>>28617666
>Of all criteria that video games can be objectively judged by, 'fun' is the singular most subjective metric

wrong.
fun is a quantifiable metric

what you personally consider to be fun is subjective, but whether or not a game is fun is not. fun is defined by the ability to do what you want in a game without limitation.
for example: nobody finds Desert Bus fun. it is a game literally made to be anti-fun. it does not let you play your way, you can't just drive off the road into the desert, you can't adjust the alignment to correct the pull, you can't chat with the passengers, you can't speed up time. that game is objectively not fun, and it is made that way, limited, on purpose. This is art, not fun.

now let's look at a simulator: let's use AC just to be causal,
you can race, you can hotlap, you can track day, you can mod shit, you can tweak shit, you can have a grand ole time doing literally whatever you want without any limitation aside from stuff the software is physically incapable of simulating or that is outside its scope.
there is absolutely nothing in ac that says 'you must play this way'. the simulation value directly correlates to how fun a racing game is, by allowing the player the same freedom he has in real life. reducing a game's simulation value reduces its fun quotient because you are literally taking features away.