I’ve long held a fascination with “so-bad-it’s good” entertainment. From childhood viewings of Mystery Science Theater 3000 to internet critics like James Rolfe and Joe Vargas who came to prominence in the mid-2000s, the media I’ve consumed has helped foster an ongoing love of the unbelievably bad, the films and shows that manage to miss the mark by such a wide margin that they somehow loop back around to a dubious form of success. And, as a gamer, I’m a huge fan of video games that fall into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category.
At a glance, it’s easy to think of examples of games that can be classified as “so-bad-it’s-good” titles. The poor English translations for 1992’s Zero Wing have been constant meme fodder since the early 2000s, with the phrases “set up us the bomb” and “all your base are belong to us” still popping up today. Deadly Premonition and Alpha Protocol, meanwhile, are bargain-bin darlings of the 360/PS3 eras, providing ridiculous, over-the-top narratives in the horror and spy thriller genres respectively. In the same vein as notoriously bad b-movies like Birdemic and The Room, the storytelling, acting, and visual flubs of many games have ended up making them into cult classics among gamers.
Gaming, however, has always been distinct from other media in terms of engagement. Watching movies and TV shows or reading books are analogous to watching story cutscenes in a game, but video games are unique in terms of the level of active participation they require. So, while it’s easy to discuss “so-bad-it’s-good” games in terms of visuals, story, and other aesthetic qualities, my question is this: can a game be defined as “so-bad-it’s-good” on the merit of its gameplay?
This is where it can quickly become harder to think of good “so-bad-it’s-good” examples. Unlike the other “so-bad-it’s-good” elements, most gamers have a far lower tolerance for bad gameplay due to the active effort it requires. Like a bad movie or show, a bad video game cutscene or line read will keep playing and eventually reach its conclusion; bad gameplay requires a player to succeed, which can lead to a great deal of frustration, struggle, and rage-quitting. For the average player, it can be fun to laugh at floaty jump physics or poorly mapped controls for a bit. However, the entertainment value of bad gameplay is often far outstripped by the length of time a player is expected to engage with it, be it a single level or the entire game.
Still, enjoyment of “so-bad-it’s-good” media is an inherently niche fandom, and while the majority of players may be driven away, for some, the struggle to overcome bad controls can become its own form of entertainment. No matter how bad the critical or community reception for a game, odds are there’s still a dedicated audience making the best of a bad situation. If a game’s problems are in some form internally consistent - stiff or unintuitive controls, for example, that nonetheless still follow their own set of rules - then there’s likely an audience of players that seek to conquer it. Gamers love mimetic content as much as anyone else, and the rise of streaming platforms like Twitch have provided a platform for which poorly designed and unfairly hard games can develop a mythic reputation.
The Kaizo Mario community, for example, sprung up from the viral popularity of the Kaizo Mario World romhack. A brutally difficult romhack of the SNES classic, levels in Kaizo Mario World break from traditional rules of fair game design on the regular: enemies appear suddenly from off-screen or within question blocks, hidden blocks wait to ruin jumps, and the way to progress is rarely clear without experiencing numerous death first. It’s a game that demands extreme mastery and patience, and while the vast majority of players see it as a novelty, an entire fandom of gamers looking for that brutal, unfair challenge sprung up around it. Mario romhacks remain hugely popular, and Super Mario Maker 2 has numerous levels with 0.01% clear rates that still rack up thousands of likes.
While Kaizo Mario games may seem to present a unique outlier - the underlying mechanics of Super Mario World, after all, are praised as some of the best ever designed - it speaks to a community of players that appreciate a level of challenge most would deem unreasonable. The same streamers who play the latest Kaizo hacks and levels also helped catapult glitchy messes like I Wanna Be the Guy to viral success, titles that further disregard game design philosophy and embrace the unintuitive, such as control inputs that change from screen-to-screen.
