These are the opposite of my recommended games, which are games that I feel have so much wrong with them that I actually feel the need to express it somewhere. These aren't just games which I didn't like, or had more flaws than good points, or had a terrible ending. These are the games I refuse to play unless I'm either given a big payout (not a sponsorship, more like a bribe from an unrelated party, and I will question any connections) or some significant charity milestone is reached for an event I'm a part of, like hundreds of thousands of times the amount of currency that would buy a regular candy bar at a regular store, minimum. If it looks like I'm just angry about popular games, there are a lot of other popular games I'm perfectly fine with, or are at least not really caring about, and these listed games just happen to have been brought to my attention due to their popularity. However, popularity may be a factor if they're particularly annoying.
Platforms: PC (now only through EGS), PS4, XB1, NS
Played it: No
Crime: Major sell-out, repeating history, genre destruction
A similar case to Rocket League: Interesting concept of a multiplayer game releases on Steam, gets some amount of traction, developer gets bought out by Epic, it gets moved into free-to-play and off Steam. Once again a warning against buying any multiplayer-only games because they'll probably just all go free-to-play eventually, sometimes in worse ways than others, but often not a great way either. I do have to admit that I was tempted to get into this game as well, given the gameplay angle and character design, but because of the whole Rocket League problem, I've pretty much been permanently turned off of multiplayer-only paid games, and a case like this one isn't helping that either. Essentially being driven to what seems like some type of paranoia about not being able to trust a game to be playable for long. Naturally this is also being overtaken by design patterns from Epic's big cash cow which only just turns games into less of games and more money pits. A better alternative is probably Among Us, as that also features cute bean characters, is way cheaper, isn't being driven into the ground by microtransactions, and is way more memetic to the point that skins based on it ended up in Fall Guys previously. Of course there's also the existing knock-offs which probably already started as free-to-play or just cheaper. Just be careful with the sketchier copies in case they're just base-level account-stealing apps, particularly on mobile.
Platforms: PC, PS4, XB1
Played it: No
Crime: Brand blurring, destructive cycles of attempted resurrection, possible actual physical harm to customers
Taking how non-Fallout Fallout 4 was and amplifying it an untold amount of times, Bethesda attempts an MMO themselves instead of just having the IP licensed to another Zenimax developer like with Elder Scrolls Online, and it was a far bigger mess than any No Man's Sky ever was. And like No Man's Sky, they did all they could to turn it around into something much more playable. Sure, there were improvements, but not close to the level that No Man's Sky was turned around, since that game actually became pretty decent at least. Fallout 76 is nowhere near decent even after this long, and they're still trying to make it work by making it worse. They even threw in a battle royale mode for some reason (money), and for all I know they'll just force that into being the main mode instead of the actual game they tried to make, as has happened with other games that threw in a battle royale mode. Also, excessive microtransactions in a paid multiplayer game that aren't just cosmetic, either. As well, it can't be properly modded because it's forced connections to servers, and modding is a cornerstone to why any other Bethesda-developed game has been successful in recent times. Not to mention every time they've tried to have a physical promotion or reward, it went horribly wrong. From the whole canvas bags that weren't actually canvas thing, to the moldy helmets, to even the Halloween Pip-Boy prop for this game being the cheapest half-made foam thing, that compared to even the Fallout 4 Halloween Pip-Boy prop which is actually fairly decent for a static prop. No idea if they could fully salvage this, but for those looking for a more single-player but with co-op experience, this probably won't work out.
