I agree with gamasutra writer to an extent.
You go up to 10 people on the street and ask them what fun is and you'll get 10 different answers. Many people have their own ideas of what's fun and in many cases things which are fun for one person are not such for another. With so many different people with so many different ideas of what is fun, the word becomes hollow since you never know exactly what context the audience is going to interpret it in.
Engaging doesn't have such a strong connotation which does make it much easier to discuss across audiences. However, it's still in the same position as fun when you get down to it. It's still subjective and you're still never going to be dealing with the exact same connotation in the minds of your audience. At the same time, it's not fun. It is possible for something to be engaging without being fun. Anything that is worrisome is automatically engaging but I doubt worrying about making rent this month is going to be much fun.
So the article writer is right, we shouldn't use the word fun as much as we do because it's still very subjective. However he's wrong in suggesting that engaging is a better alternative. Meanwhile Malstrom is crusading off in a random direction of his choosing much like the original Dudley Do-Right.