It’s true that these are frequently titles made with the purpose of being obtuse and confusing, but the inspiration for their creation comes from a place of genuine nostalgia and longing for those unfairly hard games of the past. In the 2017 viral hit Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, you play as a man trapped in a giant metal pot who has to drag himself to the top of a mountain using only a sledgehammer. Learning to control the sledgehammer and understand the game’s physics engine are extremely difficult and unintuitive, and no matter how far the player progresses, the threat of one wrong move sending them tumbling back to the start is omnipresent. As the player makes progress, however, commentary from developer Bennett Foddy - also the developer of the equally unintuitive Qwop - reveals his philosophy on game design. He holds an appreciation for those games of the past that were notoriously difficult; titles that demanded the player bend to their will instead of the other way around, that pushed the player to develop new skills and understanding of difficult, unruly game mechanics.
The type of gamers that agree with Foddy’s nostalgic reminiscence are the same ones that helped propel Getting Over It to viral fame, the same ones that can find enjoyment in each failure or unexplained mechanic. Drop in on a streamer like Grand Poobear or BarbarousKing, and there’s a good chance you’ll see them raging over an unfair hitbox or janky gameplay section. But sure enough, just a few moments later, they’re going to be laughing about the death, saying it’s on themselves to get better, and even expressing a genuine love for the game in question and the challenge it represents.
And there are dozens of gamers that feel the same way about a myriad of bad games. Whether through feelings of nostalgia or a high endurance for suffering, there are gamers that stream and play those notoriously bad titles, whether it be a single playthrough of Vampire Rain or repeated speedruns of E.T. for the Atari 2600. In fact, speedrunning represents taking bad gameplay mechanics to their zenith, with players showing not only that those bad mechanics can be grappled with, but that they can be mastered and perfected. It’s something celebrated by speedrunning event Awesome Games Done Quick, which regularly features an Awful Games Done Quick block specifically built around showcasing bad games and the players who have mastered them.
Further, the streamers that play these extremely difficult or unfair games have managed to build an entire audience that enjoys watching them bash their heads against these challenging walls. In essence, they’re able to commodify their enjoyment of bad gameplay, enduring the active component of “so-bad-it’s-good” gameplay and repurposing it into passive entertainment for their viewers. Instead of having to experience each frustrating death personally, the audience can just enjoy the humor of a poor design decision or unfair enemy placement. In essence, the streamer is providing a show not unlike a RiffTrax commentary on top of a bad film, one that can be experienced live on Twitch or, frequently, through edited highlight videos on YouTube. And taking it a step beyond RiffTrax, that live audience component creates a positive feedback loop, as viewers can joke with and share the streamer’s suffering through the chat. In essence, that initial bad gameplay enjoyment can blossom into a sense of community and shared experience.
While speedrunners and streamers are a niche audience, the fact that an audience of any kind exists proves it’s possible to find enjoyment in bad gameplay elements. And again, “so-bad-its-good” entertainment is an inherently niche interest to begin with, so even if the fandom for bad gameplay is never as big as the fandom of bad game stories, graphics, or voice-acting, it remains no less valid. As with any media, opinion is subjective, and for many, the entire concept of “so-bad-it’s-good” is a non-starter, to the point that there’s no distinction to be made: bad games are just bad. But while a title like Earth Defense Force 2017 may be as programming-bug-ridden as it is giant-bug-ridden, there’s still a modicum of fun to be found in its stiff gunplay, fluctuating framerate, and janky physics. And to paraphrase an old saying, spending a bit of time with a bad game every once in a while can go a long way towards helping appreciate the great ones.
Jordan Alsaqa is a writer based in Seattle, WA.. Jordan has written on pop culture topics for numerous websites, and was co-host of the Joy of Gaming podcast from 2012 to 2018. Currently, he is a comic writer, and his most recent work includes Welderkin from Comicker Press and We Have to Go Back with artist Sally Cantirino. He can be found on Twitter at @endigomaster.