This seems like something that might have lots of complicated answers, but I often get frustrated thinking about this and I would like to hear what other people have to say. Do you think there is one core thing that all fun games have in common? Is fun too subjective to make this a reasonable question? What is a game? Am I wasting my time worrying about this? I want to know.
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For me personally: it varies a lot. Sometimes the gameplay is just really engaging and I want to keep playing it for the mechanics and interactions alone (Chariot, The Witness, Recursed, Opus Magnum). Sometimes itās the story and characters that really grab me and keep me enjoying the experience (Mass Effect, Divinity Original Sin, Spiritfarer, Void Stranger). In very rare cases all of those elements converge (Talos Principle, Prey, Dishonored, Cross Code).
I donāt think thereās one core thing outside of just mentally stimulating for me, either the mechanics are engaging or the world/characters are.
What is a game is both a fair question and also an onerous oneā¦ I think a game is an interactive experience. That is really boundless but honestly, I prefer more possibilities rather than more restrictive. Choose your own adventure book? Game. Crossword puzzle? Game.
But now we reach a tricky crossroads. I used the word interactivity, but a lot of things my mind considers games have very little interactivity. Now I would absolutely without hesitation include so called āwalking-simulatorsā as games because the ways in which you interact with the world and the things you choose to look at or engage with make it a game. Even games like Mountain added controls to let people engage in whatever way they want. Sometimes webcams allow users to control them, does that make them games? With my definition, yes. Do I consider them games? I guess not really, not automatically. But Iād rather defend that than discount other interactive experiences. Are interactive art pieces games? Sure why not. Can a game be entirely in your head? Sure.
What about distasteful things? Most of life is interactive experiences, and a lot of it isnāt necessarily fun. Washing dishes, mowing the lawn, filling out reports, doing homework, etc. I guess I have to consider them games. Some people enjoy doing those activities for different reasons (I donāt hate any of them outright either, and sometimes the setup for those activities is annoying but the activity itself is fine/fun). I donāt think games have to be fun, and they donāt even have to be fun to be good or even great. That Dragon, Cancer is an absolutely devastating game but sometimes you just want or need to have an emotional experience (same goes for movies, books, etc).
Some people try to incorporate rules into the definition of a game, and I get it, but I also donāt personally agree. A lot of people find fun outside/irrespective of the rules any given game tries to establish. And sometimes removing a rule or adding new rules outside the prescribed ones is just more fun or more interesting. So I guess what Iām saying is that maybe the rules do exist and maybe they are in some way or another core to the experience, but I donāt think they help the definition in any useful way so I donāt personally care if itās included or not. Sometimes when playing games with kids theyāll make up rules or ignore rules nilly willy and itās still fun and definitely still a game, just a harder to pin down one 
Again, all just my personal thoughts. Sorry for the walls of text.
I think wanting to know more is always a great reason to dive into a topic and ask questions! I suspect a lot of different people will have a lot of different answers to these questions too!
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I like how you mentioned chores like dishes and lawn mowing. Iāve also considered these as games, or at least stages where games can be played. Sometimes I try to define games as situations which you are put in and must solve/escape/survive/etc.
Now I am thinking about rules and how they factor in. Is it possible to have a game with no rules? I see what you mean about fluid rules potentially being more fun than rigid ones.
And no need to apologize for walls of text. This is good stuff, it will take me some time to climb it.
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Oooh yeah, games as situations with perhaps some goal is interesting. Would certainly help separate game from toy which mine lacks in a bit, I guess in mine a toy would be a vehicle for a game to happen.
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Well, not sure if this is what you mean, but games donāt have to have rules in the usual sense. Consider for example, the card game Mao. A common way to introduce the rules for the game is to say āthe only rule I can tell you is this oneā. Itās a game about using inductive reasoning to figure out the rules as you play. Though there are some rules that tend to be used in lots of games, Mao doesnāt really have a static set of rules that characterizes it outside of taking turns to shed cards until you donāt have any left and the winner adding a new rule every round.
The āgameā is the induction, to figure out what the rules are (and then to abuse your position as chair to implement new rules that keep you in power, until as a group none of you can remember all the rules :P).
Oh, and to bring it back to walking simulators, I would consider them āgamesā because they encourage you to engage in exploration. Like, consider the game Proteus. All you can do is walk around ā but itās wonderful and fun and it feels interactive even though the only thing you can do is walk. You could say that the game has you make choices about where youād like to go next and as a player you have an agenda (what else can I find out about this world?) and the game rewards you for exploring Do these āgamesā have rules? No, not really. Again, thereās just a structureā¦
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I find fun in tiny little mechanic tests that you get to do repeatedly. Playing an FPS is satisfying each time you land a headshot, because thatās a constant test that rewards you with a lot of damage and usually some good SFX. Its also not something you can do consistently every time, which means you can always improve.
