Overview
Kusoge (クソゲー, kusogē) is a slang term for a poorly made video game (with the ge being short for game). It is said that it first appeared in Famitsu with comment by Jun Miura about the Famicom port of Ikki by Sunsoft. However, he did not call Ikki a kusoge because it was a popular game at the time and not interesting, but rather he meant that revolting (what the game is about) is not something one or two people do and a few other comments. Even though Sunsoft was upset by his comments it helped increase the number of copies sold.
However, there are also a few games that have a good concept but turned out to be kusoge as a result of the production technology not being able to keep up, or games that were unplayable due to a broken game balance or fatal bugs, and turned out to be good games after being ported.
Among kusoge there are games that are intended to be a joke, with frequent misprints and strange effects that may or may not be intentional or mere mistakes in checking, and that invite dry laughter from users, may be classified as funny games. This does not mean that a funny game is always seen as a kusoge but rather that there are some titles among the kusoge that can be enjoyed as a funny game.
History
The video game industry in the U.S. expanded rapidly with the huge success of the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) released by Atari in 1977. At one time, it was said that "one out of every three households in the United States had one of these consoles". The console was unprotected and anyone could release a game. Atari filed a lawsuit against the pirate makers, but lost. Various manufacturers entered the market, including food manufacturers and distributors who had nothing to do with toys or games.
However, at the dawn of video games, the know-how had not yet been established, and crazy difficulty levels, usability that was almost non-existent, and severe bugs that interfered with gameplay were commonplace. With instant death, no hints, and games that were impossible to complete being the norm. In the Christmas sales season of 1982 the console was renamed the Atari 2600.
The console market collapsed due to a flood of bad games that drove away users, and the console industry in the U.S. entered a winter period until Nintendo entered the market in 1985. Some people say that the Video game crash of 1983 or Atari shock as it is called in Japan contains rumors.
For more information on this event see video game crash of 1983 or Atari shock.
When Nintendo launched the Family Computer in 1984, the company was so afraid of a repeat of the game crash that it initially did not allow third parties to enter the market. In particular, the NES, the North American version of the Family Computer, was strictly protected to prevent piracy, and third parties were required to undergo a quality review by Nintendo before they could release game titles.
So, were there no kusoge on the Famicom then? Well in 1985, Super Mario Bros. was released and the Famicom boom began, but even in Japan, low-quality software that was easily planned became a common sight.
In the 1990s, the PlayStation, which was said to be the next-generation console and adopted the high-capacity CD-ROM as its media, caused a boom, and titles that focused only on the presentation of cutscenes, characters, and voices became prominent, but not the gameplay. This went to the resulting in the production of a large number of such "kusoge".
In the 2000s and later, with the availability of relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use game development tools such as Unity and the online distribution environment such as Steam. Many good games that exceeded the ideas of existing game companies were released by individuals, but there was also many low-quality bad games that seems to be pimped out.
