Since everyone is doing their ... anti?? game design takes, let me do mine.
We'll start with the coldest take. Good Game Design accomplishes a Goal. I think that's... pretty universally uncontroversial? Like even if someone somehow disagreed, I don't think they'd say I was going out on much of a limb. But despite this, there is trouble!! Because not all goals are good goals and I feel like the majority of budding devs who go down the design rabbit hole start designing with two of the worst goals you could have!!
The two goals are Making a Good Game and Not Making a Bad Game.
Almost any other goal is better. Wanna piss the player off? Great goal! Wanna be obtuse and unapproachable? awesome! Is your goal to try and seem like you don't have a goal? Hell yeah. Wait, you WANT to make a Bad Game? Slow down buddy, that's a noble goal, but that's super hard because by having a goal that cool you're probably going to make a good game!
The other two though? The ones most starting devs work with? Unopinionated, cowardly goals. Both are deeply related to. They boil down making a great game to putting as much Good Stuff in as possible, by minimizing the amount of Bad Stuff. Coyote time? Well, good games have that, and bad games don't. I don't wanna embarrass myself and make that mistake! If good games are deep, and I add complications, and make those complications have risk reward, it should automatically be engaging... right? But "Good" Won't Make Your Heart Thump. That "Good", in isolation, doesn't mean anything because it doesn't invoke anything. Being Good for Goods sake is what gets you the current AAA landscape, in all it's banality. Smooth content.
Aevee's post can stand alone. It doesn't need me fixating on one specific angle of it outside the fact that I feel like I was there. I was the Objective Game Designer. I was posting on the (lol) sirlin dot net forums with the biggest bunch of rigid dorks(many of us eventually recovered), arguing design while being afraid to even MENTION that I made IWBTG. Who would take me seriously if I made IWBTG? I, after all, made the critical error of not simply avoiding Bad Game Design. So I ended up spending a lot of time (less on those forums, but certainly other places) defending myself and my design. I was both embarrassed and proud of it at the same time.
"You don't understand, the goal wasn't to be fair it was to be funny!! It's not just surprise! Anything shocking is a surprise! It's a joke because it's built to"
Is good game design overrated, or is what people call good game design simply not good? It might seem like splitting hairs... because, well it is. But I've been in this fight so long I can't let my self cede the concept of "Good Game Design" to those whose only ambition is to Not Fail.
They don't deserve that phrase.
good Game Design can be a lot like good Prose. Prose for its own sake can feel flat and vapid. But good prose can find novel ways to invoke complicated feelings both efficiently and beautifully. It's a communication aid -- a wonderful and artful way to achieve a goal.
... And like prose, not all good novels have or need great prose. Great prose is just one tool. It's hard to make much of anything on prose alone. In fact, it's almost impossible to have Great Prose without a context to give that Prose meaning. "Purple Prose", the unnecessarily flower writing done when you're too uncertain to write confidently. An empty performance. A lot of Good Game Design is Purple Prose, a fanciful flourish supporting nothing of substance. "Good" Game Design isn't good. It's robotic and commercial. The only objective goal in game development is exploiting people for money.
Actual Good game design is when a game designer makes feel something.
