Abstract
Problem: What does it actually mean when someone calls a game "bad," and is there such a thing as an objectively bad game?
Approach: Tim Cain examines the term "bad game" from multiple angles — sales, review scores, budget, personal taste — and uses examples from his own career (The Outer Worlds, Fallout, Arcanum) to illustrate the subjectivity of quality judgments.
Findings: "Bad" is almost always subjective. No game on Steam has 100% negative reviews. Games that some call bad continue to sell, get sequels, and maintain stable review scores. People who insist their opinion is objective truth are engaging in black-and-white thinking — or worse, narcissism.
Key insight: Your taste is not scientific truth. Find reviewers who think like you, and stop arguing chocolate vs. vanilla as if there's a correct answer.
The Vagueness of "Bad"
When people call a game "bad," Tim notes the term is hopelessly vague. Does it mean low-selling? Poor review scores? Small budget? Usually people just mean "you shouldn't play it" — but they present a subjective opinion as universal fact.
There's a crucial difference between "I think this game is bad" and "this game IS bad." The first is honest subjectivity. The second is a claim to objective truth that Tim flatly rejects: if you genuinely believe your take on a game is 100% objectively correct for everyone, "not only are you wrong, you're also probably a narcissist."
The Developer's Perspective on Narcissist Critics
Tim reveals that game developers privately discuss these kinds of critics. "Narcissist gamers are well-known and discussed" in development circles. Studios just never say it publicly because they don't want to antagonize their audience. Tim, being semi-retired and independent on YouTube, doesn't have that constraint.
The key distinction: not liking a game doesn't make you a narcissist. Believing your dislike is objective truth that invalidates everyone else's enjoyment does.
Features Nobody Cares About
People who deep-dive into why a game is "bad" often fixate on things that, for fans of the game, either don't matter or are actually features. Tim gives the example of spending enormous development time preventing foot-sliding in Arcanum — something some players loved but that Diablo completely ignored ("it looks like they're skating around in an ice rink") with zero impact on its success.
Similarly, Tim personally dislikes romance in RPGs — he finds it often makes every NPC feel like "a horny bisexual person" and skews the world in unintended ways. But he'd never claim that makes a game objectively bad, especially when you can just ignore romance options entirely.
The Outer Worlds as a Case Study
Tim directly addresses people on his channel who claim The Outer Worlds is objectively bad:
- Reviews: Tons of people liked it. The review scores haven't changed in four and a half years.
- Sales: Millions of copies sold, and people continue buying it — nobody is being "tricked."
- Sequel: It got two DLC expansions and a sequel was greenlit. If it were truly bad, that wouldn't happen.
He contrasts this with the original Fallout, which reviewed well but didn't sell well enough for Interplay (who were struggling financially) to justify a third installment. The lesson: commercial failure doesn't mean a game is bad, and commercial success doesn't mean it's good — but claiming a game that reviews well, sells millions, and gets a sequel is "objectively bad" requires some creative reasoning.
Black-and-White Thinking
Tim warns against a cognitive pattern where once you like a game, everything about it is perfect, and once you dislike one, everything about it is terrible. Even on his own games, Tim can point to elements he didn't like or didn't even want included. That's normal. Every game is a nuanced product with strengths and weaknesses.
Finding the Right Reviewer
Rather than arguing about objective quality, Tim recommends finding a reviewer whose taste aligns with yours. He specifically recommends Mortismal Gaming, who waits until 100% completion before reviewing and acknowledges when a game might start rough but get better (or vice versa). If a reviewer consistently likes what you like and dislikes what you dislike, their recommendations become a reliable filter.
Other strategies: buy on Steam where you can return within the refund window, try demos when available, or wait for friends' opinions.
The Chocolate vs. Vanilla Problem
Tim's closing metaphor: arguing that a game is objectively bad is like arguing that chocolate is objectively better than vanilla. "I mean the answer is chocolate," he jokes, "but there are people out there that argue vanilla." Taste is taste. It's fun to discuss, but don't mistake your preferences for scientific truth.
References
- Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp17yIB6Ijo