Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie?

Thanks to Globe News for their interview discussing game design pitfalls with Ernest Adams, columnist at industry site Gamasutra, in relation to a recent Toronto game design lecture. Adams' talk, called 'Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie', has the premise that "whenever game designers add an annoying, sloppy, illogical or cliché game design element, they are denied the junkfood they love so much", and in the interview, Adams also laments the inherent difficulties in making games: "If you imagine what it would be like if you had to invent a new projector for every movie, that's what it is for game development", as well as gaming award shows, which he says "...tend to confuse the difference between technological achievement and aesthetic achievement."

no bad games were successful?

[egomaniac]

There are lots of good games that were not terribly commercially successful. However, there are no bad games that are commercially successful.

What the hell? Is this guy actually claiming that Enter the Matrix (which was very successful commercially) was not a bad game? What about Black and White?

There has been a long, long list of games that were steaming turds and yet sold very well at retail.

Re:no bad games were successful?

[DarkZero]

What the hell? Is this guy actually claiming that Enter the Matrix (which was very successful commercially) was not a bad game? What about Black and White?

There has been a long, long list of games that were steaming turds and yet sold very well at retail.

I think that he was definitely wrong, but it's important to point out that he wasn't TOO wrong. While there are definitely a few examples of bad games selling well, for the most part they aren't "commercially successful". Black and White was probably a success, but games such as Enter the Matrix and Tomb Raider weren't because bad games such as those tend to create a money pit during production. When you see a bad game that sells well, it's usually the result of many, many millions of dollars of production, marketing, delays, special features, and numerous failed "rough drafts" of the game. They're usually released for no other reason than for its developer to cut their losses and try to make back some of the huge amount of money they spent.

None of the math I've ever seen regarding Enter the Matrix has proven it to be a commercially successful game. Its developers were very upfront about how much it cost to make because they thought it would make the game seem like a really big deal. Their revenue, last I checked, has not matched that number. The entire thing was a case study in excessive, wasteful game design, and it couldn't possibly make a substantial amount of money. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was the same way. After that many delays, many of which I believe came with a ton of print ads advertising the game's new release date, it couldn't have been very profitable. It was one of Eidos's flagship titles for the year and it probably cost as much as two or three flagship titles. And despite its early sales, the game was only at the top of the retail and rental charts for about a month.

So yeah, he's definitely wrong because there are exceptions to the rule, but he wasn't too far off the mark.