What Is Fun and Why Are We Afraid of It?

While it’s hard to describe, we know precisely when we have it.

“We have come to realize if we are not having fun, we are moving in the wrong direction.” — Ariel and Shya Kane

Why is there a fear of fun?

I suspect that the word “fun” is one of the most frequently used in many of my books and articles. I started and finished my book Self-Gamification Happiness Formula with this word.

I love using the word “fun.” And I assumed that most other people did too. Hence my surprise to discover that there was some reluctance amongst the game and gamification design community to talk about fun. Gamification and game designers talk more about “engagement” than fun.

Curiously enough, the following is one of the very few, if not the only, definitions of gamification I have found in an acclaimed work in this field to include the word “fun”:

“Gamification is the craft of deriving fun and engaging elements found typically in games and thoughtfully applying them to real-world or productive activities.” — Yu-kai Chou, Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards

I am very interested in an anthropological approach to gamification.

Many people will tell you that they play games primarily to have fun. Because games make them happy.

So if games are about fun, then in my opinion gamification cannot be about anything else.

So I asked the gamification specialists, why fun was so rarely mentioned by professionals in gamification design. I also told them that I wondered why there was a tendency to separate fun from engagement and motivation? There seemed to be some resistance towards fun. Was it because the fun was “prejudiced” as not being serious enough?

The answer was that fun is utterly subjective. Certain people might find something fun, which others would not. We all enjoy various things and experience fun differently.

I agreed that what was fun for me might not be fun for someone else. I also could see that what we find fun is not only subjective to various persons but even to the same person in different circumstances. You might enjoy playing a game one day and not so much on another.

But, I wondered, didn’t that apply to engagement too? For example, I could be fully engaged and enjoying something that another person (or me at another time) might struggle with. The same applies to motivation, passion, curiosity, etc. I don’t believe we can say that fun is relative while these others are absolute.

What is fun?

This conversation helped me see that the objects we find fun, motivating, engaging, or interesting are a matter of subjective taste.

But not, in my opinion, the term itself. Fun is fun. Everyone knows how fun feels for them.

We might not be able to express this feeling in words, just as we can’t exactly describe how love and happiness feel, but we know how they feel for us. If you ask a person if something is fun for them right now, they will know the answer, whether they reveal it to you or not.

But let’s see how dictionaries define fun.

Fun according to Oxford Dictionaries is:

- “Enjoyment, amusement, or light-hearted pleasure.

- “A source of fun.

- “Playfulness or good humor.

- “Behavior or an activity that is intended purely for amusement and should not be interpreted as having any serious or malicious purpose.”

Looking at these definitions, I understand that it might be hard to grasp what fun is.

I imagine that the controversy about fun, especially when it came to games, was what moved Raph Koster to write his famous book Theory of Fun for Game Design.

Here are just a few enlightening quotes about fun from this book:

“Fun is light, energetic, playful and…well…fun.” — Will Wright in the foreword

“Fun is all about our brains feeling good — the release of endorphins into our system.”

“Fun is the act of mastering a problem mentally.”

“Fun is primarily about practicing and learning, not about exercising mastery.”

“Fun is contextual.”

“Having fun is a key evolutionary advantage right next to opposable thumbs in terms of importance. Without that little chemical twist in our brains that makes us enjoy learning new things, we might be more like the sharks and ants of the world.”

“Fun is about learning in a context where there is no pressure from consequence, and that is why games matter.”

“Fun is another word for learning.”

“‘Fun is the emotional response to learning.’ — Chris Crawford, March 2004. Also, Biederman and Vessel’s research shows that curiosity itself is inherently pleasurable.” — Raph Koster, Theory of Fun for Game Design

This connection of fun with curiosity resonated with me. My struggle to consider engagement the primary measure of a game’s success (rather than how happy it makes the player) was due to the fact that you can be engaged in a game without actually having fun, or being curious about it.

Some people play games not because they enjoy them or are curious about what new things they can learn, but because they mean to escape the other things they want or need to do. Playing games (or any other escape-to activity) seems easier, than, for example, writing a book.

And they might have the idea that games are more fun to engage with than anything else. But when they play the games to escape something else they don’t enjoy them, and become even more frustrated, though still unable to stop playing.

So, in this case, having fun (along with being curious) would be a more accurate parameter in determining whether a game or a gamified environment brings value to the player or not. Because, if people enjoy what they are doing, then they will also be successful at it. Being aware of whether they are having fun or not can help them to become more successful.

Fun equals full, wholehearted, and rewarding engagement.

Thank you for reading this article! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, then you might also enjoy this story about fun:

A note to this article: It is a modified excerpt from Self-Gamification Happiness Formula: How to Turn Your Life into Fun Games.

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About the author:

Victoria is a writer, instructor, and consultant with a background in semiconductor physics, electronic engineering (with a Ph.D.), information technology, and business development. While being a non-gamer, Victoria came up with the term Self-Gamification, a gameful and playful self-help approach bringing anthropology, kaizen, and gamification-based methods together to increase the quality of life. She approaches all areas of her life this way. Due to the fun she has, while turning everything in her life into games, she intends never to stop designing and playing them.