Qualities of a bad game

In the book, Difficult Questions About Videogames, which asks about 75 developers, game press, and academics a list of, ...well, "difficult" questions, one of the questions asked is, "How can you tell if a videogame is rubbish?"

Most often we see the question in reverse, "What elements are common in good games," so this book tries to look at the other side of the coin, to perhaps reveal something unseen before.  Not a bad idea, IMO.

A large number of people answered with something along the lines of, "If you don't enjoy playing it," or "It's not entertaining."  Not exactly helpful.  A lot of people offered deeper answers, but not many nailed down specific qualities that most bad games have in common, such as poor feedback for actions taken by the player.

So, rather than come up with my own list, I'd like to see what others have to say.  Maybe we can come up with a good list, and if we do I'll post it as an update to this post.

The question is:  What are the common qualities of bad games?

Comments

[Patrick Sullivan]

Poor User Interface, with a subset that seems to be fairly common in poor/frustrating 3rd person games these days going to Camera Control. Nothing ruins a game faster, IME.

[Cristopher Boyer]

In 3d games, I would say a poorly planned Field of View. Lately I've been hearing more and more about how some games make people feel ill, and the root cause in many of these cases has been that the FOV is set by default to somewhere around 75 degrees, when the normal human FOV is somewhere closer to 90. And the more realistic the game looks, the more sensory disconnect you have and that can cause nausea and vomiting. And nobody wants folks retching when playing their game. =)

[Dave Allen]

There's a severe lack of polish.
It usually shows up in the form of blatantly obvious (non-killer) bugs. If you, the player, can find a ton of things that "just aren't right" in a game, without even attempting to find them, it feels like a product created just for money; there is no soul.

I say: "No one likes to play an unloved game."

[Slava]

Unpolished games are usually bad. Less polished a game is usually the worse it is, and vice versa polished games are usually good, event if there are no innovative elements present.

By polished I mostly mean free of bugs in code, design, graphics, etc. I realize that "polished" is kind of an abstract quality, but it's usually really easy to notice if the game is polished or not, at least for me...

[Alan]

Hmm, it's always a combination of many factors that eventually make a game bad. Sometimes one factor can be present on its own but the game can still come out on top, like the new Vampire: Bloodlines game. It was buggy, but fun. So it was still good, imo. Just really buggy.

Anyway, that being said, here are factors that can contribute to a bad game:

1) Like you said, poor feedback for player actions. This, in and of itself, can be broken up into MANY categories and applied to many different aspects of a game, some specific to certain genres. For instance, the simple feedback of firing a gun, shooting a wall, shooting a monster, etc... Or the high level feedback of the environment reacting to a flipped switch, triggering a cinematic, etc. Then the ultra high level of branching storylines that are affected by the players actions. There's so many realms of good, and of course bad, feedback. However, the feedback MUST be there and for each different level of feedback, different rules apply. I don't really have time to go into all of my theories on that, right now...

2) Stagnant gameplay. If a game doesn't have a constant level of rising action and introduction of new challenges and elements, it will get boring. Discovery is an important part of fun, lack of discovery removes the motivation to continue playing.

3) Quality issues. Bugs, poor quality art assets, instability, etc. These things go without saying but they can take a mediocre game and make it a failure, or keep a great game from being spectacular.

4) Usability issues. If a game is too complicated or hard then it will fail. You should never have to RTFM to play a video game. However, this also plays into standard gameplay elements and user experience issues. For instance, you should always be able to skip movies. You should never have to do the same thing twice. You should always have a way to get past frustration, ALWAYS. A frustrated player that quits and trades your game in for something else is NOT going to become an evangelist. However, it shouldn't be too easy, either, or it won't be fun. (Unless, of course, the game is meant to be easy and the fun is found through elements other than challenge.) However, it's always better to be slightly too easy than to be insanely or impossibly hard. If it's too easy, a player can always turn up the difficulty. Which means, always give the player an option for difficulty.

5) Breadth or lack of scope. The scope of a game, at least in my definition, is the amount of gameplay elements planned and implemented. Some of these are large, some are small. It is a very important thing to find an equilibrium of features, not too many, not too few.

