History Main / TheMostDangerousVideoGame

* In ''Film/NeverSayNeverAgain'', [[BigBad Maximillian Largo]] challenges James Bond to a [[{{Zeerust}} "high-tech"]] holographic arcade game called ''Domination'' that he designed himself, in which the goal is to TakeOverTheWorld. The machine is rigged to administer progressively more painful electric shocks to the loser of each round, and letting go of the controls is an automatic forfeit. Given that Bond is playing against a {{Supervillain}}, it's implied that the shocks do go up to fatal levels, especially since they eventually reach the point where they blast Bond out of his chair. Bond wins before it reaches that point, though.

* In ''Film/NeverSayNeverAgain'', [[BigBad Maximillian Largo]] challenges James Bond to a [[{{Zeerust}} "high-tech"]] holographic arcade game called ''Domination'' that he designed himself, in which the goal is to TakeOverTheWorld. The machine is rigged to administer progressively more painful electric shocks to the loser of each round, and letting go of the controls is an automatic forfeit. Given that Bond is playing against a {{Supervillain}}, it's implied that the shocks do eventually go up to fatal levels, especially since they eventually reach the point where they blast Bond out of his chair. Bond wins before it reaches that point, though.

** Implied to be the case with [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4904 SCP-4904]], a series of modified UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast games that when played display AlienGeometries and stylized spinning discs [[BeingWatched in the shape of eyes]]. Ordinarily this causes no ill effects in the viewer, but the man who created the discs for Sega spent years researching the phenomenon [[NothingIsScarier only to be found dead with chunks of his brain inexplicably missing]].

* One episode of the ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack'' cartoon revolved around Jay entering [[VirtualTrainingSimulation a virtual shooting range]] to improve his poor accuracy score, [[HolodeckMalfunction when something goes wrong.]] Kay has to go in after him because getting shot by the simulated hostiles will not result in the simulation [[GameOver ending/resetting,]] but in death.

** The inversion continues with the fact that 3 out of the 4 fighters will just reappear in the real world when their hit points reach zero. That said, there were a couple episodes where this was played some degree of straight; the first featured the heroes being stuck in an alternate version of reality and at risk for deletion if they attempted to go into the VR world and the second featured the villain disconnecting the scanners used to go between VR and reality, not only putting the characters at risk of death but removing their pain dampeners (when Yumi takes a hit, she's rendered immobile for a good while and while Odd handles the pain better, he's obviously ''in pain'' whereas normally taking hits in VR was more an annoyance than anything else and the same had become true for being devirtualized by that point.)

* The ''ComicBook/HackSlash'' miniseries ''My First Maniac'' featured an old arcade game called ''Bludbus'', which urban legends state was banned due to causing things like suicidal and homicidal thoughts (undoubtedly inspired by the real-life {{urban legend}} of the ''VideoGame/{{Polybius}}'' cabinets). The slasher of the story, Grinface, was a normal boy who was killed while playing the it. Whether he was possessed by the game or not isn't clear, but he came back and adopted the identity of the VillainProtagonist. He hunts for victims in a corn maze filled with traps and even upgrades to a bigger hammer as he gains 'points'.

* ''{{VideoGame/Polybius}}'', a fictional arcade game of American youth and urban lore that's become ubiquitous thanks to the Internet. The game, so the story goes, is a ''VideoGame/{{Tempest}}'' knock-off that appeared in Portland arcades in 1981. The children who played it suffered from all three of the symptoms detailed above before [[DrivenToSuicide killing themselves]] in the middle of the night. The game disappeared shortly afterward, as suddenly as it had come -- in some tellings, wheeled away by mysterious [[TheMenInBlack men in black]]. Someone actually decided to make a [[{{Defictionalization}} Polybius game]], purposely simulating elements found in the mythology (subliminal messages, supernatural things, and so on). Of course, they can be toggled on and off. [[http://www.sinnesloschen.com/1.php See it here]].

