The invisible untouched Golden Elephant in the room - Codifying the full Quanta of "FUN"

[Sinsearach]

To fully exploit a thing, one must most completely understand that thing.
So I've been thinking, has there ever been a near objective & logical "dissection" (or reverse engineering, if you will) of just what FUN is, in the contest of video games, or any particular genre thereof?
Just imagine if that were achieved, a total deconstruction and quantification of what and why "FUN" is, specifically in interactive digital entertainment. That would allow the spectacular sowing of an immense untapped fountain of entertainment via deterministic math, the math of logic.
It would allow every single title built on this knowledge to be just as great as any of the legendaries one typically finds in a top-10 of all time lists.
Note: Where all video games so far are more or less either hit and miss, random blind-shot attempts at what some person or group deems will be likely the most fun they can pack into a chosen interactive experience that they have the resources to concoct, OR sequels and genres merely built on the broadest strokes of "what works".

So.... just exactly WHY? What are the underlying metaphorical "physics" of it, if you will; the mechanics of what/why a user just-so-directed digital simulation can be so damn enjoyable? or equally possibly so horrible and boring/irritating?

But if this were at all a science, of revealed determinism, to any degree, it would revolutionize development entirely. Just as the potential of photons was barely scratched from the inception of the incandescent bulb up to the revelation in the thing call the "laser"; of the precise & entire underlying physical mechanics that had been there, hidden in plain sight all along.
Not just that first thing but all amazing triumphs of research that that branch of science has since made real.

Untold thrills would be packed into the same space of sessions of game time, and the meta experience likewise would be an order of magnitude brighter.

Thank you for your attention.

--
p.s. Let me know what you think.

 

[Kazzymodus]

Fun in video games is a subject that has been visited multiple times (Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun being one of the better known), and while game design terms tend to be subjective (it's a very young field, after all), the general definition of fun is "the act of mastering a problem mentally" ('problem' being incredibly broad, ranging from mathematical and linguistic to interpersonal). However, much like Csikzentmihalyi's flow theory, defining it doesn't really help as much in practice as you'd think. We can synthesise both fun and flow, but the art of game design is to find out which design elements contribute to that synthesis and which do not. Therefore, it's much more helpful to look at existing games and what elements make them fun (and what elements make them 'unfun') than it is to just study the theory. There isn't a complicated formula that allows us to get the most fun, nor is there a list of elements rated from most fun to least fun that we can choose from. The best way to check for fun is to iterate: make a change, test it, get feedback, make a change, test it, get feedback, and so on until you run out of money (or time).

 

[Sigma90]

Comparing games to other interactive entertainment (e.g. sport), I'd say they have something in common: a challenge and a goal. There's probably more to it. If the game has terrible controls and you keep dying as a result, that's not fun. If the soccer pitch is a mud puddle and you keep slipping over, that's not fun. If you succeed in building your castle in the game, that's probably fun. If you score a goal and win the soccer match, it was probably a fun match.

• Do you enjoy your time playing the game?
• Do you feel your time playing the game was not wasted time?
• Does playing the game leave you with a feeling of gratification?
• Do you look forward to playing the game again?

If yes to some or all questions, then the game is probably fun.

Taken another way...

So.... just exactly WHY? What are the underlying metaphorical "physics" of it, if you will; the mechanics of what/why a user just-so-directed digital simulation can be so damn enjoyable? or equally possibly so horrible and boring/irritating?

Rephrasing this:
"... the mechanics of what/why a person kicking a ball around can be so damn enjoyable?..."
"... the mechanics of what/why watching people kick a ball around can be so damn enjoyable?..."
"...the mechanics of what/why jumping out of a plane can be so damn enjoyable?..."
There's probably a psychological explanation for it. I'd say it comes down to how a person perceives fun. Some people can't understand why people can have fun sitting at a computer screen all day. I can't understand how some people have fun skydiving.

I don't think I've considered passive entertainment (e.g. watching a movie) to be fun. It can be exciting or worthwhile, yes. But not fun.

Food for thought anyway.