squinting at this headline trying to work out in my head what makes a game worthy enough to be called "good" but not worth 15 dollars. I feel like this must occupy a really narrow slice of existence, where it's quality enough that you're willing to call it "good" - not "mediocre", not "okay" - Good. A positive emotion! But then express reservations that it's worth more than, say, the price of ad removal in an f2p idle game. Surely it can't be that good, then? The deepest marginalia of 'good' exists within this tiny crevice of thought. A good that's almost bad. Or a good that's good, but not as good as spending that 15 dollars on, say, one of 7000 different budget anime porn games on steam. More than Among Us levels of good, surely, for that is only 5 dollars. Perhaps it's exactly as good as the additional content you get for paying 10 dollars for baldur's gate 3's digital deluxe edition, which contains an original soundtrack and artbook? That must be how good overwatch 2's plot missions are. Surely.
-without the strictures of capital-C Critique, the enthusiast press regresses back to a mode where every game is de facto good, because it's a game, and games are good, baby.
There are just different kinds of good games: good games, great games, possibly the greatest game ever? (allowed 1 per month), games that are good enough (the standard can go as low as is necessary in order to deem them good), and so-bad-they're-good games (good). A "good game that's somehow not worth $15" is just another output of this system trying to scream and having no mouth.
While I feel like this is very true I also feel like I was saying this about Undertale, a million years ago
