Are video games "fun"?

I've been replaying Dark Souls 3 recently. Truly one of the most inspiring works of dark fantasy we have today, although this entry feels like it wants to be way too familiar with the series' first entry. At a certain point, I felt overwhelmed. 

 

"I should play something else." 

 

I took the disc of Dark Souls 3 out and put my disc of Bioshock Collection on. It's a compilation of all three games. I'm (re)playing the first one. Shooters is not a genre I'm very interested in, much less games in First Person perspective, but the setting: a city built underwater, draws me in. However, I feel quickly overwhelmed all the same, and turn it off to pick another game. 

 

I go to play Unicorn Overlord, a strategy RPG with a strong emphasis on gameplay and narrative. The goal is to train my army of characters and overcome each battle as the game progresses. One of my favorite genres alongside turn-based RPGs and puzzle games. The game itself is really good looking and the music is outstanding... but I find myself tired quickly. So I give up trying to find a game to play, and go find a book to read or just go take an afternoon nap. 

 

 "Am I just tired of video games?" I ask myself. But I'm not. I love video games. They've been with me all my life. So what's this feeling of boredom I'm getting from games quickly? 

 

During the E3 in 2017, Reggie Fils-Aime said: 

 

"The game is fun. The game is a battle. If it's not fun, why bother? If it's not a battle, where's the fun?" 

 

This feeling, echoed by so many game developers and players, is limiting the potential of interactive media. "Fun" is a broad word, but Reggie diminishes it by assuming fun only comes from building armies, shooting monsters and piercing enemies. There's also much more to games than simply "being fun". 

 

The experience of a video game can hurt, like the astronomically good and gut wretching visual novel The House in Fata Morgana, it can be punishing and yet rewarding, like the Dark Souls games, can demand us to think hard on problem solving, like games such as Baba is You, Professor Layton and Zero Escape. 

 

I guess what I was looking for was a game without combat when I gave up on Dark Souls, Bioshock and Unicorn Overlord last weekend, but these games are scarce. They break the fundamental rule of "fun" promoted for decades. Fun is when I shoot the splicers in Bioshock dead. The thrill of descending into an underwater city or exploring its history is secondary. I like Bioshock for its setting, some characters are slightly compelling, I find the visuals pretty charming and I like doing the puzzles to operate machines, but much of the rest feels flat. The story is told in dehumanizing ways. It's another dystopian narrative from beginning to end, like much of our fiction today. Very rarely video games will adventure into utopian scenarios. Sometimes games such as Animal Crossing will be called utopian, but these games have no narrative. I love Animal Crossing, but what is happening outside these islands? I think if the world ended tomorrow, gamers wouldn't have any problem in processing it. We've been to these apocalyptic worlds so many times, we're psychologic prepared for a world in shambles, but we're not prepared for change; societal change, cultural change, economic change... no. This is not fun, change is not fun. 

 

The internet today is flooding with videos talking about how video games are not fun anymore, and maybe that's because video games were never "just fun", they can evoke a myriad of feelings within us. If the game is a battle, it's definitely more than mere fun, if it's not a battle, all the same. The creators of such videos calling this era the worst era of video games, and all its millions of views should all expand their horizons. Play new games. Play a puzzle game and have a good time, play a visual novel and cry your eyes out, play a turn-based, text-heavy RPG and have your life altered forever.