Anime Pulse

Is a mediocre game better or worse than a bad game? Let us know what you think, and explain your reasoning behind it!

Idea submitted by Phanto5692 <3

I think a mediocre game is better then just a bad game. At least you enjoyed the game a little bit to even call it a mediocre game at all.

I feel like if a game is bad, it may at least be memorable, and due to it being bad, there may be some humor in it, for example, ET for Atari, it's bad, but there's countless videos of it, and it's pretty well known among the video game community. A mediocre game may just be tossed to the side and not leave an impact.

The forums!


A mediocre game is worse than a bad game. With a mediocre game, you will continue to play the game, hoping for really good moments of story or gameplay. With a bad game, you know how awful it is, and you can either give up at that point, or laugh at how poorly developed the game is. Mediocre games end up wasting a lot more of your time

A mediocre game is still playable. Most of the time, a bad game can be infuriatingly unplayable. There is a difference between a bad game and a bad movie. With a bad movie, you have no control over what's going so it's easier to sit back and make fun of. With a bad game, you are involved with the experience so it's hard to not be upset with the experience.

please forgive me as i take a developercentric look at the question. In the light of a developers eyes, a bad game is by far the best teacher, far better than a mediocre game or even a good one. that said, though it is interactive a mediocre game is a lot like a mediocre movie in several ways: for the consumer they are both poor returns on investment, time, money and emotion; for Developers/makers whether having worked on it or not there is little to Learn from, it can damage their reputation, their spirits and their finances, perhaps as much as a bad game; and then there are the Critics for whom a mediocre game can disappoint for what ever reason, but not provide the issues needed to point gaming or movies in a better direction. Critics, i feel, are meant to Critique for the betterment of a medium and not Criticize for their own profit and betterment.

No, a mediocre game is not better than a bad game. In fact in my very humble opinion, you can get more entertainment from an absolute stinker. See things like "ET", "Ride to Hell Retribution" and "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5". Everyone knows about those. I personally cannot remember any mediocre games right now, either off the top of my head or looking them up. Mediocre games are endemic of a serious problem in the games industry in that the publishers just want sequel after sequel churned out to make as much money as quickly as possible. Bad games can be this as well but at least you can get some entertainment by mocking it. Mediocre games, on the other hand, give us little material to work with.

I guess it depends on how bad/mediocre and who's doing the judging. That's the entire point of the whole "so bad it's good" opinion. People will enjoy some things for the kitsch. But bland is forever. But for a developer, mediocre is better than bad since mediocre will at least still sell some copies. But neither will cover enough to justify the expense of the game development.