The second a game starts to have too large of a scope each feature will then become stretched thin. An example of this would be Omikron or Uru. Omikron tried to conquer the adventure/fighting/FPS game and ended up being the worst of all 3 genres in order to include them all. It's better to shrink the scope and make something smaller and fantastic, than giant and mediocre. Uru failed in this by trying to make the single player game easily mesh into an MMO environment. Because of this, the MMO game was not as good as it could have been because it was being held back by single player and the single player was not as good as it could have been because it was working within the restrictions of an MMO. The scope in these cases were too large.

On the other side, a game could have too small of a scope and, in turn, would be simplistic and ultimately boring. However, this is a less common problem, since sometimes simplicity can make a game fun. However, it hardly ever makes a game a SUPER hit anymore. Aside from the realm of online, Flash based games, the days of Tetris may very well be over and we may have to move on. ;)

6) Poor initial concept. Let's face it, the original game concept is the foundation from which the rest of the game is built. If this concept is flawed, then the game will have a higher chance of failure. There's always a possibility of a mid-production revalation that converts the horrible idea into a brilliant one, but that's just a chance.

7) Me too! Me too products will make a quick buck but more often than not, they will end up dying in the end. This is true for both games and mundane software. Me too products do not aspire to greatness and therefore, will never achieve it. Much of Corporate America thinks in this mode: "What works? Hey, let's just emulate that!" That's a flaw in logic and only the most successful software, games, or otherwise, understand and take advantage of such a flaw. If you wonder why someone is on top, innovation and creativity will almost always play some role in their success.

Summary: Clones == bad.

That's all I have time for, on my lunch break. Maybe I'll think of some more, later. :)

[0utlier]

Anna Karenina begins with the famous sentence “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Good games are all alike (in the sense that they provide an entertaining, challenging, relatively bugfree experience), while bad games are each bad in their own special way.

I have doubts that you could say "here's what makes a game bad" and have much more than either very vague concepts or a detailed list of all the many ways that games have been bad.

Essentially, there are lots of ways a good game can go bad. Too many bugs, too much repetiton, not enough repetition, too hard, too easy, etc...

It really is like walking a tight rope -- you can't deviate too far to either side without falling.

[Aaron]

I agree with the field of view point, one that I haven't heard explicitly mentioned before. Outside of inducing sickness, I can't stand playing a game with a very narrow field of view which causes the game to feel very claustrophobic to the extent that I have to keep whirling my viewpoint around just to feel like I can see anything. Halo 2 suffered from this somewhat, in my opinion. Along those lines: guns that are too large in first person shooters. I need to see what I'm shooting at!

One big thing that's a pretty general complaint, is artificial constraints placed on the player. Be this control-wise, or other. For instance, there was a Sega-made Dreamcast game by the name of Outtrigger. I wanted to like this game very much, but the game limited how far up or down you could look to something like +-30 degrees. Very sloppy, in my opinion, and it really killed a lot of fun. This extends to other areas of control as well (something I've found Sega does a lot in their games), but also to things like invisible walls (Fable had far too many of these for it's style of gameplay) or badly designed adventure games that artificially limit your progress until you complete some obscure set of tasks that is unrelated to proceeding forward. Another example is not being able to talk to NPC's in Grand Theft Auto. For all the freedom the game has, this one simple task I wanted to partake in was utterly impossible. Bloody hell, you can engage in supposed sexual acts with hookers, but you can't talk to random people! Granted, it's not really the purpose of the game, but it felt like an artificial constraint when I was playing.

Finally, bad sound really kills a game for me. I have very specific tastes, and to illustrate what I don't like, toss in Sega GT. I can't stand those too loud and in-your-face sound effects and crazy Japanese game-music. This isn't a rant against Japanese music, just the style of crappy game music I tend to notice more often in lesser Japanese games. I guess it's really more a case of arcade-style sound effects and music. Irritating, non-atmospheric and ultimately detrimental for a game.

[Scott Miller]

Alan, I think we can all go home now -- you pretty much covered the subject with a king-sized blanket!

What about gameplay polish? How many games have we played in which the actual underlying rules and mechanics of gameplay seemed off, or annoying?

Is replayability important -- do bad games lack it?

Many more areas to cover...

