Playing Bad Video Games Is More Fun Than Playing Good Ones

So, one of my job titles is “comedian,” which I know is often a stand-in on dating profiles for “shady unemployed man,” but here we are. I have no career outside of writing jokes for people who secretly hate me. Not for nothing, my dating profile was, “A six with the energy of an eight” and it performed quite well, thank you.

One of the things I do with comedy is tour with a show called “S**t Arcade,” except on the poster there are no asterisks. It’s a sort of panel talk show in which comedians from around the world play bad and weird games for a live audience. I’ve done it at the Netflix Is A Joke Festival, and I’m doing it right now at Edinburgh Fringe (cough, cough, tickets) but I doubt any of you live near there, so let’s not make that a whole thing, shall we? Trust me: I don’t think this column is moving the needle.

Why You Should Come To Mike Drucker's S**t Arcade Show

Also, I made the mistake of bringing a massive suitcase full of cartridges. Normally, I switch off between emulation and cartridges, but with recent news of the death of physical media, it just felt more fitting to have something real there. At least, for the games that do have real versions. Some Switch opposite-of-classics are digital only. This suitcase of games is now the bane of my existence. It doesn't even fit inside my hotel closet.

Now, a couple of things. One question I get a lot is, “What do you mean by ‘bad game’?” And this is something I need to be careful about. Because half of the people who ask are just curious about what that means, while the other half get angry at the idea of me, a complete idiot, being some sort of arbiter on what’s good and what’s bad. I’ve had some game developer friends outright dislike the idea because every game requires effort and care — which I’ll get to in a second, I promise. With the industry struggling, I respect that people ere on edge about having hard work mocked.

Another question I get is, “Why not just stream this?” Which, yeah, I’ve done. And lots of other people do as well. But if you’ve ever been to a great concert or comedy show or play or one-man-show that a friend at work pressured you into, and then you found out way more about him than was necessary, you know the type of energy a live crowd brings. Streams obviously have a live audience, but there truly is a difference between people in seats cheering right in front of you and a chat that’s scrolling faster than you can read, but they clearly have an emoji-related inside joke.

And, of course, “Why bad games?” Honestly, it’s because they’re fascinating to me. And, if I’m being honest, which I rarely am, I think “bad” is sometimes a misnomer, although it looks great on a poster. Most truly bad games are unplayable messes or so edge lord offensive that it makes your eyes roll so hard they fall out. We know they’re bad because we try them and the controls aren’t right, the IP-heavy characters don’t act like themselves, the levels are impossible, or — the only kind of game I don’t play live — they’re just simply boring.

But there’s always magic in some bad games. The ones that reach for… something and just miss. I grew up loving Mystery Science Theater 3000 and was lucky enough to write for it for a few episodes. When you watch those corny, cheesy movies with funny people, you start to enjoy it more. You find the spots to celebrate. You appreciate art for its flaws, not in spite of them.

The last show we did, we played a Game Boy Advance game based on those weird Sea-Monkeys pets. The game made no sense. The Sea-Monkeys looked like vaguely horny, naked mole rats. But when a comedian finally beat the first level — a level that made no logical sense and was clearly designed by someone going through something brutal in their life — the entire room burst into applause. It was like appreciating a broken toy from a new angle.

Even the worst games are made by somebody. Someone was hired. Maybe they hated the assignment. Maybe they didn’t understand it. Maybe they were excited but had zero time and zero budget. A lot of old licensed games we play on the show, like Total Recall for the NES share little resemblance with their source material. Hell, in Total Recall, the Game Over screen features Arnold saying, “I’ll be back,” which was definitely not in that film. It’s like if there was a Star Wars game where someone shouted “Beam me up.”

Understanding The Undeniable Beauty Of Playing Bad Video Games

But those stupid mistakes are funny. They have the fun of going through an old box of toys and finding a knock-off Nintendo lunch box in which all the characters look like they were hit with radiation. There’s something special there. There’s an intelligence trying, reaching, hoping to either make something fun or just finish this stupid project. And either way, I enjoy going back and looking at it. I love showing it to people. I love hearing them enjoy it and then pay enough money for me to cover the deposit on the theater space. I like to imagine that I’m the only person on a planet of billions of people putting these cartridges into a console.

Nor are they all old bad games. For example, Fight of Gods. It’s a fighting game in which you can play as different religious figures like Santa Claus and Jesus. And, before you ask, yes, some religious figures are omitted for pretty understandable reasons. That said, it still feels like an oddly stupid, oddly offensive game? It also plays terribly, running at about one frame a year. But the crowds go insane for it because they see a fighting game twisted and mutated into something truly bizarre. You don’t get much better than Santa Claus doing damage to Buddha by taking a selfie with him.

And then there are weird games. Weird games get conflated with bad games far too often. One of my favorite games at these shows is Get Me Toilet Paper. This is a Nintendo Switch game in which you shove a JoyCon into a toilet paper roll and then use a long strip of cardboard to roll it back and forth. Then, on screen, that same roll of toilet paper moves its way through obstacles and traps before reaching the poor man below. It’s ridiculous and stupid, but God is it fun! It’s a type of game that I’m sure twenty people bought, and it’s an experience unlike anything I’ve played in games.

Maybe that’s it, too. Weird and bad games are DIFFERENT. When you’re used to the most polished triple-A titles with daily patches smoothing things out, it’s like jumping into a freezing pool to play something completely broken. I don’t mean mediocre, either. Concord was forgettable and mediocre (no offense to all involved, whom I’m sure absolutely love their game being an eternal punching bag). Bring Me Toilet Paper, however, now that’s something unique. I can think of the number of games in which toilet paper is the controller on one finger.

To paraphrase Alan Moore, a famously normal man, the bad games help you appreciate the good ones more. And, to add to that thought, seeing them played in front of an audience makes you appreciate the bad ones, too. Being at home playing Garfield Caught In The Act on Genesis is an exercise in self-hatred that ends with a note reading “no funeral.” But when you play it live, and finally beat that awful horror level, everyone cheers. For a brief moment, just a moment, a bad old game becomes a championship win. The audience wants you to do well.

I love finding the joy in these games. And doing this show night after night the past week has really reminded me of just how funny it is to play something really, really, really corny. Time Killers on Genesis might be one of the worst fighting games of all time, but grown adults in the audience turn into screaming children the moment one character hacks off another’s arm. It’s almost like getting an entire audience to hang out with you in your parents’ basement after a very unsuccessful Christmas.

Yeah, it sucks to buy a bad game or feel disappointed by one. And, of course, a game about rolling toilet paper on a sheet of cardboard wasn’t going to be the highlight of the Game Awards. That said, I’m happier finding weird crap and showing it to the world than if I am playing a triple-A remake of a triple-A remake of a triple-A game that just came out, which is a real thing we’re now getting with somewhat regularity. Give me your garbage, give me your disasters, and give me an audience that wants to see them.