I feel like I would have really liked Spec Ops: The Line if it was actually enjoyable to play - for the most part, it was not.

Although, having said that, I enjoyed Surgeon Simulator 2013 - and I suppose you could consider that as having bad gameplay.

But he did not intently set out to do so. He did want, and in many case thought he did, make good social critique films.... it is just that he never had the budget to do so (and some would argue the talent) He just never gave up and always did what he thought was best for what he could get. He never did set out to make bad films on purpose.

To answer the original question - yes, when it is intended and when it has a purpose then it is justifiable. "Badness" can in itself be perfectly legitimate statement. Same with using illogical puzzles, non-sequitur, non-euclidean space and so on. Breaking the rules for a reason can be just as meaningful as staying within the rules.

Its not either of those, it just felt generic, therefore mediocre.
Ah! But we get to one of the points, it is bad on purpose, same way QWOP is. At least bad regarding controls.
Nothing special, it just felt generic to me.

It's a matter of language, really. You're using "bad" here as both a genericized stand-in for specific qualifiers (one or more of: buggy, laggy, unbalanced, DRM-infested, etc) and a top-tier ultimate qualifier (does this entity has noticeable positive value as a work of art?).

The first "indie" game I played is won by getting disgusted/annoyed/frustrated and going outside (winning it by completion is also possible but vastly more difficult). The gameplay is highly addictive and varied, but the plot makes it clear you have no reason to keep playing. That was done amazingly well.

Now, nothing about *that* game was bad, but knowing one can derive a positive experience out of "fuck it, I quit" makes me more disposed to think that one can indeed forgo meeting existing standards in one or more aspects of the game on purpose and come out ahead: e.g. the art of Hotline Miami or the balance of Anna Anthropy's suggested changes to Discrimination Pong. But such examples will be few. Given my gaming interests and political stance, I am completely unqualified to say whether the supposedly deliberate supposed badness of Spec Ops achieves anything.

Creating a bad game can work if it's meant as a parody.

Otherwise, I don't think anyone really sets out to create a bad game, but creating games is often about compromising. It's possible to make a game better, but this can cost a lot of time and money. If the game has a certain focus, it's better to invest more development time on that focus, rather than on other aspects, and while it would be true that these other aspects were deliberately neglected, it's totally justified.

For me the answer is without hesitation : NO

Not only it's not an excuse, but I would go as far as to say it actually make it a lot worse. If you want to make a "bad" game on purpose pass some "message" then release this game for free. If you cannot deliver a message while at the same time make an "competent" enough game then leave the "message delivering" part to those who have enough talent to pull it off.

Also not to mention that the "it's bad on purpose" is often a BS excuse used at posteriori to try to justify a mediocre game/movie/whatever...

Frankly, I don't believe them. Did they say that a priori or a posteriori? Probably the latter, as an excuse when people started criticizing the game. That's more or less the same thing with indie devs taking unfair advantage of a word "retro". "Yeah, we are developing a game with a retro aesthetic..." Just how many times we've seen it? Sorry, you are not. You are actually developing a game with a crappy graphic and you are just looking for an excuse. I don't blame anyone if he/she cannot do it better (whatever reason) but please don't us "retro" as a synonym of "pixelated". Wadjet Eye games is a perfect example of a true retro aesthetic. They are just gorgeous (yeah that's subjective but I guess most of you will agree with it). I think it might be the same with a problem you've just described...

You have yourself a deal. Send me a video of your shooting a puppy and I'll buy Sacrifice.









Don't really do it.

I just thought it was a mediocre shooter, the "morality" implied in the game just went right over my head cos..well .. it's just a game...

They made it mediocre on purpose? Yeah, right, I played other spec op's games and they were the wrong end of mediocre too :)

Don't toy with me like that :(

Well, Detlik, I think that what we're looking at here is a classic case of bullshit. You see, they didn't give the shooting as much attention as perhaps it needed. So instead they're acting like their lack of focus on the shooting is actually instead just that they didn't want to detract from the morality of it all.

Which doesn't add up. They could have improved on it without fucking it up. For instance they could have done more with injured people - which would directly play into the whole morality thing. People buying Sacrifice. People not buying Sacrifice. Do it for the target practice.

Of course it's justifiable. Some "bad things" just require more imagination to justify than others.

Dude, that's what cats are for! Use your head, will you ?

When you think about it, no one does anything wrong, given their model of the world. It may appear to be wrong to others, but it is "right" for them at the moment. So of course that's where judgment, as opposed to observation, comes in. Observation is simply seeing what is, whereas judgment is making inferences and drawing conclusions about other things because of what is seen. Or something. :-)

Not at all, I agree with those that say that's it's an excuse for good game design. As for the example I enjoyed everything but the shooting part of the game. It was way too repetitive and it was awesome walking around without the combat. Luckily I played on Easy so I could bear the mediocre gameplay. Well, at least once.