Don’t forget “fun”?

So yesterday I posted a definition of “Game” but shortly after I posted it, someone pointed out that I forgot to include “fun” and Stephen Downes, not without merit, pointed out that it is a “mug’s game” to define “game” nevertheless I will persist with the act of defining game and also examine the case for “fun” within a game.

The question to examine is should a game necessarily be fun?
For insight into the answer, I turned to Raph Koster’s book Theory of Fun for Game Design

Here is what he has to say…

[fun occurs} at the moment of triumph when we learn something or master a new task. This almost always causes us t break out into a smile. After all, it is important to the survival of the species that we learn–therefore out bodies reward us for it with moments of pleasure. There are many ways we find fun in games…Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. it is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun.

So does the definition need to be modified to include “fun” something like “a system in which players engage in an artificial challenge, defined by rules, that result in a quantifiable outcome that is fun for the player.” Not sure that always works because loosing a game is not fun for the losing players, sometimes winning is tough and doesn’t feel as good as you think it should.

But doesn’t the very nature of the word “game” invoke the idea of fun. I have to say not always. And can’t a person play a game and never really achieve mastery? So is mastery a game outcome or only a potential outcome.

In the book Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. It is pointed out that the word “fun” is not liked by game designer Marc LeBlanc who simply hates the term “fun” because it is merely a stand-in term for a more complex phenomenon that no one really understands.

LeBlanc created a typology of of fun that has eight categories that describe the kinds of experiences that others often describe as “fun.”

• Sensation: Game as sense-pleasure
  
• Fantasy: Game as make-believe
  
• Narrative: Game as drama
  
• Challenge: Game as obstacle course
  
• Fellowship: Game as social framework
  
• Discover: Game as uncharted territory
  
• Expression: Game as self-discovery
  
• Submission: Game as an element of submitting to a larger system

While each of those are interesting experiences and many relate directly to instructional concepts like discovery learning and social learning theory (Bandura). Not sure if they each can be classified as universally fun. I remember the first time I played Myst
. I had no idea what I was doing just walking around uncharted territory and I hated it. A friend supplied a few overall goals and hints and I then fell in love. So “fun” can be elusive.

Also, an ADL study indicated that a simulation/game did not have to be entertaining to be instructional so maybe “fun” is not an element but if we look at motivating learners to participate than fun is an element…so more pondering is needed.