What Does It Mean When Video Games Are ‘Fun’?


If you have a spare 30 minutes and feel like thinking about video games for a while, you could do a lot worse than this interesting talk by Ian Bogost. The word ‘fun’ is as common and dead as any word we use to describe video games. What do we mean when we use that word, and would we be better served by eliminating that word completely? Very interesting questions.

Ian Bogost came to Australia a few years back and asked many similar questions in a talk he gave at Macquarie University. I remember feeling pretty affected by that idea. I immediately decided I would use ‘fun’ less, because that word was restricting me, and it was restricting communication. I decided that instead of using the word ‘fun’ I would try and say the thing I was really trying to say when I said the word ‘fun’.

So yeah, I guess you could say this was a ‘fun’ talk.

Thanks Ben!


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