The importance of playing bad games

Recently I bought an AAA game that was universally disliked.

Normally I buy games regardless of their reputation, because sometimes I end up enjoying the game, and even if I don't I most likely can refund it on Steam anyway.

I really did not enjoy this game though, I ended up refunding it after a while. However, I think I learned more about making video games by playing this terrible game than I've ever learned from one good game before.

 Writing

Do not treat the player as an idiot. You don't need to repeat every single main plot point in every conversation.

Characters in your game's world are not you. They don't talk and react to things like you, they might even say thing you don't like.

Exploration

Having alternative routes in an otherwise linear game is great. However, if every single alternative route is chock-full of chests filled with the same loot, exploration just loses all meaning. Exploration splits into two categories, the main route, and the loot crates. After a while you just lose all will to even check the alternative routes because your inventory is already filled with the same meaningless crap.

The quality of loot is also important. Fallout: New Vegas is a great example of loot, any single piece of loot might be useful to you. Something might be completely useless, something you might want to sell, something is useful in a crafting recipe. You'll learn what you want as you play the game.

In a modern game like this one I just played, all loot is divided into equipable gear, and shit that can be traded for money. The game is also very upfront about this, it's marked very visibly that the piece of loot is only good for selling for money. The piece of loot is just an alternative way to notate currency. It's not interesting. Why do you even care that this unit of currency is named "Shiny pug statue" and has a pretty icon attached? You're not going to even see the name or icon, you just look at the value and sell it.

Also don't make your gameplay consist of just mashing one button. Even if your animations are extremely well done, it still gets old really quick.

I don't know how this ties to my game, just felt like venting at 1:30 on a saturday.