[BlueGhost]

I don't think there's much point in this, as has already been stated, many things can make games bad.
However, there are no deal breakers. With perhaps the exception of feedback, even this isn't a question of more = better. Afterall bluffing games require you hide/delay information, which is basically breaking feedback.

The only thing I can think of which is an absolute garuntee is if the designers don't know what they're doing. That is they don't have a plan. Don't nail down what they're trying to do (make a game). Don't know how this game is going to act upon the players. However even then they can just luck out or have an intuative 'feel'.

2) Many very sucessful games have all the content explored far before players stop playing. Take Everquest, Tetris, Counterstrike.

3) While bugs are always bad they don't necessarily change how well the game plays, just remove the decisions from the programmers.

4) Suprisingly but many frustrating things actually highten the desire people have to play games, take downtime in MMORPGs (which provides time to get to know your fellow gamers). Losing in CS (which makes you want to kick their arses next round even more.

5) So, whats a 'feature' exactly? If you're talking about the number of game rules or game complexity?

6) Other than games with blatant marketting gimicks which were also bad for a whole other hoast of reasons (bmx xxx, etc) I can't think of anything that fits in here. Any examples?

7) Thing is how do you tell the difference between a 'me too' game and a derivitive works? I mean the difference is basically one makes changes which make the game worse and one makes improvments...

[PaG]

How to Write an Awful Game, by PaG

1- Boring
The game should be boring. Nothing should require any skill, you should wander around just looking at boring stuff and not interacting with anything. This is very important: if you ask the player to do anything, he may end-up enjoying it. Make sure he never has to do anything or if he does do something it shouldn't require any skill whatsoever. Great example of this can be seen in the FMV craze of the 90s.

2- Make it Easy to Stop
You should never give the player multiple goals because when he reaches a goal he may be compelled to keep playing to reach the second goal too. Give the player exactly one goal, at the baginning of a level, and make that goal finish at the end of the level with a looooong load time for the next level. That way, should you have erred and made your game good enough for the player to actually achieve one goal, the player will be satisfied with himself for having reached the goal and he won't have any problem putting the controller down.

3- Make it Repetitive
Make sure the player does the same thing over and over again. If he must kill enemy, make sure all weapons behave the same and make sure all enemies are alike. Diablo without multiplayer, in a single environment, with the sword as the only weapon and only 2 types of enemies is what you're looking for here. Beware of depth in the gameplay! Superficially chess may seem repetitive, but all the games require unique strategies. You must avoid that and make sure there is one single and obvious path to success.

4- Complicate Controls
Why put multiple actions on one button when you can use many? Modern console controllers have a dozen buttons -- use them all! Keyboards have even more keys -- bind a specific action to each. If you have to screen in which the player can do similar things, make sure that thing is done differently in each. Also, remember to reinvent the wheel: well established and standard interfaces are for sissies, come up with your own weird stuff to show how smart you are.

5- Make it Ugly
Graphics should be done with a complete lack of artistic sense. Characters should all look the same (while still having bad proportions) and so should the environments. Avoid any animation that is not strictly necessary: you don't want your game world to feel alive!

6- Corny Sounds
Music should be bad and clichéd. If you can get something that sounds like a bad rip-off of the Braveheart soundtrack played on a cheap Radio-Shack synthetizer then great! Sound effects should be bland and life-less.

7- Lots of Boring Story
The story should be omnipresent and interrupt the player whenever he's doing something (see Metal Gear Solid 2 for a great example of this). If you can make it both full of clichés and incomprehensible then good for you! Characters shouldn't have any personality and they should describe their boring life in detail during unskippable 30-minutes long cutscenes. Remember that the story ties very well with what I said under "Fun": don't make the player do anything!

8- A Bland Game Concept
Every single aspect of your game should have been used in at least 10 other games. Avoid any original idea at all cost. Moreover, the base concept should lack all appearance of focus (an action-rpg with multiplayer and single player elements mixed with turn-based strategy, adventure gaming, simulations, sports and puzzle games would be a great example!) Make sure your publicity is in line with this, it should say bland things like "Can you save the world?" or "The realm's destiny is in your hands!".

If you do all of this, I'm sure you'll be able to have the worst game ever! Good luck!

[Alan]

What about gameplay polish? How many games have we played in which the actual underlying rules and mechanics of gameplay seemed off, or annoying?

