Fun, at last!

Chris Dickson from the Mindsports Olympiad (see my story on "Sane Competition for more about Chris' work), sent me a link to this article about the marketing of the new PlayStation. The sign in the illustration pretty much points to the story here. PlayStation is using the word "fun."

"We've never said 'fun' before," he (David Wilson, head of press and public relations for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) said, referring to the new branding of PlayStation.

"It was always an emotive word that somehow devalued the products. But nowadays we have reached 53 million worldwide and now we feel we can use the word."

As chief correspondent for the, yes, FunDay Times, Wilson's revelation sparked in me a small flurry of research How long has the virtual games industry been so profoundly misguided as to believe that "fun" doesn't sell?

I found a site called "The Dot-eaters: Videogame History 101." Immersing myself in its dense and scholarly pages, I came away with the distinct impression that, at the beginning of it all, it all seemed like fun, a great deal of fun.

My visit to the parallel universe of the arcade game, as so earnestly captured by Phosphor Dot Fossils, and to this admirably detailed, century-spanning timeline of technology, only reinforced my observation that it all not only seemed like fun, and not only in the beginning, but, in fact, a great deal of fun has been had by an impressive number of people for a significant length of time. However, as a sometimes designer of computer games myself, I also know that it wasn't something anyone really talked about.

Finding myself at last at the Classic Gaming weblog my suspicions were confirmed. This weblog not only chronicles the history of virtual games, but also comments on the state of the art. I searched its contents for "fun." My search engines came back empty. Apparently, in their branding of "fun," Mr. Wilson and his PlayStation cohorts are bringing something fundamentally new to the gaming world: the very reason it exists at all.

Let us wish them every success.