Sometimes, I address harder truths that make people uncomfortable. Others, involving the observations of these same hard truths, just think I’m either telling some kind of queer, long winded joke, or am just straight up full of shit.


The reaction I expect out of the majority of you who quit before articles end rolling their eyes in disbelief

Okay, with the now singularly intended moment of humor out of the way for this article, I think as a preface for moving forward, I’m going to clear the air before I get into the weeds of this, and reference the title of the article: “It’s practice makes perfect, not fun makes perfect”, to drive point the home I wish to dwell on today, but attempt to calibrate your better senses to prepare yourself for in the spirit of the dictation, so you’re better primed with adjusted expectations reading onward, and in consideration of the ideas that follow.

This article is not intended to be satirical, like some kind of weird parody aiming for a dry joke, nor is it, at the very same time, attempting to be this intensely dogmatic affair, super serious in how grave the situation is that I am addressing. The point of this article is to be real, and there are plenty of fun conversations to be had about what a not real article would read like, but like many truths and ideas I may stumble upon or discuss today, I am likely only to scratch the surface of what I desire to discuss, as I feel many articles that talk about gaming, are either “inauthentic” in being fluffed up advertising of sorts, which is one of the reasons I mostly lamented gaming journalism, as it is enthusiast press on some level, not all of it, but quite a bit of it, and or the content of writeups involve the design aspect of games, or what the game itself has to offer. Few articles kind of consider the psychological state of the player, or more so in my world, the metaphysics that surround the player’s relativity to the games themselves. This is a basic attempt at underlining some of theses ideas. So, with sternness, but self-awareness, I proceed.

I recently wrote an article entitled “Silksong: Democratizing Difficulty”, and I barely touched on the essential elements of the ideas inherent within that proposal, an idea worthy of further diving into. I think, however, that while there is plenty of discussion to be had in the worthiness of what goes into the notion of democratizing difficulty, for a lot of practical, common sense reasons that relate to what is essentially a product of entertainment, or viewed in another way, an element of consumerism not totally dissimilar to a toy, in which it’s main purpose is to generate fun for the user, I think one, hard reality that is overlooked often in the realm of video games, is that by en large, and in an approach of critiquing game design, and likening it to kind of a system of rules, not unlike a government if one would so wish to reappropriate some relevant parlance, and in this spirit of how a democratization of difficulty makes sense, one then has to acknowledge from a certain point of view, gaming itself is more akin to a meritocracy, in that it is a holding of power by people selected on the basis of their abilities.

I bring this up within the spirit of playing Silksong, and having played many games in my day, and wanting to put forth an idea that I basically don’t think I’ve seen addressed with any seriousness elsewhere. Granted, I haven’t read every article ever written in the world of gaming journalism, creative writing referencing the medium, fan theorizing, etc. I regularly engage with the material of all kinds, and have been doing so for more than a quarter of a century, so when I say it is an opinion I do not see even just rarely, mind you, but full stop, never addressed, shocks me so, in just how rare it would seem to be, though for many sensible reasons that I won’t dive into here, I understand why it does not come up more, though it is not the point of my address.

Contingent on my notion of referencing video games within the realm of meritocracy, and in directly referencing the title of my article: “It’s practice makes perfect, not fun makes perfect”, I take this moment now to expound on the notion that some video games, and or at least parts of them, simply aren’t about having fun in a traditional sense. Maybe that is a shocking notion to some of you, maybe I’m saying the most radically obvious thing in the world, I’m not quite sure where 100’s of millions of peoples expectations fall, a randomly large but apt number in describing how many different gamers there are in the world, and is likely a much smaller number than the actual amount, for various reasons I could detail but won’t. I think it is this sentiment, that some games, or some parts of games, aren’t about having fun in a traditional sense, is not an addressed reality, and it’s something I will attempt to discuss briefly, but in no way shape or form totally cover by articles end.

