Whether you’ve read my Weekly Kusoge column here on Destructoid, heard the word thrown around in anime, or simply came across it in gaming discourse, you might be wondering what kusoge is. If you’ve only read it, you might not even know how it’s pronounced. It is, after all, a bit of a weird one.
Kusoge is a word of Japanese origin, but technically, it’s a portmanteau of a native Japanese word and an English loanword. Its first part is “kuso,” pronounced “koo-soh.” In general, kuso means “crap” or “sh*t.” Sometimes, for English translations, it even means “damned,” as it can be seen as a generic curse word. The second part is “geemu,” which is pronounced “gey-moo” and is simply a Japanese approximation of the English word “game.”
Put them together, and you get kusoge, pronounced “koo-soo-gey.” It literally translates as “crap game” or “sh*t game,” and that is the word’s meaning. Personally, I lean towards “crap game” because kuso is a reasonably innocuous word that appears in media aimed at younger audiences, which we commonly see with “crap” and rarely see with “sh*t.”
It’s uncertain who coined the term kusoge and who popularized it, but it has been around since at least the ‘80s. It’s been attributed as having been first used to describe 1985’s Famicom port of Spelunker, Ikki, or 1986’s Takeshi no Chōsenjō. There hasn’t been a definitive answer. However, it grew in usage throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s before starting to catch on with Anglophones sometime in the early ‘00s.
What does kusoge really mean?
As we’ve established, the literal meaning of kusoge is “crap game.” This just means a game of poor quality. A bad game. I’d almost go on to say it’s a game that is unenjoyable, but then we get into sketchy territory. For starters, what is enjoyable differs from person to person. But beyond that, kusoge has taken on an underground meaning as an appreciation for bad games.
That, in itself, has a flexible meaning. Some say that makes the term kusoge strictly applicable to games that are fun despite their flaws, while others say that it can mean getting enjoyment from the analysis of a game’s failures. Personally, I feel that all the above interpretations are fair game. The original use of the term wasn’t exactly positive, but it quickly grew into a sort of kinship through suffering. In that sense, I feel that any of these uses of the term fit beneath its umbrella.
So, to summarize, kusoge is a word to describe a game of poor quality. It literally means “crap game.” However, it is commonly used as a term of affection.
Want to see plenty of examples? Check out my column, which has been running since 2021!
