As if it was response to my earlier discussion of paragaming (the enjoyment of bad games), XKCD posts this commentary:
Good question how that translates to games! Having watched the Star Wars Holiday Special, I agree with the sentiment even if I do feel my having watched it gives me a kind of positive cultural capital.
The Big Rigs game that Jason discussed at our bad games panel is clearly as bad as to be on the very far right end of the graph in the drawing – but it’s nevertheless enjoyable as a paragame. So the question may not be how far along the game is on a “good/bad” scale, but about having a sufficient number of laughable moments pr. minute. A laughable moment, I think, involves open conflicts between the contents of a “bad” game and the game quality criteria we operate by.
A game level that is 50% too long is not enjoyably bad, but a game level that is 500% too long is. A bad game has to be much too much to be useful for paragaming!
Shouldn’t there also be a MTTB rating? (Minimum time to bad). I was thinking of a game that is 500% too long is simply too long. Not bad. It has to start bad…. :-)
Jose,
Good point! MTTB is an important metric. It’s hard to promote a game that’s regularly so-so for 15 hours and then has an awesomely bad 1-hour period.
I really like the idea of “laughable moments pr. minute.” I think it’s a great answer to the question and is very true to how people react to various bad games.