Is replayability important -- do bad games lack it?

Many more areas to cover...

That's another one, good call Scott. Kind of like the core game concept, if the core concept of gameplay - which is a seperate entity from the concept of the game sometimes - is flawed, then the game will be a failure. How does one quantify what makes gameplay fun? Seems to me that up to this point, we've been licking our fingers and stickin 'em in the wind, most times. However, I think we're right in the middle of a game design revolution of sorts, as we are starting to find answers to the question: "what makes something fun?" Needless to say, if the gameplay design of a game is not a valid answer to that question, then the game would be "bad." But that's a useless thing for me to say for the sake of discussion, so let's talk a little bit about what makes gameplay bad... I think there is perhaps one main thing, one which will always make a game bad.

Repitition == boring. Yes, even in Tetris games this is true. This is why Tetris gets harder and harder as the player progresses. However, in the case of non-realism based, Tetris style games, one main source of fun is the self-challenge: "can I beat my own score?" This introduces a form of self evolving gameplay, as you get better and better and therefore the challenge continues to evolve as you do. However, consider if Tetris was the same, or close to the same, level of difficulty throughout. It would no longer be fun, at least not for very long.

Now, the example of Tetris is a simple one, but it contains the fundamental core aspects of gameplay that play into MUCH more complicated projects. However, I am by no means saying that every game needs to get incramentally harder. Switch difficulty with exciting, or active, or mysterious, etc, whatever the driving force/central aspect of the game may be. The point is, the game should evolve concurrently with the player, but with the player as the driving force for that evolution. Perhaps this also crosses over into the realm of player feedback.

---------------

Now, as for replayability, I honestly don't think this necessarily plays into whether or not a game is good. A game can be good, fun, and make evangelical players, even if it is only good once. The entire adventure game genre falls into this category and most single-player FPS games. Half-Life 2, for instance, is not very replayable for most gamers. However, it's still a fantastic game and I think you'll find that it doesn't make any of the mistakes I've talked about, thus far. :)

Also, to all the other posters, I don't think that figuring out what makes games bad is useless, not at all. Sometimes you have to work through the maze backwards in order to find some things that you may have missed before. Another analogy, sometimes it's better to draw upside down so that your artwork isn't harmed by preconceptions.

[dubeau]

-Lack of story elements and logic, in a game that tries to show one.
-Bad interface or bad control. That can be in the gameplay, or the general interface...it doesn't matter.
-Predominance of cheap deaths
-Absence of a potent AI in the NPC
-Absence of an equlibrium in how a game progress in terms of hardness
-Too limited interaction in terms of gameplay. If you are in a game that has an interesting environnement, you should put some interactions with it.
-Lack of costumizations or options regarding your character.
-Bugs
-Graphical clipping
-Sounds skipping
etc...

[Mr.DJ]

What are the common qualities of bad games?

In no particular order:

(These where created with the FPS genre in mind btw.)

1. Not introducing(enough)new ideas or ways of doing things in gameplay(typically just copying what others have done before).
2. Bad balance of game pace.
3. Not very innovative/creative or optimal use of game technology.
4. Boring gamedesign/graphics, with too much use of repetitive/flat low res. textures and squared surfaces.
5. The story is typically also very cheesy and not executed/progressing in a very interesting way.
6. The player is typically also not rewarded/motivated, for doing any extra effort.
7. No replay value(there is typically only 1 way of doing things, and the maps only has 1 route. This coupled with gameplay that is typically also too repetitive, kills the fun for a second playthrough).
8. The gameplay is too predictable and doesn’t introduce any sudden changes/surprises or interesting plot twists.
9. The games characters isn’t interesting.
10. Typically released with errors, that should have been fixed before release.

Feel free to run DNF through this small checklist! ;-)

[Robert Howarth]

A lot has been covered already, and besides stating the obvious (bad story, bugs, lame gameplay, etc):

- There's no jumping in the game and it's a first person shooter. Which brings us to the next point...

- Lazy port jobs (the only good pc port i've seen in years is Riddick)

- Games billed as graphics intensive with state of the art visuals powered by expensive licensed engies, yet all the little non-monster/player related items look the same as they did 10 years ago (i.e. - the little phones that barely look like phones on desks, square tires on cars, etc). The immersion factor goes out the window.

