Joy

Games must not be about the best graphics, incredible sound effects, prize winning writing or clever game play ideas. Not that ball of that aren't desirable. If you can put all of that on your game, the better. But before everything, a game must be about the player enjoying the experience. If the player don't enjoy playing a game, then the game failed its objective.

I am not saying a game must be fun and make the player smiling all while playing. A game can be sad too, or terrifying or even mind blowing. Games don't need to be 'fun'. But when someone play a game, they need to feel that the time playing was never wasted or boring. They need to believe that the game they played gave them joy, no matter what they define as joy.

And this is something that sometimes I feel that both developers have forgotten. Instead of wanting games that they enjoy more, gamers demand technical achievements. Better frame rate and more pixels seems to be the most wanted feature in a game while enjoyment is sitting in the back. Gamers seem to eager to demand better technical features instead of better everything else. Many don't want story in their games. Many don't want different things. But the number of people demanding technical prowess seems to big.

I am not saying games must look terrible. When Nintendo said graphics doesn't matter, they were wrong but in the right path. Graphics do matter. Nobody wants to play games who looks outdated (even nostalgia fans, as they want games who only have the old-school flavor, in fact). But the most important thing we all must ask is: Are we enjoying the game we are playing right now?

I always defended that if a game become a chore to play, the game is doing something wrong. A game must never feel like a chore. A good game is the game that you always come back to play again. It is the game that the perspective of playing more of it is a reward and not a indifference (or worse, feeling like a punishment).

So, what I ask for is to evaluate a game not by its technicality, but by how much you enjoyed the game. Because that is what should matter.