On Fun and Engagement
A couple of weeks ago, before the release of The Last of Us Part II, a tweet by Jeff Cannata comparing Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schinlder’s List to the game sparked all sorts of controversy. Some people argued about whether a comparison between a “zombie game” and a movie about the Holocaust was warranted. And while online debate raged on, I found myself more intrigued by the idea that the game wasn’t enjoyable, nor was it meant to be.
What does it mean for a game to be “not enjoyable” and why do we expect a certain kind of experience from our games? Do we demand that every film we watch be some highly enjoyable piece of escapist fiction? Is every album meant to provide pure “enjoyment” without challenging or provoking thought in the listener? I don’t think so, and I feel that the very nature of and conversation around Video Games inhibit what the audience expects from them and, in turn, what creators feel comfortable creating.
In my mind, the conversation surrounding Video Games has been artificially hamstrung by the most ancient examples the medium has to offer. The early games of the 80s were primarily aimed at children, providing them with fun-filled entertainment. Donkey Kong was meant to be fun. Pac-Man was meant to be fun. Super Mario was meant to be Super Fun. Games were toys; therefore, games were meant to be fun. Their function was to provide enjoyment and escape for the player. And while Video Games have matured and evolved in the interim, often transcending the limits of their own medium (MGS2, The Witness, and Bioshock Infinite come to mind [and are some of my favorite games]), I feel that the vernacular surrounding them has stagnated to the point where there’s this perception that all games are supposed to be fun.
So, is The Last of Us Part II enjoyable? Maybe, but I still think that we can be more precise in our assessment of its achievement. When I think about “enjoyment” in a given game, my mind gravitates towards the interactive aspects of the game, the gameplay. After all, interactivity is what separates Video Games from any other medium. And the gameplay of The Last of Us Part II could be described as enjoyable in that it requires a certain amount of engagement and problem solving ability from the player. But within that description, I think we have the key to this entire enjoyable vs. not enjoyable dilemma: engagement. The Last of Us Part II is engaging, not enjoyable.
Too often, I feel like we use these two words interchangeably. But in my mind, enjoyment, or fun, is simply a subset of engagement. As a rule, most games should strive for player engagement above all else. Within the scope of engagement, games can evoke a plethora of different feelings; games can be fun, thrilling, intense, or sometimes even soothing experiences. Of course, placing limitations on Videos Games is exactly what I seek to avoid here, so I don’t want to be too strict in my language (Death Stranding is a great example of what can be achieved by forgoing engagement for stretches). So, instead of assuming that all games are trying to provide “fun” or “enjoyable” gameplay, we should expect games to be engaging. This subtle change in purpose opens the conversation about games up much wider.
The Last of Us Part II isn’t fun. It’s not fun to sneak around enemy camps and brutally assassinate your enemies, not in this game. It isn’t fun to blow a dude who would very much like to capture and torture you’s face off with a shotgun. And it certainly isn’t fun to knife a cute and cuddly dog in the side of the head. The stakes of the story and the brutal animation combine to craft a gameplay experience that is decidedly “not fun.” It’s traumatizing. The amount of tension and anxiety I felt while traversing the geometry of these levels was almost unbearable at times. The acts which the game forces you to carry out are sickening to the point where, at pivotal moments, I laid the controller down, wondering if the game would allow me to progress without committing them. But it won’t, and you will.
So, the common denominator between all of the gameplay systems is not that they are enjoyable, but that they are engaging. It’s engaging to scavenge abandoned buildings for materials. In turn, combining these materials to craft new items provides an interesting experience that forces the player to plan out their proximate combat scenarios. If you have the skill, you could craft some proximity mines and arrows and take out all of your foes without them even knowing you were there. Or, if you aren’t a stealth-inclined player, you could craft some Molotovs and medical kits and head straight into battle, setting enemies ablaze and accounting for any incidental damage you take on the back-end. Scavenging provides the materials for crafting which informs the decisions allowed in the combat scenarios in the game. And while none of these systems are fun in any conventional sense, they are all engaging in their own ways, forming a cohesive, enthralling experience.
I agree with Jeff Cannata. I don’t think The Last of Us Part II is enjoyable; however, I don’t think that this should be as big or as bold of a claim as it’s been made out to be. Instead, I think we should broaden the horizons of what games are capable of conveying by ridding ourselves of our narrow preconceptions of what games should be. Not every game has to be fun, and I don’t think that every player necessarily wants or expects that. But every game should be engaging in some way, and we should describe them as such. Engaging, interactive pieces of art. Expanding our vocabulary in this sense will only benefit the medium by allowing creators to create without the (perceived or real) constraints of a public that expects a certain kind of engagement from their interactive media.