- No quick saves

I'm sure I can think of more later. :)

[Michael Labbe]

Why do we hate anything?

Emotional response - The game does not resonate with the player in a way that causes an emotional reaction.

Contemplative response - The game does not cause us to think or reflect upon consequences.

Viscereal response - The game does not have satisfying flow - the speed of driving, the satisfying Quake gib, the Diablo kill.

All subjective.

Very few games get all three of these right. Getting one of the right can give you a hit game. Getting none of these right guarantees people regarding your game as rubbish.

[Mr.DJ]

Lol! PaG :)

[AdamW]

Alan - sorry, I have to take issue with this.

"Usability issues. If a game is too complicated or hard then it will fail. You should never have to RTFM to play a video game."

You *may* be right that it 'will fail' (or at least is *more likely* to fail), but that's not what Scott asked. He asked what made a bad game. It would be sheer idiocy to attempt to play, for instance, Elite without reading the manual first. That was and is a fantastic game. I find it amazing that people attempt to play complex strategy games like Civilization without reading the manual, although they do. Simply being complex enough that reading the manual helps you play the game does not make a game bad, though it may reduce its appeal.

[AdamW]

some trivial and rather historical ideas are all I can come up with here.

1 - this one is really old school - collision detection! Anyone who remembers the years when platform games dominated gaming as much as FPS games do now will remember that the one thing that was guaranteed to absolutely torpedo your game was bad collision detection. Nothing's more frustrating than a shot going right through the middle of an enemy, or your player falling to his death right *through* a perfectly solid platform.

2 - maybe more relevant now, but the only examples I can come up with offhand are old - do what you say on the tin! I can think of three old games, two so old I can't remember their names (the other an obscure old basketball game called NCAA: Road to the Final Four, and don't ask me how I remembered that) which have detailed instructions how to play them in the manual. One of the others was a combined soccer management / playing game, the other was a driving game. The basketball game had an odd control mechanism which involved directly controlling one player and 'calling plays' for the rest of your term with certain preset keys that were carefully detailed in the manual. Without exception, pressing these keys did absolutely nothing. I gave up on that one quick.

In the racing game, it was even more ridiculous - I discovered shortly after starting to play the game that there was absolutely no need to steer. The game had a 'steering auto-assist' thing built in which had been coded to be substantially too helpful and would happily steer the entire course for you. It was like Scalextric - all you actually had to do was control the throttle. That one didn't last long either.

The soccer game was even worse. It had a barely-passable management section, but the actual games themselves came down to setting the player up with a few setpieces (penalty kicks, corners) in which they could supposedly control the player who would either score a goal or not. The rest of the game wasn't controllable in any way. However, more crucially, neither was this part, despite the control instructions in the manual. Hammer any key you liked, press 'em in any order, type in the entire text of the King James bible - the result on screen was in point of fact entirely random and did not respond to input in any way.

These are fairly egregious examples of bad games, but it's all I can come up with right now. If I think of anything better, I'll mention it. :)

[Logo]

I like Alan's list and it covers pretty much everything.

I just want to throw out "imbalance" though. This applies more than to just multiplayer games. Improper game balance can make your game complete trash by negating what would otherwise make the game fun or interesting.

The whole game has to have a balance. All features of the gameplay need to have the right level of importance and signifigance and strength. Many times in (usually mediocre) games will have good and interesting features that go unnoticed because it's not given the right level of worth to the game (or sometimes something else has too much). Examples are easiest seen in MP settings. The initial HL2 Death match release for example saw over 50% of the kills coming from the magnum. This reduced many of the other gameplay features of HL2DM like the other weapon choices, health/armor collection, and using physics as a weapon. Additionally the same can be seen in SP with poor AI detracting gameplay elements (sure you can make use of feature x, y, and z to kill your AI oppenent but if you only have run and gun because of stupid AI then those features are worthless). A good SP example in my opinion is in the Metal Gear Solid series (2 especially) there is a whole complex series of unsilenced lethal weapons with ammo for the guns and other such stuff. However in 90% of the MGS game you are trying to use non-lethal methods of killing oppenents and/or stealth to avoid detection. So for some reason you spend the game collecting all these arms and only ever use them when the game automatically forces you into a direct confrontation.

