Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

Being an RSS junkie, I was able to keep fairly up-to-date with Rock, Paper, Shotgun's recent psuedo-review of the Russian game 'Pathologic'. By all accounts, it's an incredible game, albeit with one very important caveat - it's not a game that's fun to play.

Now I know this seems to fly in the face of all we've come to expect from a game, and completely destroys the already vapid video-game rating system that many sites and magazines employ, but it needs to be taken into consideration. Year after year, we expect our games to be enjoyable - for us to want to keep playing them because they create feelings of relative happiness and satisfaction within us. And along comes a game like Pathologic - and game that, by all accounts, is a cruel and miserable game to play. But the difference is - and what the traditional game review falls apart on - is that even though a game makes you angry, disgusted, tired, paranoid, and all the other 'downer' emotions you can think of, it's still worth playing.

I know a lot of you will be up in arms, ranting and raving at me through your monitors. "What's the point?," you yell, "of a game that isn't fun to play?!"

It's a good point.

And it's a point that will see games forever consigned to nothing more than 'crude stimulations and ego-fantasy' by intellectuals and the media worldwide. I'm not trying to stir up the whole 'are games art' discussion, because that's a rant for another time. But what I'm trying to say is, as a medium, why do games have to be fun? Why do they have to make the player feel good about themselves or their actions? Nearly all other mediums of entertainment certainly don't aspire to be enjoyable. Some of them go out of their way to be as shocking and depressing as possible. And, for the most part, those are the works that people remember.

Take, for example, the medium of film. Are all your favourite movies happy and make you feel good? Mine certainly aren't. One of my favourite movies of all time - Paradise Now - is a movie that's so far from enjoyable it is, at times, physically and mentally painful to watch. And yet it's magnificent. It's extraordinary. It's depressing and violent and shocking and a torturous experience - and yet, for possibly all time, will consistently rank as one of the best films I've ever seen in my life. But why do I like it so much if it's not enjoyable? Why does making me feel so bad make it so good? I could go and watch Bambi or Mary Poppins instead - nice, safe, and enjoyable. They make you feel warm and fuzzy inside and don't challenge you intellectually or mentally. So why should all games be like that?

Why can't a game disgust you? Why can't a game depress you? Why must the game reward you with a sense of self-worth, a place of importance, a sense of satisfaction upon the completion of your tasks? Why do we, as developers, players, and dabblers, place such importance on making the player feel good?

I know the arguments against it all. Most games need to be sold, and you sell a game by making people want to play it. It's that simple. If you make a game that people don't want to play, then they aren't going to buy it, and that isn't going to make you money. Or, at least, enough money. And players today have gotten so attuned to that sense of accomplishment and joy that most games employ that they simply can't process a game that doesn't revolve around such conclusions. Even genres that seem pre-disposed towards the 'abuse' of players, such as Survival Horror, still illicit feelings of contentment and achievement in players. Players can still win, save the day, ride off into the sunset with Jill. Where's the survival horror in a game that you can win?

I'm not suggesting that all games shouldn't be fun. There is a time and a place for everything - there is a reason why every film isn't a Schindler's List - games are, by their nature, an escapist fantasy. But it's something that we have to take into consideration if games, as a medium, are to move beyond their status as simple, mindless distractions.