Platforms: PC (only through EGS), PS4, XB1, NS
Played it: No
Crime: Funding shady activities, exploitation of parent/guardian funds via manipulating children, discarding playerbases for greed
If this game didn't take off like it did, the EGS wouldn't exist, and that alone would probably have avoided a dozen problems at least. While I support quality competition in the PC market, that is hardly quality. As for the game itself, it's a monstrous marketing machine that follows every aspect of mobile games that aim to squeeze every bit of money out of the player. It's also a giant commercial for just about everything in this point. They seem convinced this game should be its own complete virtual world on par with the likes of Roblox or even Second Life with all the bizarre events they have going on in it including movie screenings and concerts, and it feels like a lack of focus. Speaking of a lack of focus, this game was originally a fort-building survival game, not a battle royale. The latter mode was added to remind people that the game existed, and now completely overshadows the original mode, which has effectively been discarded. And now they're using it as a tool to extort Apple into giving them all of the profit from in-app purchases in the name of "opening a closed platform". While I support opening the closed iOS platform, that is not their goal. They just want to try to get people interested in the game again by cutting off a portion of their playerbase, again, and then immediately send their remaining fans after the megacorp that isn't them. This game has just snowballed into a mess I want nothing to do with, and made the company something I'm avoiding as much as possible.
Platforms: PC, Mobile
Played it: No
Crime: Boredom, card game saturation, connections against human rights
The main reason this game was noted in the general public was for highlighting the strong "don't piss off Red China" mentality pushed by ActiBlizzard when they took to banning several people from their eSports organizations, and possibly other departments, who stated support for Hong Kong against its Chinese governmental occupation. That alone pushed this game onto this list, since otherwise it's just a boring card game that caused way too many clones to show up and possibly risk wrecking decent enough developers just wanting a quick cash-in on the fad. As well, I view anything from ActiBlizzard with a discerning eye, and the fact that the Blizzard side of things in general hasn't really come out with anything I've wanted to play also helps me avoid this sort of thing. I did play World of Warcraft once, but that was just to see what it was like and to say I did.
Platforms: PC
Played it: No
Crime: Saturation of game streams, eSports mentality spread, boredom, possible regime funding
I find this one more annoying than anything, because it just won't end. This whole modern eSports mindset of ladder ranking and matches that seem to go on for over an hour was incubated here before suddenly every game had to be eSports. It's not solely responsible, but it certainly helped that along. I'm of a mindset where games should be fun first, and the game-related jobs are mostly in the development of games and their assets. I'm not against competitive level gaming, but it's become so commercialized that it's really a parallel to regular sports and draws just about as much lack of interest from me. As for this game, it's a genre I don't really understand despite having played the original Defense of the Ancients a couple times long ago and I don't find it exciting to watch. I've even been to an actual tournament for another MOBA on accident and couldn't really get into that even then. Again, this isn't so much a feeling of loathing than one of annoyance. And for anyone concerned about the whole Tencent thing, Riot is 100% owned by them, so that's something to look out for.
Platforms: PC (now Windows only, and now only through EGS), PS4, XB1, NS
Played it: Yes, on PC and Mac through Steam
Crime: Major sell-out, discarding active playerbases, genre destruction
A game I enjoyed for a while, and there was probably a time I would recommend it as being a fairly unique multiplayer game. Now the tides of turning every game into a free-to-play money pit of random skins has hit this one hard, thanks to the previously self-publishing developers being bought out by Epic. Now it's becoming very much like Epic's big free-to-play money pit described above, including parts of each game bleeding into each other, something that could cause a feeling of disgust in former fans akin to watching two disease-ridden abominations that defy nature attempt to breed, for someone who isn't into watching indescribable horrors get it on, that is. The Internet has many types. Also, there's the strong eSports angle which means the soundtrack is almost entirely "gamer dubstep" or whatever the hell that crap's called. If I picked through every track, maybe I'd find something decent, but when I played, I wanted to get out of the menus as soon as possible and am thankful that it didn't default to having it during the matches, at least until I found the volume controls. The tale of how this went from an alright game to trash is one of warning, and the tale of paid multiplayer games going free-to-play eventually is a long one with many notes, especially this one. Now I don't trust any paid multiplayer game anymore, period. If a game managed to obliterate my consideration of a whole subset of games, it's a pretty bad sign. You're much better off playing the original, and I don't mean Supersonic Whatever Rocket Cars Thing. I mean get Monster Truck Madness on N64 and play the soccer mode and tell me that isn't the original Rocket League. They even had hockey. If someone can put together a better clone of this or maybe draw more from Monster Truck Madness and not get sued to oblivion, then I may look into that.