[gf]

The lack of (entertaining) challenge(s) is what I think the most common element of bad games. Anything else gets into specific game genres and subjective opinions.

For example 3D games are an immersive expirience, portaiting a somewhat beleivable world. If anything is so flawed that it breaks immersion, be it horribly broken collision or extremly bad graphics, then the game would be bad.

OTOH a game like Breakout, no graphics worth mentioning, no story, yet pretty damn fun.

So is the question "what makes a bad FPS-type game?" or really bad games in general (any genre).

What is an entertaining challenge, well as I mentioned I think it's pretty subjective. Some prefer mental challenges more than "mechanical" (aiming/reaction) and vice versa, to various degrees. Or maybe an emtional challenge (dealing with fear in a horror game).

I'll take Doom3 as an example, I found that game to be horribly bad, probably the worst I've ever played. There sure wasn't anything technically or artistically flawed with it. Best looking thing I've ever seen. In fact the beautiful graphics is what made me play it through (after disabling the extremly frustratingly boring "gameplay", ie. disabling AI). It actually became more "fun" after that because I at least could enjoy the environments. But there are plenty of people who loved Doom3.

What is a satisfying challenge to one isn't to another.

Sticking to things that all games have in common, the obvious things I can think of are

- Mentioned before, that something is horribly broken (bugs or just plain bad quality).

- This kind of belongs to the point above, but if the game is overly complicated to understand (broken design). Unless understanding it isn't part of the game's challenge, like for example in an advanced/realistic flight sim learning how to fly is a rewarding challenge for those that are into that kind of game.

- That the game doesn't have a challenge that appeals to at least some players.

- That the challenge is too monotonous, gets boring fast.

- Also mentioned before, if the game is a copy of an existing game (maybe with even lesser production quality), so there's nothing new, the challenge is identical and has no new flavor at all.

just my rambling-when-I-should-be-sleeping-2 cents

[BlueGhost]

Thinking about this the two items I totally agree on are: Feedback and Non-change (to the point of bordom).

But, if you think about this that actually breaks the definition of a computergame, if the feedback is so poor that you can't actually interact then its a movie dynamically generated using your input as a seed.

And if the thing changes so little as to induce bordom (like how much less than tetris or pong can you change?) its pretty much a painting.

I don't deny there are other factors which can create a bad computergame, but I don't think you can nail any of them down and say 'this is always bad'.

Its sort of like the rules in any other art/entertainment, they tend not to be rules only guidelines because some of the very best stuff breaks the rules and still looks/sounds/tastes excellent.

[Aaron]

I agree with Alan on replayability. I don't think a game being replayable has anything to do with how good it is. Some of my favorite moments in gaming history occured as one-offs in The Secret of Monkey Island. I replayed the game simply to remind myself of how funny or unique those moments were; otherwise the game was not replayable at all.

It's something I haven't considered before, but I think that there is too much push to make games that have a high replayability these days. If you can create situations that are meaningful to the player, then the player will likely play the game again to reacquaint themselves with that situation and how they felt the first time when dealing with it.

That said, it's fantastic to make an "emergent" style of game where the user can experience new situations every time; but in many cases, this goal is simply beyond the scope of current technology.

[RoBsTa]

Here is the typical life-cycle of a bad game for me:

1.) General introductory phase where many elements come together to induce a purchase.
2.) After the install (which usually follows rather quickly on the heels of the purchase) I experience the first hour or so of the game. During this phase I try not to cut short of one hour, just out of fairness for the game.
3.) Following the first hour, something has not clicked. It's not that I don't enjoy the graphics or plot, but the realization of the alternate game universe has not fully occurred. At this point, I may not even know that something hasn't clicked, but I'm going to know soon because...
4.) When I'm not playing the game, I'm not even remotely concerned about returning to the game. On a lucky chance I might remember I purchased it and continue to play it hoping that the critical plot twist (or whatever it may be) is just around the next corner. Ultimately, and inevitably...
5.) The game for which I had (high/mixed/low) hopes is now just a box that I glance at from time to time, humbly occupying the lowest spot on my stack of recently purchased games.

For me, a bad game is not necessarily a game that has critical shortcomings. Rather, it is one that has failed to serve it's primary purpose in this world: satisfying my interactive-entertainment needs.

