…In pursuit of meaningful entertainment
Entertainment and games are an integral part of life. They help us relax, they challenge us, inspire us, and they connect us with people to create and strengthen friendships. Games aren’t essential for living, but they are among the things that provide value to life, and make life worth living.
Or at least they should.
Far too many games these days fall short at providing what I consider meaningful entertainment.
- It is satisfying to level up a character, watching him or her grow in ability as you invest time in the game, but far too many games minimize the fun, and maximize the exploitation of addiction, baiting players into spending ever increasing amounts of time (and now even money) just to get to the next level, and the next level, and the next, ad infinitum. You shouldn’t have to waste your life to “win” at a game. It’s not right.
- It is fun to have engaging stories and exciting action, but too many games sell for shock value with dark or violent themes and in the end are not really uplifting.
- It is entertaining to be immersed in a virtual world. And in the age of spectacular technology for graphics and big budgets, it can be easiest to sell something that looks fancy in an advertisement but doesn’t actually provide fun gameplay. A mature game industry that has consolidated into mega-corporations has tended to be shy of risk-taking, and just rehash sequels to tired genres. Technology has made it possible for smaller companies (like me) to try new things, which is great, but there is still so much more to explore.
- It is comforting to meet new friends online. However, if that’s the only redeeming part of the game, it’s not enough. A social element should not merely be an enabler for people to play a game that’s not worth playing.
As founder of LionFire Games, I don’t want to create just another game company. I don’t just want to set out make money by exploiting people who are having fun. And I don’t just want to just have fun making games without giving a lot of thought to how thousands of people are spending hundreds of hours playing our games.
What we’re all about is making games that maximize fun and maximizing meaningful entertainment.
That means making games that are first of all actually fun. It means being uplifting. It means connecting people in positive ways: helping one other, and growing as a team.
Read more:
- Core Values – Defining the aspects of games we feel are important.
- Bios – Bios of the people behind LionFire Games
- Roadmap – LionFire Games’ plans for upcoming games
- Ethics Blog – A blog exploring what makes games add to peoples’ lives rather than subtract
- Game Design Blog – An exploration of what makes games fun