For context: my plan today was going to involve an article called “Boss Breakdwon”, where I kind of detailed some general strategies of fighting video game bosses…in a general sense, not even just in an address of Silksong, as there remains some basic approaches that can help across the board, no matter the game. There are of course, specific strategies I could detail further, involving specific Silksong bosses, but then I also thought of the fact that fighting and strategizing in video games is not just simply a mathematical endeavor, there is a legitimate psychological factor to it as well, and something I always have to focus on when training people in Smash Bros, which I have done many times over. If you do not prepare the player for the realm of the competitive, harden them to grapple with the pretenses of challenge, or hone a sense of virtual resiliency, then the practice or strategies there after are totally moot, because the player is completely incapable of even being prepared to deal with them full stop, so there is no entrance into the competitive realm possible: they simply aren’t ready to deal with the realities that come with practice.

This goes back to my point involving Silksong, but technically applies to any video game that is inherently challenging, or at least possesses challenging aspects, and it is the simple notion that fun does not factor into a genuine challenge, because anything that has authentic difficulty inherent within it will take practice, and practice isn’t fun. As someone who has practiced in all sorts of atmospheres, I can emphatically say, practice is hard work. There are times when entertainment is had, but it’s only a knock on effect of dealing with the issues of refinement and training. Practice is fulfilling, the art of mastering a craft or a skill feels rewarding, and one can capture a contentedness in the process of becoming; becoming better, becoming more adept, becoming ones authentic sense of self in overcoming a challenge, but it basically isn’t fun in any traditional sense.

I guess without belaboring that point any further, I will acknowledge the obvious as to why a developer wouldn’t want to openly “advertise”, in a sense, their own project not being associated with the idea of fun, for a ton of obvious reasons, just like I don’t think a publication or a writer trying to “sell” an idea or a product would wish to espouse the notion it isn’t traditionally entertaining, nor would it be necessarily palatable for people just looking for some low hanging fruit in the realm of entertainment. Same goes for players too, in probably not wanting to make themselves look like absolute freak shows (based on societal standards) that the thing they’re doing, game, movie, book etc is kind of a slogging challenge, with little fun to be had. All of this makes sense, but I think it adds to this shallow narrative of what things are “suppose to be”, what people are suppose to expect, and helps to instill a sense of false expectations both within the medium, and within players at large, that muddy the waters of authenticity and the industry in its entirety, maybe even the truthful reality of the zeitgeist inherent within the subculture itself.

I think there is yet far more to say, and likely, even what has been said deserves iteration and polish, as this represents a stream of consciousness and a rough draft of what I believe to have great metaphysical purpose in addressing a massive element of gaming sorely dismissed, but I will wrap up the thought for the sake of digestibility (on some level) by leaving you with the notion that I do think, there is good news and bad news, within the consideration of gaming, at its base level, with no editorializing, testing, demographics relevancy, democratizing as it were, etc, etc, gaming being a meritocracy. It represents a strange moment of optimism from me, though not without the sliver of cynicism involved on the back end.

The abilities required to surmount challenges within the virtual realm, and I know that is an impossibly large reference point, but for the sake of simplification, or at least, with a by and large standard in mind, for the median representation of what would constitute “challenging” in video games, the abilities to surmount those challenges, are acquirable by anyone (wait for it) willing to invest the time required to master them, and that represents a huge difference and distinction, in the considerable context of person involved. This is due to the notion I hold that all it takes for the time investment required to master the abilities to surmount the challenges, is the constitutive will of any individual in question to justify the time investment to do so, and by that logic, prioritizing the time it takes to accomplish these goals. However, I think some people dismiss the notion of practice, not even considering it within the realm of video games, others don’t find the time investment worthy, for many understandable reasons, and there are others yet who many not articulate it as such, but are simply only looking to enjoy themselves with having traditional fun, and the moment that it is apparent that fun is not happening, they opt out, and that is perfectly fine, too. Those kinds of challenges takes a special kind of mind.

I’ll wrap this up by saying I’m not sure how people are going to take this article, I’m hoping in the spirit it was meant, but that is likely a fool’s errand in the realm of desire. I know I wanted to write it with some sort of catharsis in mind, out of the idea that I had just never seen someone express these notions before, and perhaps it’s one of those weird truths that exist, but people just never have the words to say it, so it simply gets left unsaid, which is why maybe, this inspires others to discuss similar notions, or is some great launching point to open up a wider dialogue about this reality at hand.

I know at the very least, I personally feel better about articulating this truth out loud, in the extraordinarily simplistic but overlooked notion that “It’s practice that makes perfect, not fun makes perfect.

~Pashford