[Nevermind]

A lot of good points have been mentioned already; but I`ll add my two cents anyway ((-8
I believe, that (almost) all bad qualities fall into one of two broad, yet distinctive categories.
1)Discovery
and
2)Control

As for the discovery - that's simple. In a good game you're always discovering something; when there is nothing more to discover, the game ends for you.
I do not mean just findind new content here - discoveries include, for example, new strategies, new way to do the same old thing, or maybe new achievements - like in tetris and puzzle games.
That also covers replayability - if you can never discover everything playing once, then you play again and again...
So, to sum it up - the less there is to discover, the worse.

The control category is somewhat trickier. What I mean to say is that _I_always_want_to_be_in_control_. If I am not in control of something (or at least do not seem to be) - the game is bad.
That mostly covers interface issues - when the interface doesn't let me do what I want, I'm not in control.
But not just interface - lack of feedback is also lack of control. Like, I just did something and the game does not react properly... or even at all.
Unskippable movie sequences, story getting in the way of common sense - these are also example of taking the control away from the player.
The less obvious example is the game "Storm: Soldiers of the sky" (or something like that). It's a some-kind-of-futuristic-flying-craft simulation, and it seemed to be pretty good - good controls, good gameplay... but the storyline ruined it - for me, at least. Every mission briefing was STUPID. It was like the commanders just did mistake after mistake, and that's why the missions got harder and harder (which they of course should, in a game like that). So, in the end I felt I am not in control - and do not like the game.
Although, come to think of it - the player shouldn't be in control of that. But then - he probably should at least seem to be.

To conclude it all:
If the game doesn't have much to discover, it's invariably bad.
If the game takes control away from the player, or simply get in the way - it's likely to be bad.

And if the game has a lot to discover and the player is (or seems to be) always in control of what's going on - the game will not be bad. Not a great hit, maybe, but not bad either.

[Brask Mumei]

A lot of focus on FPSes here... Odd to see things like "Square corners" resulting in a "bad game". Wolfenstein was a very good game, yet has the squarest corners possible.

I do agree with the assessment that the best way to approach this question is to inspect specific bad games.

When I think of Bad Games, one jumps straight to mind. Black and White. It is unusual in so far as one could easily mistake it for a good game.

The game *is* highly polished. Loving care has gone into the graphics. Extensive work on tutorials, etc, has been done to ensure the player knows how to interact. Interaction is nice and straightforward.

The first hour playing Black and White had me believing this was the greatest game of all time.

The next hour had me wanting to break the CD into many tiny pieces. Unskippable movie animations. Unskippable movie animations that were your feedback to tell you that you hadn't harvested quite enough logs yet. Did I mention they were unskippable? Trying to train one's pet on the "wrong" world only to find out on the 'net that the AI isn't engaged until the next world. (Then why did the game tell me how to train it on this world?) A fighting subsystem which the wonderful UI of clicking on the enemy meaning attack while clicking on the ground meaning move. Of course, the camera is *shaking* to ensure you have limitted chance of actually clicking where you meant to. (The first "training" fight is also set insanely hard, IMHO)

I stuck with it, of course. Until I got to the next world (of 5 worlds) where the game confiscated my pet. The pet, I will remind you, was the entire selling point of the game.

In another game, we could call these bugs and oversights. However, the rest of the game had been polished to such a gleam that one could only conclude that these were intentional. Surely one playtester suggested that skipping a movie might be a good idea? Surely some of the time spent supporting iFeel mice could have been spent handling an Esc press? I read how every quest had been rated independently on "Funness" and unfun quests brutally slaughtered. Yet I was still given the task of finding twenty sheep in a giant island! Yay! Needle and haystack, next step in fun! (If it were *one* sheep, maybe I could live with it. If I got progressive rewards for each sheep, sure. If I knew there were 40 sheep of which I had to find 20, sure.)

Thus, I wouldn't say it is bugs that result in a bad game so much as misfeatures. If they seem to be bugs, I'll be willing to look for or wait for the patch. If it is misfeatures, I'm liable to delete the game in frustration. I hear tell that many of my frustrations have since been patched. I will never know, as I'm not giving B&W another chance. Some game design decisions are unforgiveable.

- Brask Mumei