Anyone who has played one of the new generation of video games and not taken some pleasure in doing so is either a liar or not a human being (alien, skin job, etc.). We play these video games because they are fun, and fun does not easily break down into units of greater analysis. Fun is fun. Exploring new worlds containing creatures strange and hilarious is fun. Hunting zombies is fun. The feeling of speed and adventure created by a good game is fun. I remember the sheer sense of exhilaration playing one of the first Sonic the Hedgehog games. In the real world, I would never move so fast and with such abandon. I remember the genuine, giddy fear that shot through me the first time I was manhandled by a zombie in Resident Evil.
via thesmartset.com
Because videogames are experiential and fun, we have writing about videogames that has almost exclusive focus on experience and fun. This is fine as a starting point, but it shouldn't be the alpha and omega of how and why we talk and write about videogames. As I think we can see in Bissell's Extra Lives and Rossignol's This Gaming Life, such focus has a tendency to cloud, overlook or simplify what videogames are and do. There are exceptions, of course, but not overwhelmingly so. I'm also unsure about the successes of Bissell and Rossignol in terms of reaching a larger audience and/or convincing skeptics of why videogames matter.
Fun is not a good enough answer. Experiential writing is not a good enough answer. At least not for me.