Video Games are great distractions from what’s going on in the world. But some titles aren’t worth picking up. In fact, some shouldn’t have ever made it to retail given the ramifications they brought upon the very market that demanded them.
Now to be clear, this list doesn’t concern just those video games that were terrible in design. There are plenty of lists out there for them. It also concerns those titles with questionable circumstances — whether odd, controversial or just plain dumb — that proved too detrimental to the developers and publishers responsible for them.
However, despite all the conundrums these games have brought with them, it's already too late to recall some of them. Here is a list of video games that made their own companies regret they were ever made.
‘The Guy Game’ (Underaged model)
Art can imitate life but not without consequences. Take “The Guy Game” from developer Topheavy Studios and publisher Gathering of Developers for example. The hook with this live-action trivia game was to have the players answer questions until they were rewarded with sexy models flashing their extremities. Unfortunately, this also led to a lawsuit concerning an underaged model who wasn’t let in of the loop and the halting of distributing soon followed afterwards.
‘Abstractism’ (Cryptojacking scam)
Cryptojacking came to light with a game called “Abstractism.” Launched on the Steam marketplace in 2018 by developer Okalo Union and publisher dead.team, the game appeared as a 2D platformer on the surface. However, hidden deep within was malware that utilized players’ PCs for crypto mining right under their noses. This landed the companies in legal trouble and placed Steam under scrutiny for its open market design.
