What is a good, or a bad video game ?

That's a very hard and interesting question since a lot, if not most of it depends on player preference.

One thing that I would say almost everything hates is frustration which usually happens if the difficulty curve is very bad, no tutorials, no proper progression in terms of level design. That sort of stuff.

A good game is a game where everything just sorta fits together and works in a coherent way, where all systems support one another. Bad games are games that stand out because X or Y is weird. Compare it to UI, good UI is unnoticable, bad one is screaming in your face. I feel that a lot with good games, you don't really know why exactly it stands out from the rest, there usually is not a specific feature that jumps out, it just sorta all works. Very magical, I suppose

If I'm immersed and loose track of time, it's a good game, simple as that. Achieving that is very hard though and requires all disciplines to work together.

As with everyone, a game has to appeal to me. That doesn't make it a good but without it I normally don't give it a chance. I've bought several unappealing titles (to me) that people were praising but most of them disappointed. Without appeal there's little chance it will work for me. This is a matter of taste and is of course different for everyone. I play all sort of games and this is a list of what makes it enjoyable for me (talking SP btw):

• The game has to have a compelling story or at least give me enough motivation to push on.
• It needs a to have a proper ending. I need to be rewarded for the time I put into it. The end of Fallout 3 or the none existing ending of Rage won't do. Also, weak final bosses are a no go.
• I expect to be challenged. I expect to die several times. I expect to get stuck at certain points but....it should never be too hard or play unfair.
• Don't kill the immersion! Huge quest signs, intrusive hints, objective markers, etc kill the experience. I'm not stupid, stop holding my hand.
• Give me characters I can love or characters that I love to hate.
• Diversify! Half Life 2 is a great example of this. Some puzzles, some shooting, some driving, some story, etc. Keep it fresh and interesting

No go's:

• The holding hand approach. Spelling everything out, complete linearity (linearity itself isn't bad), invisible walls and a complete lack of freedom. When this happens it's game over for me.
• Bugs, instability, crashes. No matter how good the game, it's just not worth the frustration. That's why I returned Battlefield 4.
• Sounds contradicting, but freedom is one thing, making it completely unclear to a player what to do is something else. Subtle pushes in the right direction is a must have and being stuck for hours is a no go.
• Cheating and playing unfair to raise the difficulty is a cheap way and not fun.
• Interface should be easy to master and quick to use.
• Game should be complete, don't leave out stuff for the DLC.
• No pay to win.

That's it's for now.

Don't remember where i read it, but someone said about video games that they are a suite of "repeatable actions", a good video game is a game where those "repeatable actions" are fun.

Of course, goodluck finding what is fun and what isn't. A lot of people tried to make games, but only a few manage to make fun games. And obviously, not everyone has the same standards for "fun".

When your art/sound is obnoxious and the game crashes all the time, that will obviously affect how enjoyable your experience is. Looking at it merely from a game design point of view, I think there are some general observations that can be made. Marcel Zons of Innogames recently published a blog series on the "4 pillars of fun" (& supporting pillars). He specifically wrote it as a response to manipulative psychological tricks in social & mobile games, so don't dismiss his views because he's working for an F2P company just yet. In a nutshell he mentions the following pillars as elements for a fun game (I like the structure):

• Mastery (strategy, reaction, logical thinking, knowledge)
• Novelty (vivid game world, storyline, unique game mechanics
• Autonomy (freedom of movement, choice of progression, choice of consequences)
• Community (competition, cooperation, fame)

Supporting Pillars:

• Rewards (badges/achievements, items, virtual currencies)
• Progress (experience levels, building)
• Social Pressure (forced specialization, group challenges)

You can read the full articles here: http://blog.innogames.com/author/marcel

For a more elaborate take on this topic you can also read Jesse Schell's 'book of lenses'.

I heard having an M16 Assault Rifle in your game always helps, too.

On fun:

I think the differences between good and bad games exist on a few different axes. My personal axes would most likely be something like fun or not fun (see above video), narratively/environmentally engaging or not engaging and player freedom, guidance and consequence. That being said, I would never just cold give a game a score based on how well it performed in these areas. I firmly believe that most game experiences are holistic, and it would take away the immersion/suspension of disbelief/holism trying to deconstruct or judge a game like this while playing it. Besides that, there will always be tacit values that we as players will pick up on in a game, but not have a chance to understand in an analytical sense.

I disagree with many of the purported theories on engagement that are out there, because they don't strongly distinguish holistic games from non-holistic games (casual games would be a good example of these) and attempt to apply one theory or one type of understanding as an umbrella for everything game related. It also takes a deep tacit understanding of games that can currently only be achieved through years of experience playing said games to even begin to decipher what makes games engaging - and most game scholars just haven't that kind of experience as they come from different fields.

I get associations back to how ancient martial art masters trained their students with learning by doing. Just imitating the move would not grant them the technique, they would have to practice it until they fine tuned the technique to their own body before being able to master it. It's not a far stretch that there needs to be the same understanding for the study of games. Because right, as a certain fungineer put it when faced with people trying to analyse games for their inner workings, "It's like dissecting a clown to see why he's funny".

It has good game play

I'm one of those people in which the souls games broke me out of my boredom in video games in general. That said some things that matter to me are difficulty (it has to be challengeing or I get bored really fast), exploration, fucked up art style.

These things change depending on gaming mood and game. It might be easier to list the things that always ruin a game.

Short question: good controls (responsiveness, animations, etc), and rewarding actions.

With this, even a bland game can offer some fun.