatures to round out my team, or play the whole thing with a party of Eevees. Not because they’re the strongest, because they’re cute and it’s fun to try to new things. I have fun level grinding in Bravely Default . I chose a dexterity build in Dark Souls because it would challenge me. I play these games in a way that is fun for me.
So many times, when I bring these sort of things up to other gamers, they give me these weird looks. “Why don’t you EV train?” they ask, looking at my Pokemon team. “I could wipe you out in an instant.”
“Why don’t you use Lightning miracles or pyromancy?” they ask, when I describe how hard of a time I’m having against specific bosses in Dark Souls. “You don’t even have to get close, it’s so much easier.”
“Why are you wasting time with those crops?” Pointing to my set in Stardew Valley. “Don’t you know the quickest way to make money and have the farm is to…”
It’s examples like these that start to cause problems. There’s this intrinsic need in the gaming community to be bigger and better than everyone else. I’m sure it’s always been that way, but I definitely keep running into it myself recently.
My friends and I used to open up a match of Super Smash Bros: Melee to just fuck around. We’d all go random and try to get the funniest KO. Or open up Halo 2 and do warthog jousting. Sure, we’d compete. But it never seemed to be to the level as the “MLG Pro gamers” now. It was a friendly competition, not a dick measuring contest.
No no, I know those people existed. I ran into them a lot. I got kicked from their games, my controller taken away at parties. This isn’t a back in my day rant.
I just want to know where the stigma against fun started, and why winning is everything. People go to such lengths to be “the best” that game developers have to create stops to prevent min/maxing and datamining.
It’s like people need to be taught how to have fun…
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I know min/maxing has existed as long as RPGs have. I’d be a fool to say otherwise. Hell, I’ve done it in some of the MMOs I used to play, before I started jack-of-all trading it. I know that sometimes situations call for having someone who is really good at breaking stuff and not much else.
But when you play round after round of Call of Duty and everyone uses the same load out and the same tactics, it becomes less of a game and more of a simulation. And that one person who plays differently, doesn’t use the same load out, gets nothing but a hail of expletives or gets kicked.
Or when, every time you get invaded in Dark Souls, the people have the same build. No matter what you do, it’s always stun-lock/back stab through the front. Exploitation of the game’s slightly broken invasion mechanic. Nothing you can do against that other than not get hit. Or not get invaded. I guess I should get gud, right?
Seriously, though? These playing styles often reek of childish overconfidence and arrogance. Like any sort of deviation makes you “not as good” because you won’t use a system exploit or have a different mannerism of playing. I think it speaks volumes that games like Call of Duty have game types like “Gun Game,” where you have to switch build types. Because people don’t do it on their own anymore.
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Maybe I just wrote myself into hypocritical box. Because there should be many ways to have fun, right? And some people have fun by getting the top score in a multiplayer match or having way more money than they need for farming. Maybe some folks just really like a specific build and could never ever imagine trying anything new. (I was one of those folks. Strength builds FOR THE WIN…and then I tried being an archer).
What my problem with this specific “fun,” is that it falls into this weird, logical fallacy: ”I’m good because I win. I win because it’s hard to lose if I do it a way I saw. I’m having fun because I’m good.”
This kind of thinking actually prevents other people from having fun in any other way. It praises a strange sort of singularity where any other play method–regardless of game type–is not allowed. This idea that winning is the only way to have fun keeps any other sort of “fun” off the servers.
It’s fine if you have fun winning. But you have to lose some times.
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There is a rule in my house, between my partner and I: “If you’re not having fun, stop.” This rule was put in place after he and I wrote our TO PLAY list down on one of my notepads, listing out all the games we want to play again, want each other to experience the first time, or want to play co-op.
It was my partner’s idea. Because he was quite aware that his and my definition of “fun” might do not always line up. Because he already understood that it’s not really about how “good” you are at a game. The biggest thing is that you enjoy yourself while playing it.
