First of all, let's make one thing clear. I've never really had any enmity towards Tom Vasel before: his reviews were always on the periphery for me: I knew they existed and I had even seen a few and even made the joke that if I was going to start making video reviews of board games I hated, one of my set pieces would be a slow-mo video of dumping the game components straight into a bin. Apart from that, I hadn't really analysed his videos in much length, until I saw the one above. The video in of itself is perfectly inoffensive and like many of his videos that I had seen before, it wen on for an inordinate length about the actual rules of the game and didn't, at least in my opinion, elaborate enough on the actual merits of the game and how different people would like it/not like it.
This was until I heard the following sentence 'it's not mind-bogglingly difficult, it's just fun!'. Although on the SA forums it appeared like a flew in an apoplectic rage upon uttering those words, in reality I was struck at how those simple words had generated such a negative reaction within me. Although at first I was kind of annoyed at the casual dismissal of so-called 'complex' games (being a fan of them, it felt at the time like an insult), there was something which annoyed me far greatly and in the end, shows us how limited we are in the discourse of analyzing games and trying to vocalize why we think they are/are not worth playing.
First of all, let's analyze what is actually wrong with the above phrase, not-withstanding the reasons already outlined above. One of the aspects that we can speculate on is, for example, the attempted polarization of fun and complexity. The 'just' in that sentence, though, could be used to argue that no such polarization is occurring or meant within that sentence and that IS a fair point (especially after being told that Tom Vasel does play and enjoy more complex games as well). So that particular argument is out of the window.
If we dig deeper, though, there is another, more powerful argument that can be made, and that revolves around the word 'fun' (see, I told you I would explain the reason for the name eventually). I personally find the use of 'fun' very problematic when it is being used to talk, review or judge board games. The most important aspect of my argument is that 'fun' is something inherent within board game. The reason why board games exist and even other games as a whole is to make people have fun. Therefore, the argument goes, since a board game is meant to be entertaining, to describe a game as 'fun' is like saying that food makes you less hungry. It almost becomes a tautology: board games are so intrinsically linked with entertaining people that to define them as being 'fun' is just redundant.
This leads to the rebuttal that in reviewing games, people are allowed to class something as being 'fun' because it allows them to separate games in which no fun is derived due to flaws within the game itself from games that do their intended job by providing entertainment, and are therefore 'fun'. This is shown not to hold water when we see how the word 'fun' is used in the context of the reviews.
Most often than not, many reviewers (and I deliberately chose not to refer back to Dice Tower since I don't think they are the only people to do it) will talk about 'fun, short games': the word fun is overwhelmingly used to describe shorter, less complex and often more luck-based games. I find the above troubling because most of my enjoyment from games is derived from long, complex and strategically/tactically compelling games. I find those games extremely fun and normally eschew simple games especially if they are too random (which has lead some people in my group to show mock surprise when they spy me playing anything less complex than Caylus). This leads to a curious situation in which I see reviews of games that I detest that proclaim the game to be 'fun' due to their lack of complexity/randomness etc. although clearly, for me, the game is 'non-fun'.
So how is such a situation resolved? Do I have to think immediately that the reviewer is a complete idiot? In order to do that, I would have to assume that my own subjective opinions of a game are correct, which is not possible due to the inherent subjectivity of those opinions. The only solution possible is to accept what the label of 'fun' actually is: a completely subjective criteria that the viewers/readers of your videos are not going to necessarily share and therefore, in the spirit of inclusiveness, you shouldn't use. Not only would this help reviewers get negative feedback from watchers of their show that did not find fun a game that was advertised as being fun, but also allow a much wider selection of board game fans to watch your show because, as one goon the board game goon thread said, the only really useful reviewer is one that aligns himself with the same tastes as yourself, which if you are lucky enough to find one is great, but not much help for everyone else.
Hence the name, 'No Fun Allowed'. If I make reviews of games within this thread, I will stick to a strict policy of excluding use of that word (and do castigate me if I slip and use it in the future) in describing a game. This doesn't mean that I won't use the word altogether: it is useful to describe the experience itself ('I had fun', 'the session was fun'), but I will never use it to describe the game itself.
Enjoy the ride!
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