Warning: Do not play these games

If you were to ask any gamer on the street what the worst game ever is then they might give you an answer of No Man’s Sky, the game that deceived everybody with its size, scope and gameplay. Perhaps Aliens: Colonial Marines, where trailers for the game looked nothing like the actual content to the point where the developers got sued for false advertising. Maybe they would talk about whatever steaming pile of dung America’s Worst Company of 2012 and 2013 has put out this year (yes it’s EA). Maybe casting their minds back further; they rest on the infamous E.T. video game, listed constantly as one of the worst games in history. Yet all the games I just listed don’t even come close to being some of the worst games in history because for all intensive purposes they were actually video games that worked. The worst video games in history aren’t video games at all, they are scams which hold no semblance of being a video game as well as actively going out of their way to steal as much money as possible from the people who buy them.

The inspiration for the article comes from a YouTube video I stumbled on from the Norwich Gaming Festival 2017. The video is a lecture by Stuart Ashen, a YouTuber and video game historian who tells the story of a game called Hareraiser, which he argues is ‘the worst game ever’. Hareraiser was published in 1984 by Haresoft, which was released as two separate games called Prelude and Finale. Each one of these games cost £8.95 (£28.22 today with inflation), which was significantly higher than the normal cost of video games at the time.  Hareraiser itself was a puzzle game that provided a slideshow of different screens, each containing purple and yellow trees, the sun, clouds, spiders and a line of text at the bottom. Apparently, hidden within each of these screens were clues to the location of a golden hare necklace that was valued at £30,000 and was available to whoever solved the clues and found the location first.

The worst video games in history aren’t video games at all

This game concept, despite being rather strange, was actually relevant considering the history of the golden hare necklace itself. This is because the founder of Haresoft had won the necklace in another treasure hunt that had stemmed from an artistic puzzle book called Masquerade by British artist Kit Williams. Williams had buried the necklace and hidden clues to the location in his art book, which was published in August 1979. The necklace was discovered in 1982 by a gentleman called Ken Thomas, who hadn’t actually solved the puzzle, but had found the casket in a pile of dirt that had been dug up by two physics teachers, who had correctly solved the puzzle. However nothing was what it seemed.

For starters, Ken Thomas was a pseudonym for Dugald Thompson who coincidentally was the business partner of John Guard who also coincidentally was the boyfriend of Veronica Robertson, Kit Williams’ ex-girlfriend at the time he created the puzzle. While she didn’t know the exact location, she disclosed the general area it was probably buried, on the promise of the money from the sale of the necklace being donated to an animal rights group. Instead the necklace was used as both a prize for Hareraiser as well as collateral for the creation of Haresoft.

This then brings us back to the video game Hareraiser, if you can even call it a game. Rather it is a series of incomprehensible 8-bit pictures and text that essentially serve as a delivery system for the clues, with absolutely no hint as to go about finding the clues in the first place. Not only that but the game was split into two parts with no logical reason other than attempting to milk more money out of consumers. To this day, no one has ever come even remotely close to having the slightest idea of what any of the game means with the only clue allegedly being given out by TV presenter Anneka Rice during an appearance at Harrods that was never recorded. The company went into liquidation in 1988 and the necklace was sold for £31,000, while Hareraiser is forever known as simply a scam treasure hunt made by scammers funded by their false treasure hunt.

Hareraiser is forever known as simply a scam treasure hunt made by scammers funded by their false treasure hunt

While you might think that such a blatantly obvious, cash-grabbing ruse that would make EA shake their heads in shame couldn’t possibly have occurred more than once, you would be wrong in that assumption. About three years after the collapse of Haresoft, Active Enterprises was created in the US to create a video game collection called Action 52. Vince Perri, the founder of Active Enterprises based the idea off of a pirated collection of 40 games that the founder’s son was playing with at the time but he would expand the concept to 52 games, make it fully legal and sell it for the grand price of $199. However, the whole affair was poorly managed, rushed from the start, had terribly designed games and even plagiarised content, such as musical scores, from other developers. The worst is yet to come though. Active Enterprises developed a competition for one of its games called Ooze, whereby people who beat level five would be entered into a prize draw of $104,000. (half in cash, half as a scholarship) This competition was a significant draw for people to drop $199 on a collection of poor quality games in order to win the $104,000. The problem was that the game crashed on level two. Every time. Without fail. This meant that the whole competition was essentially a scam created to sell a collection of games, which simply weren’t even worth $4 each. The resulting backlash, along with poor sales led to the eventual shutdown of Active Enterprises.

Now, of course, both of these examples were in the Wild West days of the gaming industry and now something so blatantly a scam that rips off consumers could never exist today. Enter stage right, Journey to the Light. This ‘game’ marketed itself as one of the hardest puzzle games on Steam when it was released in May 2015. The ‘game’ consisted of the player taking control of a dark sphere rolling around in a forest and a single line of text as a clue to each of the eight levels. However when players loaded in and played it, not one of them could find a solution to level one. When players looked into this game more they actually discovered that the only person who had completed any level was the developer of the game themselves, who himself had only finished up to level three according to Steam achievements. This prompted some players to dig into the game’s code in which they found that the first 5 files were the introductory screens and that the next files, labelled level5 through to level11, were actually just the same level repeated over and over. Finally digging further into the code they actually found that the only command that the game supported was interacting with lanterns that were found around the forest.

These video games show the very worst side of the gaming industry

When this was discovered, people went and confronted the developer on social media demanding answers. The developer originally responded with clues for a solution to level two as well as claiming that there were clues hidden in the Steam trading cards for the game. What he failed to mention was that Steam trading cards only unlocked after two hours of gameplay, which coincidentally also meant that players couldn’t utilise Steam’s refund policy as refunds are only allowed before the two hours played limit. This refund policy was also criticised by the developer himself as it meant he lost significant revenue from the game as many people were just refunding it. Eventually, the developer gave up on trying to defend his actions and vanished from social media and Steam pulled the game and offered everyone who had bought it a full refund.

All in all, these video games show the very worst side of the gaming industry, where unscrupulous individuals see video games as a get rich quick scheme. I’m certain that the examples I just gave are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to scam video games. In solving this, it is not only the job of companies such as Steam to be vigilant and act swiftly against these types of games but also the job of gamers themselves to work together to protect each other and reveal these deceptive practices. So maybe when you are about to criticise your next game for poor graphics or bad gameplay at least count your blessing that you aren’t literally being scammed out of your money by a tech-savvy hustler.