I also like moves where timing is important, I really like Neroās Exceed mechanic in DMC 5. If you rev his motorcycle sword on each hit will play a satisfying roar, add a bunch of flaming particles to the slash, and do extra damage. This has Perfect timing too which allows for special moves, and semi-perfect timing for less bonus damage. Its almost like a rhythm mechanic in a way.
I also really liked Hi-Fi Rush for similar reasons, with its beat-matching mechanics.
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When I see this I think about Masahiro Sakuraiās creating games series on youtube - he has his own definition of how things are fun. It seems ā¦ orthodox, in a way? Like, āhereās how to make and direct a AAA gameā. But worth thinking about
Iām almost less interested in fun as a concept for games, though i do play a lot of games for fun
hmm
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Condensing my replies into one.
Mao is an interesting example, I played it years ago and I had completely forgotten about it. What an interesting game.
Proteus looks really interesting, Iām gonna try it at some point. I donāt believe Iāve ever played a walking simulator or anything like it.
These two and what @ZeikJT mentioned about toys are giving me stuff to chew on.
I need to find more synonyms for interesting.
Hi-Fi rush is definitely on my list. If I understand your reply, you enjoy games that revolve around skill checks. Two games Iāve built some skill for are Halo and Smash Bros, and it is very satisfying to use those skills to fight an enemy or survive some situation. Itās almost like games as athletics.
I only watched some of his videos but I really enjoyed them. I can definitely see how he might focus on optimizing games for selling and industry. Itās interesting that you say you are not so interested in the concept of fun in games.
Thank you for linking that video. I think risk/reward is something I forget about often. Iāve never played space invaders and the āwall of deathā example, even if itās a bug, is really interesting. It reminds me of how certain games give you bonus points for ānear missesā or something similar. How far can I push my luck? How much can I improve my skill to push through high risk situations? Improv is a good example. Maybe there is risk due to there being no prepared material, balanced with the reward of coming up with a really funny bit on the fly.
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@isomorphism Sakurai mentioned? Iāll take it from here.
This video tells all, and just so happens to be full of great phrases like āfun is subjectiveā and āyou canāt be a chef if you canāt discern taste.ā You may call him orthodox, and I wonāt disagree, seeing how he filters all game development through the now-myopic lens of a Japanese insider; but I think his approach to game design is still rock-solid.
What Sakurai basically says is that the core of a gameās essence comes from risk vs. reward, and how that dynamically changes (with and without player interaction) over the course of the game.
This is the best definition of fun, for me. Think about any game that lets you pursue a non-viable or goofy strategy with the ultimate potential reward of āgetting away with itā in the end, like goofy loadouts in Team Fortress 2, or high card runs in Balatro. Thatās fun!
@maidmage talked about timing and tiny mechanics, @ZeikJT mentioned goals, and you, @PGComai mentioned mundane chores.
For me, timing = patience = delayed gratification for the possible reward. Which can be really effective.
Goals = purpose, but thereās a ājourney vs. destinationā clash there. I used to play a lot of games just to beat them, and in the end they werenāt fun enough to play.
Chores = ā¦ Letās come back to this one.
How about improv comedy?? Is that a game?? Maybe because it has the goal of making the audience laugh, and pretty much all improv starts with the structure of a scene framing, or a word. If you ever watch an improv show, youāll remember the improvisers do āgames.ā As I love to say, there ya go.
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This question reminds me of this video that I tend to agree with.
Essentially it talks about how something is āfunā when it has āplayā in it. It could be the way Mario jumps higher the longer the button is held down or even the degrees of freedom in a steering wheelās rotation.
Games and fun are connected, not because games are intrinsically enjoyable but games are fun because they are experiences we encounter through play. And play is the act of manipulating something that doesnāt dictate all of itās capacity but that does limit many of them.
- Ian Bogost
On the topic of ārulesā I would try to reframe that as ālimitationsā. In Going Home, you canāt clip through the floor. The simulated physical space puts certain limitations in place. I think these limitations also have to be some what arbitrary to allow for play which in turn makes way for fun.
Mao has the limitation that players canāt discuss how to play the game. There is still a correct way to play and a rule structure that maintains that. Big Blue Moon shares a similar conceit. I these cases, the āgameā or the āfunā comes in the induction and the limitations make a space for that. If you could just ask how to play, itād really deflate the experience.
I donāt agree too much that virtually anything can be a game as that, to me, implies that all games are virtually interchangeable. Mao, for example isnāt Big Blue Moon even though they share a similar conceit. Likewise, Undermine isnāt Sparklite.
