Worthwhile experience
In my article on rewards, I write that a game must offer a worthwhile experience. I deliberately chose this phrasing over the more ubiquitous ‘games should be fun’. Fun isn’t necessarily the name of the game.
A worthwhile experience can mean that you are having fun, but that’s just one way of being worthwhile. Challenging your preconceptions can be worthwhile. Even making you feel disgusted can be worthwhile sometimes. I wouldn’t say that watching a movie like Se7en or Alexandra’s Project is particularly fun, but they both offered worthwhile experiences and I’m glad I saw them, twisted though they may be. The same thing goes for games, it’s just harder to name examples.
(26 votes, average: 3.81 out of 5)
Loading ...14 Comments
Yehuda Berlinger said,
Comment • October 15, 2007 @ 12:09
I wrote a mid-sized article on this subject which may interest you:
http://jergames.blogspot.com/2007/07/games-are-not-supposed-to-be-fun.html
Yehuda
Deceth said,
Comment • November 12, 2007 @ 18:47
I definitely agree that a worthwhile experience could come from a number of things. I’ve noticed that on my game BattleCity Classic, drama between member of the community actually seems to be a motivating factor keeping player online!
Of course, certain players re-act to the drama differently and end up leaving, so it’s not always easy to find the perfect balance in game-play.
For example, I’ve recently tried to make the game more fun by removing certain aspects of gameplay which were considered lame. While this has reduced complaints and drama, it has not necessarily made the game better as it seems many players seemed to have a worthwhile experience from causing mischief. 
bestam said,
Comment • December 13, 2007 @ 1:17
The ingredients you add that replaces ‘fun’ by ‘worthwhile’ are ingredients that makes the whole thing more hardcore and less casual.
I think.
For films, what you call ‘worthwhile’ implies that the viewer has already seen films before. Se7en, Alexandra’s Project or even Mullholand’s Drive are worthwile because they break a pattern that you have experienced before, because you already have a film culture. Without that culture, they hardly deliver their intentions.
As opposed to films like … Indiana Jones or Some Like It Hot.
mook said,
Comment • February 11, 2008 @ 6:53
I agree with Bestam. A game need not necessarily be fun, but a CASUAL game is for a different kind of audience.
I remember playing Gears of War and spending over an hour trying to kill General Raam at the end. Fun? It’s more like the drive to finally complete the game.
But for a casual game, especially an online game, I feel people like to have fun shooting stuff or solving puzzles. Especially where you have more female players.
Keira said,
Comment • April 30, 2008 @ 18:42
I think they are different audiences. Films that aren’t ‘fun’ tend to have smaller audiences, and the more twisted, strange and bizarre they are, the smaller the audience will be. As someone above me said, you need a film culture too … and less people have played games than have watched movies.
Archbob said,
Comment • August 27, 2008 @ 5:45
Games need to have a pointer, whether its high scores or reaching the end of a level for gamers to keep playing. Games without some kind of achievement or point system quickly lose the interest of players.
Top 10 games said,
Comment • June 2, 2009 @ 8:35
hi. i think game should be user friendly. game should be wonderfully created.
topspeeds said,
Comment • September 21, 2009 @ 6:45
Games need to have a pointer, whether its high scores or reaching the end of a level for gamers to keep playing. Games without some kind of achievement or point system quickly lose the interest of players.
David said,
Comment • September 30, 2009 @ 1:17
I think rewards are critical… it all comes down to satisfaction. The player needs to get a sense of satisfaction from a game. This often comes as a reward, but it also applies to the gameplay itself.
Mark Buchholz said,
Comment • February 27, 2010 @ 15:06
The dirty secret of games is, that we spend so much time with them not having fun at all. Fun is a hook to get people into your game but, as already written, fun does not keep players engaged a long time.
It all comes down to the “value of reward” in a fun environment.
To back this up, in our humble game Pirate Galaxy (http://www.pirategalaxy.com) we experienced that a cleverly balanced value of reward engages players to do things, that aren’t actually fun - for weeks. For example, the lower the chance is to get a specific reward, the more engaged players are in general to get this reward. But, if we wouldn’t provide fun as part of the game experience, they won’t ever get to the point where the reward actually matters for them.
Alireza Yarmohamadi said,
Comment • April 8, 2010 @ 16:34
I think a Game is a Game.
I play games for fun and design games just for players that have good time and fun when they play my games.
PSP Systems said,
Comment • June 1, 2010 @ 9:05
Gaming needs nice innovative idea that people likes….. and also it tooks some time to understand and needs some mind power also….
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
eddies said,
Comment • September 12, 2007 @ 22:02
well thats what i actually comment on your previous blogpost too that games should be user friendly,and now adays developers are forgetting that what is the true ingredient to make game worthwhile as you have said they are more into making money , well i also agree with you on one point that no big name game can give you fun ..nowadays i am seeing that there are some games which are over hyped so i guess this should not happened
regards eddies
www.naturalgames.com