Nathaniel Chapman, a video game designer at my favorite game studio, Obsidian Entertainment, had a good post on his blog about “A Theory of Fun”. He makes a great point that “fun” doesn’t describe a game, it describes the experience you have while playing it.

His post also made me wonder: do I play video games for fun? Do I, for that matter, read books or watch movies or otherwise indulge in such pursuits for “fun”?

I mean, I obviously do it for pleasure. But what is this sensation “fun”? For instance, are my two favorite games Knights of the Old Republic II and Planescape: Torment “fun”? I don’t know if I would actually say they are. The feeling I get from them is altogether a more powerful one. It is much more like “awe” or “wonder” than “fun”.

There are some games, obviously, which I play purely for fun. Sports simulation games, especially, come under this label. But I do not think of these games as being in any way “better” than those above, though they may technically be more “fun”.

This applies to many other things, as well. The basic romance or murder-mystery novel, is, or at least used to be, regarded by many as a “fun”, cheaply thrilling reading experience, whereas reading Great Literature (or in some circles, Holy Books) is not actually a “fun” experience but definitely a better one. The same goes for films: Star Wars and Jurassic Park are “fun” films. Are films like Citizen Kane “fun”, or is the feeling they evoke different?

People often do draw a distinction between “High Art” and “Low Art” to describe this kind of thing, but the trouble with that is that it can quickly devolve into labeling things you personally dislike “Low Art”, and then it becomes simply an issue of taste.