There are a lot of video games known to ruin lives out there. The more this industry grows, the more big development studios and AAA companies are figuring out ways to incorporate predatory practices in their games.
Below, we have listed a bunch of video games which released throughout history. Games that have been debated over and have the potential to ruin lives.
Well-Known Games That Ruin Lives
Genshin Impact
Genshin Impact can be considered as an umbrella franchise for the genre if we had to point to a type of game that legit causes harm and financial ruin. Gacha games are known to ruin lives because the addiction can get to a point where it can ruin lives.
The community has even termed the particular type of consumers who are always ahead of everyone when it comes to spending money on these games. These players are called ‘whales’.
Genshin Impact was the first one to globally popularize the world of gacha games, along with the disdain it brought towards the fanbase.
Grand Theft Auto
There is no need to point out a particular version of Grand Theft Auto because all of them can be equally dangerous, especially for younger people. As kids, we never understood the gravity of how damaging morbid curiosity can become.
Being able to just straight up steal cars and run over others at first seemed fun, but looking at it from an experienced perspective, the addiction to games like that can ruin lives.
The funny part is that this problem arises because players do not play GTA in the intended way, which is to follow the story. Because underneath all the morbidity, there lie some genuinely well-written characters.
Fortnite
Fortnite is one of the most famous online multiplayer games in the world to come out in the last few decades. It shaped the whole genre of how a live service video game should work and ushered in an age where people started leaning towards streaming video games.
But along with it, the game also brought some of the worst sides of this addiction. Fortnite is a competitive game that kids love, and it led to their exposure to some of the worst influences in streaming culture.
Fortnite was also one of the most prominent faces of actually mentoring kids from a very young age for a competitive video gamer mindset.
Call Of Duty
Way before the current generation of Fortnite and other free-to-play multiplayer games, there were the Call of Duty titles in the Xbox 360 era. This was a time when multiplayer regulation was no man’s land, and it led to the rise of what came to be known as one of the most crass eras in gaming.
Racism, misogyny, and everything else found a home in the online voice chat days of the Xbox 360 era. Traces of these influences can still be found in modern-day social media. While this did not directly lead to lives being ruined, it sure shaped some young minds to be pushed in that direction.
League of Legends
We think that the addiction to League of Legends goes hand in hand with games such as Call of Duty and other popular multiplayer games. It can harbor equal amounts of toxicity when it comes to the fanbase.
But beyond just the racial slurs and general hostility on League of Legends chat, the game is hypercompetitive in nature, and a lot of people spend a good deal of their lives trying to chase that Esports glory.
While being successful can be insanely worth it for someone, the rat race to become one of those champions can completely ruin one’s life.
The Sims
You might not have guessed it because it is usually very detached from the general video game community, but The Sims franchise deserves a spot on this list, considering how extremely addictive it can get.
Sims allow players to create a virtual world where they can interact and live out their lives. Players can put in hours into this experience, trying to see how far things can go. This, in turn, starts extending to real life, which gets neglected slowly for some of the hardcore players.
Honkai Star Rail
Similar to Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail is another gacha created by MiHoyo that can ruin lives because of its predatory practices. The game produces a lot of whales who keep spending their money on in-game purchases.
As a video game, Honkai Star Rail is very separate from Genshin Impact, having a turn-based combat system that takes influences from the likes of Persona in terms of visual representation.
Gacha gaming as a genre has the optimum potential to ruin someone’s life if they get way too addicted to it. Honkai Stair Rail is one of the prime examples of where things are headed with the genre these days.
