What Is The Cause Of A Bad Game?

In this day and age of gaming we are more and more susceptible to being the victims of horrible and lacklustre games. Do we deserve it? Yes and no. Yes, because it’s partially our fault to begin with. No, because we deserve much more as consumers. So what is the cause of bad games?

Can it be the graphics, gameplay elements or story line? Or can it be the developer’s fault? For a game to be labelled as bad it has to truly and unmercifully screw up in every department. Most truly bad games are in the form of shameless cash-ins from movies and stupid kid’s cartoons because the developers look to cater to their target market. Sure, Little Timmy is going to stomp his feet and turn blue in order to get the new Ben 10 game from his mom because he was the target audience. He won’t care if the game looks like dog turd thrown into a blender of puke, he will have that game because he likes the cartoon.

It’s not like they don’t make money because before you know it, a new game has been announced within that same year from the company that made the shameless cash-in. People just eat it up and don’t protest at all. It has become a cycle of sorts or more like a tick off list.

1. Have a successful form of media.

2. Create a large amount of hype surrounding the game that has been in development.

3. ???

4. Profit!

Then we go to the big name franchises. Now that a game has made tons of money from a successful formula, the companies that make the games become excruciatingly lazy. For example the Call of Duty franchise. People like to shoot stuff and Call of Duty is certainly fun, but is that an excuse for negligence in the innovation department? They figure their formula works well enough that it rakes in the cash and then proceed to milk the franchise to the bitter bone. Sure, they throw a couple of new things in here and there, but mainly in the form of distractions. It becomes the same old song and dance every year and that, to me, is absolutely shameful. That then leads to the franchise becoming tiresome and people losing interest in it entirely.

STOP THROWING ME WITH CLICHÉS!

Sometimes I wonder why developers decide to chug out a game that is clearly bad. They surely must have seen it somewhere that the game sucks and people will not like it. Take, for example, a game like Blackwater. The quality is absolutely laughable and amount of effort is so abysmal that a second year programming student will be ashamed of it if it was their work. Why do they allow things like this to happen? It’s almost better to completely scrap a game like that in fear of totally annihilating any reputation that the company had.

It’s actually our fault, as consumers. We give in to this. We buy the games. Like this whole debacle about online passes. It’s an atrocious system that punishes us as consumers because the companies that justify something like that are basically entitled to walk all over us. They see us as their little money chugging machines that just give in to their every whim because we are their undying fans.

Rather than offer us some sort of requital like Kingdoms of Amalur did with their online pass that just gave a new quest, companies rather take valuable modes away from you as a player all for the purpose of making a few extra bucks. Why is this happening? I’ll tell you why. Because they can get away with it the slimy bastards.

But I digress.

What bad games also do is waste precious potential. I give an example: The Harry Potter franchise. They could have made an epic open-world trip through all things wizardly and allow Harry Potter fans to experience all that is to offer in the magical world. And what do they do? Make crappy looking, half assed garbage that make you want to slit your wrists rather than throw a Stupify spell.

Throw spell, repeat, throw spell, repeat, throw spell, repeat. FUN!

Many games are wasted like this. All have the absolute potential to be brilliant, but get tarnished for a quick buck. Movie and superhero games shouldn’t be confined to a certain deadline and requirements. Look what happened to Batman Arkham Asylum and City. Each were monumentally good games because they were given the attention and dedication that Batman deserves. More games deserve this and the results can be glorious to us gamers.

Instead of relying on inane clichés and “tried and tested” formulas, the gaming industry needs to focus on innovation. Look how popular Indie games have become in the past few years. They became so popular because they are original pieces of absolute awesome. Things no-one has seen before rather than copy-pasting some guns and wallpaper from a successful game.

The gaming industry needs a bit of a wake-up call when it comes to this subject. Games are forms of entertainment and not some high priced whore that has to be pimped. If you can’t make quality games then you might as well just give up. I’m sure this is all in vain because in about 2 years, Call of Duty 10-2 and Super Mario Tekken 5 Ultimate Edition should be releasing.