** In ''Series/KamenRiderOutsiders'', ''Kamen Rider Chronicle'' would be used by [[NebulousEvilOrganization Foundation X]] and [[TheComputerIsYourFriend Zein]] -- to revive villains from previous seasons to oppose Zein, while Zein itself plans to [[spoiler:repurpose ''Chronicle'' into a [[InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves humanity self-destruction game]] by gaslighting unsuspecting players to their demise as cannon fodder against the villains]]. Unlike Masamune Dan, Zein's views ''Kamen Rider Chronicle'' as the FinalSolution to [[KillAllHumans human malice]].

* ''[[UsefulNotes/OculusRift Oculus]]'' founder Palmer Luckey has [[https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1589391326118039552 created a VR headset]], in honor of ''Literature/SwordArtOnline'', designed to [[InvokedTrope invoke this trope]] in the most literal sense. If you get a game over at any point in a game, three explosive charge modules shoot off that ''[[YourHeadASplode completely obliterate your head.]]''

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] ''Literature/TheMostDangerousGame'', nor [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame the trope named after that story]], though the intersection of that trope with this is not uncommon.

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1590 SCP-1590]] is a mobile HiddenObjectGame created by the MadArtist clique Are We Cool Yet? that taunts players with intimate details of their lives before trapping them in an EldritchLocation.

This trope is often the result of old fogies (and thrill-seeking youth) concocting myths about [[NewMediaAreEvil the dangers of new, unfamiliar technology]]. However, it's become more and more popular in NewMedia [[FoundFootageFilms found footage]]-style horror stories and {{Creepypasta}}s made by actual gamers.

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysVRHelpWanted'': In-universe, the VR game "The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience" is deadly due to containing [[spoiler:a digital representation of William Afton's spirit. During the normal ending, it's implied that he stuffs your body into the Freddy suit in the game's code with HandUnit unaware and traps you in the game forever. During the other endings where you follow tape girl's instructions to seal it away by turning it into a plushie version of itself, getting the rabbit mask in the corn maze from the game's DLC and talking to the plushie with it on reveals that the player character, Vanny, has become brainwashed into it's reluctant follower and continue Afton's work in the real world. This eventually leads into the events of ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'' with Vanny as the villain of the game]].

* There are many media accounts of gamers dying after playing for absurdly long periods without rest, especially in Asia. The deaths were mostly caused by the physical stress of such a long continuous session rather than any property of the games themselves. This goes back to 1981-82, when two teenagers died very shortly after posting high scores in the arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Berzerk}}''. Even more common are reports of health issues stemming from the same practices, which have prompted game companies and service providers to institute AntiPoopSocking changes.

* The ''Literature/NESGodzillaCreepypasta'' has a cartridge, which turns the game from simple glitches to an EldritchLocation, and also features [[EldritchAbomination the Hellbeast Red]]. [[spoiler:The final battle shows that Red has the ability to cause Zach pain in the real world through his attacks on Zach's monsters, including a {{Hellfire}} attack that causes ''incredible'' pain, and killing all of Zach's monsters will enable Red to kill Zach himself for real]].

A SubTrope of FictionalVideoGame (usually), TheGamePlaysYou, InsideAComputerSystem, MyLittlePanzer, and YourMindMakesItReal. Usually, you must WinToExit, and sometimes it's a SingleAttemptGame because you wouldn't survive losing your first attempt.

This trope is often the result of old fogies (and thrill-seeking youth) concocting myths about [[NewMediaAreEvil the dangers of new, unfamiliar technology]]. However, it's become more and more popular in NewMedia [[FoundFootageFilms found footage]]-style horror stories and {{Creepypasta}}s.

* The ''Literature/{{Shivers}}'' novel ''The Animal Rebellion'' had a cursed (...or something, it's never really explained) computer game that caused all animals in the immediate vicinity to go violently insane. In order to reverse the effects of the game (which was purposely {{Unwinnable}}, being the kind where you just have try and survive for as long as possible) the main characters had to wipe it from the hard drive and destroy the physical copy.