By the same token, I donāt think chores can be classified as games. Games and chores are both borne of objectives but I think games have to have the arbitrary limitations in place to distinguish themselves. Washing a dish has the objective of getting the dish clean but that in and of itself isnāt a game. Washing the dish within a time limit and/or washing the dish without being able to physically touch it provide the bases needed for a game. āGamifyingā is a means of trying to achieve āfunā.
I donāt know if thereās some sort of ratio of limitations to objectives that make things more fun or some sort of formula to suss out but I do like that definition of games and fun.
Also big ups to da homie Sakurai da GOAT
E: thought the hyperlink would populate the video inline, it didnāt so I added the raw link
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I read this guy for school!!
I would agree with you on games having these limitations and chores not really being games for that reason. I think thatās a sound argument.
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Thank you for sharing this! I quite like this concise description of what āfunā is, but I think it isnāt really a definition for what a game is. I think the quote makes it clear that āfunā is a property that a game can have instead of being the defining feature of all games. Ian Bogost even goes on to provide examples of finding fun in jobs and chores that I think many would not consider to be a game (like you yourself state).
At least on the topic of the ontological definition of a game, I would like to say that it will probably be really difficult to provide a clear way to categorize what is or isnāt a game. Not only do I think itās possible to make the argument that games can have different amounts of play, but there is also the set of things commonly considered games that donāt seem to really have that property that are also considered games by the wider public.
For example, visual novels are branching narratives trees that often only provide the element of choice without any interactivity. The entire capacity available to the player is clearly dictated through the choices. Interactive fiction can be the same as visual novels, with varying levels of interaction from the famous Choose Your Own Adventure book series to the early Infocom text adventure game Zork.
You can, of course, make the argument here that some visual novels and interactive fictions are games and some are not. Personally, Iām not too concerned with defining a strict ontological category of games, but I think it is something to consider if you want to do so.
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Thanks for having a look and thanks for the invite!
How do you mean?
When I think of a branching narrative, that makes me think of the capacity not necessarily being dictated through the choice. I.e. I donāt know how this character is going to react or how their role in the narrative will play out based on my choice at this stage.
The larger game for me is seeing all the nooks and crannies of the narrative or exhausting this NPC of their dialogue. (ā©Ļā©)
However, I might have the wrong idea of what you mean by visual novel as I havenāt played many.
The closest experiences I can think of are some of the Telltale Games series and AI: The Somnium Files (Probably not great examples)
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Youāre welcome! ^^
I think you make a great argument for why branching narratives could be considered fun by the definition of āmanipulating something that doesnāt dictate all of itās capacity but does limit many of themā. However, when considering the definition I was thinking about capacity in terms of what kinds of choices you can make rather than what there is to discover. Since the choices do not allow for any degree of freedom other than whatās been explicitly allowed, I would say that itās dictating the entire capacity in which the player is allowed to interact with the story.
As an extreme example, imagine a visual novel that only has āYesā or āNoā decisions (or maybe even only one ādecisionā), for example. You canāt pick anything between the binary opposites. I donāt think Iāve played something exactly like that, but Iāve often had moments when playing visual novels in which I wish I could pick an option that isnāt present in the choices or respond in a slightly different way.
To play the devilās advocate, I would also suggest that even if more degrees of freedom were allowed, what makes any dialog-focused visual novel more of a game than just talking to real human beings? If such visual novels are considered games, then certainly conversations with real human beings would also be games too, wouldnāt they?
But as someone who leans more towards ontological anti-realism, I feel like itās worth saying that the definition of what a game is or isnāt is more dependent on oneās own internal logic than it is on external mind-independent facts. Whatās a game or not is up to you. ^^
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I guess what Iām saying is the capacity, to me, in that example isnāt the binary choice of yes or no. Itās that choice over time. If you took all the question/prompts in the game and did the math on the possibility of choices, there is your play. All the little butterfly effects that affect change down the line. For example I wouldnāt classify a save dialogue as a game.
Would you like to save this file?
[Yes] [No]
I agree that the single modal pop-up by itself does not have enough play to form the basis of a game. However, I would posit that a chain of these modals at certain intervals of time or in conjunction with certain events, can constitute the basis for a game, provided there is some objective as well.
Would you like to save this file?
[Yes] [No] [Cancel]
[Yes]
Are you sure?
[Yes] [No] [Cancel]
[Yes]
But like... really tho?
[Yes] [No] [Cancel?]
[ā¦]
Here the objective might be saving the metaphorical file or perhaps outsmarting this save modal NHNPC. Perhaps this entity is gaming you. Even though the choices are binary (trinary technically?) this can form the basis of a game.
The limitation on choice is an important mechanic but I think the game itself isnāt defined by the single instance of a mechanic but that mechanic or limitation over time.
Alright Keanu 
I posit that the reason talking to humans IRL generally isnāt a game is because of the lack of limitations and sometimes even objective. That isnāt to say these canāt be made into games.
