The 10 Most Despicable Real Life Gaming Villains

Until very recently, Australia's Classification Board refused to grant a rating to any video game they deemed "mature," effectively banning everything from Dark Sector to Blitz: The League. The problem could be traced back to archaic legislation from the '80s, a time when today's murder simulators were still mere blips in future game developers' twisted young minds. The gamers of Australia cried out for decades, but their pleas fell on the deaf ears of one man: former South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, who blocked every attempt to change the outdated legislation until stepping down in 2010. His reasoning? "Think of the children."

Second on our list is another villain whose propensity for making gamers around the world simultaneously shriek with rage has been greatly diminished in recent years. The former lawyer's favorite hobbies include blaming Grand Theft Auto for every act of violence committed since 1990, sending vaguely threatening and occasionally psychotic e-mails to journalists, publishers and developers, and getting disbarred by the state of Florida. Thanks to that last one he's not much of a threat these days, but his influence is still felt every time a game is tenuously linked to some ignorant news anchor's dog going missing.

The CEO of Activision Blizzard is like that villain who's actually in charge of a power plant or oil drilling firm. We all need what his company produces, but we'd be better off if a maniacal genius wasn't at its helm. If it were up to him, we'd all be paying twice as much for games, each of which would require a monthly subscription and a unique, expensive peripheral controller to play. Oh, and the only games on the planet would be Call of Duty: Modern Explosions & Yelling 27 and World of Warcraft.

While Activision Blizzard's merger was clearly the product of evil (read: Bobby Kotick), Blizzard itself remains a thinly disguised villain in its own right. Whatever else you might say about WoW, the morality behind purposely designing a game to be addictive is debatable at best. Even Diablo 3 isn't exempt from Blizzard's need to exploit customers: the game will require an internet connection to play, which Blizzard laughably claims is "not DRM," and its new, anonymized auction houses will potentially allow the company to manipulate the in-game economy without us ever even knowing.

Bungie has made countless positive contributions to the game industry. Halo legitimized console shooters in 2001, and Halo 2's online matchmaking system is still mimicked today. But we can't ignore their end goal, which Bungie has repeatedly stated is "world domination," forever. We love Halo, but do the means justify the end in this case? Maybe if they give their most loyal subjects MJOLNIR armor and send us on exciting space missions. Maybe.

Unlike Bungie, the Farmville Developer may actually follow through on their plan to rule the world. Zynga excels at developing video game-like applications with pretty graphical interfaces and the omnipresent temptation of microtransactions. These "games" are the t-virus of the industry, turning little kids and moms everywhere into brainless clicking zombies with a hunger for "more cows." To top it off, the company recently tried, unsuccessfully, to purchase Popcap. The Plants vs Zombies developer—and, by extension, fans of good video games—are doubtless better off without that merger.

Look, PTC, everyone agrees that little kids shouldn't play Mature-rated games. That's why they're rated Mature. Because little kids are not mature. But perpetually spreading misinformation and fighting for blatantly unlawful legislation that limits what consenting adults can do in their own homes is misguided, to say the least. To say a little more, it makes you seem stupid. And evil. So stop it. (For the children.)

Everyone knows Fox News is a morally deficient propaganda factory run by the same conniving genius who thought hacking the voicemails of 9/11 victims was a kosher move. Yet innocent authors like Cooper Lawrence are still somehow blamed for disasters like their 2008 "'SE'XBOX?" segment. Granted, talking heads should attempt a tad of research before acting haughty on a television program that calls Mass Effect "Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas," but the real villain here is still Fox News.

Senator Leland Yee, Ph.D. has made a political career out of bashing violent video games. He's the one to blame for California's nearly-passed video game legislation, and though the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals shut it down, his fight against a benign form of entertainment enjoyed by millions is far from over. To top it off, now the would-be crusader is running for mayor of San Francisco. Though he still won't be able to ban violent games even if he does become mayor, the less power this guy has, the better.

The Venezuelan government right now is like Ozymandias at the end of Watchmen; what they did was wrong, but they did it for what they see as the common good. And it worked. Last year, the country passed legislation dubbed "Ley para la Prohibición de Videojuegos Bélicos y Juguetes Bélicos," which sends those who "import, manufacture, sell, rent, or distribute violent toys or video games" straight to jail. Do you think in Venezuelan prisons, inmates smuggle violent games inside their nethers while their visitors bake PlayStations into birthday cakes? Our hats go off to you, Venezuelan government, for being the ultimate real-life video game villain.