* There have been a number of urban legends about people dying while/after playing ''VideoGame/{{Berzerk}}''. The stories often differ on many details, such number of deaths, the score of the victim (often some variation of TheNumberOfTheBeast), the exact cause of death, etc. While it might seem like something MoralGuardians might make up to prove NewMediaAreEvil, [[TruthInTelevision people really have died from playing the game]], though as explained in the Real Life folder, the role of the game has been rather limited.

** [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1633 SCP-1633]] is a game where the AI gets smarter the more hours you have logged into it, starting out at bottom-of-the-barrel ArtificialStupidity where enemies just blindly rush the heroes without any sense of self-preservation or use of tactics, and eventually achieving enough ArtificialBrilliance to realize that there is a real person controlling the heroes, at which point it starts going after the player directly. Usually it doesn't try to do any actual harm to the player, just {{troll}} them enough to make them RageQuit, or use psychological mind games to creep them out. However, in one case, the game had a group of enemies coordinate repeated casts of a BlindedByTheLight spell to create EpilepticFlashingLights which gave the player a seizure. Another thing to note is that the came only creates or updates the "player data" file upon saving and quitting the game. When a player was instructed to beat the game in one sitting, the result was that the AI remained at its initial level of stupidity the whole way through, and exhibited no strange behaviour. After killing the final boss, the game autosaved and then spent ''several hours'' creating a player data file with an absolutely ''massive'' file size. The player was then instructed to pick the NewGamePlus option that had appeared, causing the game to show television static, the sight of which immediately put the player and ''only'' the player into a coma, while everyone else was unaffected. Also, an ApocalypticLog left by someone who worked on the game also suggests that if the game is allowed to get smart enough, the EldritchAbomination BigBad will start to think it is an ''actual'' Eldritch Abomination instead of just a video game character, and attempt to leave the game to destroy the real world.

* ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'' uses the same premise as its source material, with one key distinction: [[spoiler:the whole "players dies when their avatars do" deal is actually a GameBreakingBug that came up with ''SAO''[='s=] designer was [[ChristmasRushed rushing to finish the game in time for the NerveGear's launch.]] By the time he found out about the glitch [[ExhaustionInducedIdiocy he'd lost his mind from sleep deprivation]], so Kayaba decided to [[IMeantToDoThat double-down]], lock everyone in the game, and present himself as a nefarious mastermind rather than a colossal fuck-up,]] then kept up the charade for years because there was no way out for him that didn't involve landing him in a gigantic heap of trouble.

* ''WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged'' uses the same premise as its source material, with one key distinction: [[spoiler:the whole "players dies when their avatars do" deal is actually a GameBreakingBug that came up with ''SAO''[='s=] designer was [[ChristmasRushed rushing to finish the game in time for the NerveGear's launch.]] By the time he found out about the glitch [[ExhaustionInducedIdiocy he'd lost his mind from sleep deprivation]], so Kayaba decided to [[IMeantToDoThat double-down]], lock everyone in the game, and present himself as a nefarious mastermind rather than a colossal fuck-up.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog himself appears in a PublicServiceAnnouncement, warning other video game characters that if they die in a game that isn't theirs, ''[[KilledOffForReal they die for real]]''.

** Stories of haunted / evil video games are a fairly common type of Internet meme. Games from ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' to ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Sonic the Hedgehog}}'' have gotten this treatment.

* ''VideoGame/SadSatan'', a video game found on the deep web, is also a real life version of this trope. The supposedly original version contained images and audio from killings and child abuse as [[JumpScare jump scares]]. It really doesn't help that the music is distorted, the visuals are monochromatic, and there's unexplained child figures and a woman screaming. Mutahar (WebVideo/SomeOrdinaryGamers' host) became physically ill from both the music and the aforementioned images, and he quickly removed the link to the game from the video description and reported it to the [=FBI=] for its illicit material. It came to the point where Mutahar's viewers became ''worried'' about his health, but luckily he posted [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCjkgTnKT20 a follow-up video]] confirming that he was alright.