discord: tref#6771 |
matrix: @tref:amber.tel


I was reading up on a criticism of the story of an indie game I hadn't played yet when I ran into this line:

It's "Fun" but unfortunately that isn't enough anymore.

I'm not going to link back to it because the point is not to attack the person who wrote it, but rather to address the concept they put forward. If you recognize the quote then please be a good sport and keep it to yourself.

I think this sentiment comes from a somewhat spoiled perspective, where:

  1. Plenty of games with both "good" gameplay and story exist
  2. One has played and enjoyed these games
  3. One becomes intolerant of a game that is below the standard that the other "good" games have set

I think I'm making my point clear enough by using quotes, but: a person's enjoyment of a game is subjective and not everyone can or should enjoy it the same way you do. You are simply not always going to be the target audience 100% of the time, and that's fine.

What follows is a really long and drawn-out analogy that I'm not sure makes sense to anyone other than me. Again, I am the old man yelling at a cloud here, you're completely free to write me off and scroll past this.


This might be a bit of a controversial statement, but not all games need to have to greater or cohesive "point" to be enjoyable. Tetris is plenty of fun and I play it frequently. Is there some reason that blocks are falling from the top of the screen, only to disappear when a horizontal line is formed? I dont think so, personally.

But who knows? Maybe there is some grand metaphorical value that I'm being completely oblivious to. Maybe someone else noticed that, and that is how they derive pleasure from the experience of playing Tetris. And that's fine. Not everybody can get the same value out of the same piece of media.

So there goes both people, enjoying Tetris for their own reasons, both having a good time. But along comes person 3, who exclusively enjoys games for their metaphorical value, coming along to play Tetris. Similar to person 2, they acknowledge the greater meaning that Tetris puts forward. Great!

But to person 3, this is comparably not up to the standard that other games have already set for them. But that's okay, because not every game has to be a masterpiece, right?
[EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER]
Nope. This person thinks that, compared to Puyo Puyo, Tetris is simply the inferior version. The value that this person extracts from Puyo Puyo is, in comparison, much higher than Tetris. Therefore, Tetris is an objectively bad game.

(I feel the need to reiterate that this is an analogy and in no way was the original quote discussing either of these games.)

In my attempts to think critically about things I consume instead of mindlessly agreeing with them, it makes me think that person 3:

  1. Cannot enjoy a video game in a vacuum, and is compulsed to draw comparisons
  2. Thinks that their perceived value is the objective, correct value that everyone shares and must abide by

Note that there's nothing wrong with having one preferred way to spend your time. What I take issue with in this case specifically is thinking that:

Because I did not like this, nobody should.

I shouldn't have to explain at all why that is a misguided way of thinking at this point (see above). Especially in the context of what is or isn't a good story, its perfectly fine for something to not be your cup of tea. The only thing that I ask of you is to be a bit more self-aware and realize that you are one among many perspectives, and that your metric for "what is good" will not be shared by the entire population on Earth.

tl;dr: Your standard of what a game "should" be does not apply to everyone.


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