Hypothetically what if you could get people to run a Fun Analysis app, alongside playing your game could a fun graph help show you how to make a better game?
And more importantly is there technology available to measure people’s level of fun, after all we have brain scanning technology and those funny caps that can show brain electrical activity?
Should every game development book/course come with one of these?
None feasible = Pointless.
Either hook up everyone to matrix, which for one or other reasons may be off limits for average Joe (i.e. VR/AR is very niche on its own as wearable game experience, not to mention brain scanners);
Or run simple game analytical surveys and collect players feedback.
Sorted.
Its called creating and taking a survey.
HOLD ON! I may have made a mistake. See that rogue column of pixels on the end of fun? So it is really 250x36 pixels - and all is right with the world.
No, but understanding fun can help you make a better game. Marc LeBlanc defines 8 Kinds of Fun;
Sensation
Game as sense-pleasure
Fantasy
Game as make-believe
Narrative
Game as drama
Challenge
Game as obstacle course
Fellowship
Game as social framework
Discovery
Game as uncharted territory
Expression
Game as self-discovery
Submission
Game as pastime
Even when using the 8 Kinds of Fun as part of the MDA framework, fun is not measured at all (https://users.cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/pubs/MDA.pdf).
You may take another approach for defining fun, but trying to understand it is more important than measuring it. Taking the approach of multiple types of fun makes measurement more difficult, especially trying to account for how they influence each other. For example, Discovery can affect Challenge over time.
Yeah they keep playing it. Duh!
I don’t think so, even if you could find something to key in on, you could always get false positives and how a person reacts to certain markers can also be wildly subjective. Adrenaline and dopamine are obvious candidates for measuring fun, but they are released for other reasons as well: fight or flight. You’d get the same adrenaline rush if you just beat a hard boss as you’d get if I punched you in the face.
Heartbeat and stress hormone levels could also be used, but again, some problem. In the game Halo, there is a mission called The Library which I speedrun a lot on the hardest difficulty. Stress levels are high because you can easily go from full health to death quickly and the nature of the level means you’re almost always surrounded. This is exhilarating, largely because of the amount of stress involved. Then in the Halo 2 level Metropolis, 14 jackles with sniper rifles spawn in a row in one section. Stress is through the roof because they are pinpoint accurate and will kill you instantly, so missing any of your shots means death and having to repeat the section until you do it perfect. Probably same stress levels, same heart rate, but seriously not fun.
No, because fun is not an actual emotion, nor is it a chemical emitted or used by the body, nor is it a physical tangible thing. You cant test fun like you can usability as there is no definitive metric for what is not fun or what is fun.
One person may find being scared horrible, while another person may find that fun. One person may find getting hit in the face repeatedly with a baseball bat fun, while another may find that painful and not fun.
Fun is relative to the individual and their own personal experiences, emotiomnal spectrum etc etc, and therefore any attempt to “measure” it is completely pointless because you cant compare one persons fun to another persons fun.
There is a good reason that seasoned game designers, the guys who have written the books that most people are trained with these days, still dont try and do this.
Lol, I’m with you on the fun being subjective thing - but I don’t think a lot of people would find getting hit in the face repeatedly with a baseball bat fun.
Your on point in general, but come on man 
Probably exaggerated a bit, true. However some people like hurtcore…
Let’s replace the baseball bat with boxing gloves and it becomes true.
