A few days ago Wired published an article by Clive Thompson that asked and attempted to answer the question why there are no games that are so bad that they are really fun to play, while there are plenty of movies that are so bad that they are actually good. Thompson argued that this is “because a game isn’t something you watch; it’s something you do. It’s impossible to distance yourself from the badness. It’s not like chuckling while watching an actor screw things up; it’s like being forced to screw up yourself.”
The argument is interesting, but the support offered by Thompson seems to be lacking. Additionally, the way he defines the subject of his piece is somewhat limiting. The article appears to take the view that “bad games” are games with clear design flaws — games where you don’t know (or cannot) proceed at some point, where the AI does not know how to act, or where the world fails to interact with you either realistically or at least predictably. While all these properties certainly make a game bad, I would argue that by limiting one’s definition of a “bad game” to games that suffer from such clear design flaws, one misses a whole range of bad games, including ones that can actually be so bad that they are good.
I would suggest that a “bad movie” defined in the same way in which Thompson defines a “bad game” could in fact rarely be an enjoyable one. Thompson’s definition of a “bad game” is, after all, almost entirely based on its mechanics. Now, for the mechanics of a movie to be poor, for its world to interact with you neither realistically nor predictably, I would imagine the more technical aspects such as lighting, editing, sound and focus to be off. Yet, these things do not a bad movie good make (not for most viewers, anyway). Instead, serious flaws in the technical aspects of a movie simply annoy the audience and make the viewing experience painful.
Instead, I would argue, a “good bad movie” is one whose mechanics, just like the mechanics of a genuine “good movie”, do not stand between the viewer and the story. This is similar to what Thompson notes in connection with bad games — we as the audience do not want a movie to be so bad that it affects the “doing” part of our experience. And although there is certainly somewhat less for one to do in a movie than in a game, the act of viewing a film is certanly not devoid of “doing”.
“Good bad movies” are, therefore, in my view films whose mechanics function well, but where the less mechanical parts of story telling, or indeed the story itself, are poor, while still maintaining the viewer’s interest by in some ways going contradictory to its real purposes. In most cases, this means being funny when trying to be either dead-serious or ultra-cool.
If a “good bad game” is defined in the same way, a number of candidates emerge, some of which have been mentioned by readers of the Wired article (see the comments section). My personal favourite is perhaps the collection of games made from Michael Jackson’s film Moonwalker. Especially the arcade certainly fits the bill in my books — for a rather hilarious review, see here. While the game is in many ways a rather standard beat ‘em up, certain additions like Michael’s Dance Magic abilities, the screaming children, and other similarly (what I take to be) unintentionally funny aspects, for me raise it to the level of a “good bad game”.