Scenario 1 - No Limitations, No Objective:
Your conversation partner can respond to you in any manner they wish even if it doesnāt make sense or relate to the topic, as is the nature of conversation. Equally, you can also say whatever you want. Not a game really.
Scenario 2 - Limitations w/o Objective:
You can say whatever you want except what you actually mean. Your partner can only make a buzzing sound. Still not a game quite.
Scenario 3 - No Limitations, Clear Objective:
You really want a hug and your partner wants help cleaning every square inch of the kitchen. You both have the full range of vocabulary needed to express your desires. Whatās to stop from just asking for a hug/help and receiving it? Not quite a game still.
Scenario 4 - Limitations and Objectives:
If you combine the two where you can only say what you donāt mean and your partner can only buzz and you couple that with your desires to be hugged/helped, then you have the basis for a game
The āplayā in these instances could be how you attempt to embrace your partner as they flit around and put cleaning supplies in your arms or how you dodge and buzz.
Without some sort of objective and limitation there, thereās not really a game to be had. If you were to reframe the conversation with those stipulations, you could make it a game however.
More simply, you could reframe the objective to be persuading this person to buy your product (I know, I hate it already). The limitations of what you can say are now in place and a clear objective has been set. The āplayā comes in when deciding how to engage them and persuade them to make the purchase.
What is ontological anti-realism? I am not familiar.
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Also Ian goes on to talk about how fun and game are not explicitly tied to one another but that itās possible for them to be. Games arenāt inherently fun and fun isnāt exclusive to games
Like you canāt see the capacity of manipulating the narrative from the binary choices but that is what you are doing. You are limited in that you canāt choose āMake Dove fall in love with Rimaā but when presented with the prompt:
Rima stretches out her hand, does Dove take it?
[Yes] [No]
you have the option to influence the narrative.
[Yes]
Just then, Rima's dog opens the door
Dove: You didn't tell me you had a dog.
Rima: Oh sorry that's Rufus. Who's a good boy?
Dove: You're.... SORRY??!! I gotta go.
Dove leaves before being surprised by Rufus and we later learn Doveās whole family was killed in the Great Dog War of 2798 or something. The ārightā choice here being no as later Rima would tell Dove about her dog and Dove would open up about her family, creating a bond of trust between the two.
Anywayās I have certainly hijacked this thread so I apologize (^ā^; )ć
E: For Rima and Doveās happiness
Yeah! Thatās understandable. I guess what Iām trying to point out is that thereās a gradient from low interaction and high interaction, and where it changes from not a game to a game is up to you.
As I understand it, ontology is the study of being. So, say we try to define what a chair is. If I break part of the chair off with a knife, is it still a chair? When does it stop being a chair? If I have a pillow on the ground in front of a table, it could be used as a chair, but if i move that pillow to a sofa, itās no longer a chair. So, where did the table go? If I unfold a paper crane and flatten the paper, where did the crane go? (See: Do Chairs Exist? by VSauce)
Ontological realism is the idea that there are real, independent, and objective facts external to you that are always true for everyone. Regardless of your perspective, there are facts that are objectively true. Ontological anti-realism, on the other hand, posits that there are no substantive facts one way or the other. Because itās all relative to your perspective, no perspective-independent facts actually exist; different perspectives provide different views on something and there is no objectively right or wrong framework.
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Taking away from a chair until itās no longer a chair sounds like a parallel idea to the ship of theseus, especially if you took those chair pieces and reassembled them into the chair slowly as well, when do you have enough pieces for the new thing to be a chair, when have you taken enough away for the original to not be a chair, can both be a chair at the same time? Lots of interesting questions!
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Ah okay that reminds me of Kantās writings on noumena and phenomena. Noumena being the way things are, independent of our observation and phenomena being things as we experience them.
I think I can understand ontological anti-realism, even if I wouldnāt subscribe to it myself. From my initial reading, I was imagining someone holding a baseball but perceiving it as an apple with both perspectives on the matter being valid.
I now see that that is not what you are saying. Youāre talking about facts, (dare I say statements and ideas?) and not physical objects.
To the ontological point about the chair, if the disassembled pieces are in the same vicinity - more localized than the same room - i.e. roughly the same area and location the chair was in, I would see that as a chair with a changed state, a disassembled chair.
On the other hand, if one of the pieces were to be removed from the whole, I would no longer see the chair but the individual pieces. Also the pillow would be a cushion or seating cushion as chairs have rigid, inflexible backs and/or legs in my paradigm.
@ZeikJT
As for the ship, I think scale is a factor in my paradigm or perhaps utility, I canāt say I would look at a ship, fully disassembled in place, and call it a disassembled ship. I would think Iād see the ship parts, mast, sails etc. Same with a car
Also the paper remains paper but the state changes from folded to flattened
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