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[MadWatch]

Have you ever played a game that made you hate its antagonist so much that you wanted to defeat him not only for the sake of finishing the game but mostly because you really wanted to kick his ass ?

How do you think a game can induce the player to get this kind of feelings ?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

usually when i play games i like the antagonist more than the protagonist

the only antagonists i don't like are the ones that are stupid or goofy rather than evil or intelligent. example: ozzie from chrono trigger

i think it's easier to make an antagonist "annoying" than to make the player dislike the antagonist for his evil deeds, because typically we don't care about what who dies since we know it's just a videogame. example: i didn't hate sephiroth for killing aeris at all, i was happy to get rid of her

i prefer games where the antagonist is intelligent and deceptive and manipulative, and mostly stays in the background and is rarely shown, but also has nobility is only doing evil things for what they see as some greater good. example: krelian in xenogears, or leon silverberg in the suikoden games; or another way to put it is i prefer liking the antagonist over disliking the antagonist

[stevobread]

Does Moneybags from Spyro count? I don't think he could be called a villain, and he's certainly not the main antagonist or a threat, but he could be called an antagonist since he constantly finds ways to collect gems from you. And in the end of the third game, it was pretty awesome to find out that I could chase him down and take back all the gems he took from me.

So, I guess if an antagonist continually takes something from you that you earned and need, it really would make a player want to beat them.

i think it's easier to make an antagonist "annoying" than to make the player dislike the antagonist for his evil deeds, because typically we don't care about what who dies since we know it's just a videogame. example: i didn't hate sephiroth for killing aeris at all, i was happy to get rid of her

Tying what I've said with this, I honestly haven't even taken the time to finish Final Fantasy 7 myself, but I know my brother thought it sucked not to have Aeris anymore. She is really useful for healing, after all. (Plus she's meant to be liked, being a character that the creators actually thought through. Story in games shouldn't be ignored.)

[JWK5]

example: i didn't hate sephiroth for killing aeris at all, i was happy to get rid of her

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@stevobread - don't want to turn this into a ff7 thread, but that was exactly why i didn't like her, she was too nice / feminine. also characters were so customizable in ff7 that you can make anyone into a healer by giving them  the heal=all materia combination

and i'm definitely not saying story should be ignored, story is really important, just that i personally tend not to care when villains do evil things in games, because i'm usually not too attached to the things they do evil to. for instance in lufia 2 or lufia 1 (i forget which) the sinistrals would destroy entire towns, but that doesn't bother me at all compared to when i read about actual real towns getting destroyed (e.g. in war)

[noah!]

I can't really claim to be a writing expert or anything, but in my personal experience all "hatable" antagonists successfully execute one thing and one thing only: They fuck with your values.

Some real life examples: I was only eight years old when the 9/11 attacks occurred in my country. I remember seeing the television screen, witnessing all of the grown-ups in a universal state of panic, and wondering what the heck was the big deal. I mean, a building blows up every other day in the cartoons! And it's like a thousand miles away too. What's so bad about it?

So let's summarize. Major catastrophe occurs. I don't care. Why? Because nothing of value was personally lost.

Fast forward a couple years or so. I had recently picked up Final Fantasy X (my RPG gateway drug), and was nearing the endgame. My cousin also had the game, but was still in the first few hours of it. So one day my cousin comes over, brings his memory card, we get through a couple dungeons together and—wait, he just saved over MY game file!!

My parents said they've never seen me so enraged before. Or since. Which is understandable. I had sunk, like, 30 hours of my time into that game! 30 whole hours!!

Anyway, back to villainy. If you just want people to hate your character, this is really all there is to it. Just find what is important and valuable to the player, and destroy it. To go back to FF7, why did people hate Sephiroth? Because Aeris was their waifu.

What's really cool about this method is that you can also apply this to personal values too! For reference, you can turn to your country's next political election for an exclusive sneak-preview of real villains! Why are they villains? Because they hold values that I do not, and since I am always correct they are therefore stupid and incompetent and probably don't bathe regularly either.

Well, there you have it. At least these are my observations on how to make an antagonist that fills the player with high-octane vitriol. Of course, this method doesn't make writing antagonists any easier (if anything, it makes it harder, as you have to work overtime to instill values that you intend to take away later). It also doesn't guarantee that the antagonist is any good, just hatable, so watch out for that. But whatever. These are just my thoughts and opinions; feel free to take 'em or leave 'em. Toodles!

[James McCloud]

In my experience, I have hated no antagonist more than Frank Fontaine.  At first, it all seemed like you were just going after Ryan like a traditional video game.  Kill the bad guy because he's bad, and here's some reasons why.  But no.  It didn't stop there. You find out that you've been played.  I knew what would happen, and it STILL pissed me off.  I didn't just want to kill the bad guy to finish the game.  I wanted to KILL the bastard.  I have never hated an antagonist more or since. 
 
Though, some of my favorite antagonists imo are the ones who think they're doing good.  Ozy from Watchmen (Not a video game, but whatever)was a great  villain, because he believed what he did would help (and he was right).  What he didn't realize was that his solution would only work in the short term.  They wouldn't focus on the squid/manhattan forever.  There would always be conflict.  And I think that makes a great antagonist.  You begin to feel bad for him, because he doesn't realize that he's doing more harm than good. 

TL;DR, Villains who make you feel violated or feel sorry for are the best.

[ink.inc]

I've never held any outright anger towards any antagonist in any medium... except Dolores Umbridge.

That bitch got under my skin.

[1982]

Yes many times. I remember when I raced full length season in NASCAR Racing 2003. In very first race Daytona 500 AI driver took me out blatantly when I was leading. I used to push he in to the wall in every next race when I had opportunity, oh that rage.

Also in Civilization 2 I remember nuking China into a extinction after they nuked some of my cities without reason. I've always hated China and Mongolia in that game.

[SundownKid]

Villains that stay in the background and send their troops after you are not really as hateable as those who personally come to ruin your day, and relish your bitter tears. Extra bonus hate points if they trick you into trusting them as well.

[justinfic]

From a narrative standpoint, the villains I've hated most, off the top of my head in no particular order:

Kefka (Final Fantasy 6)
Pokey (Earthbound)
SHODAN (System Shock 2)

I think the traits that particularly piss me off that they all share are taunting and cowardice. I had no problem with Sephiroth in FF7 either, in fact, I remember hating Rufus Shinra quite a bit more when I played through it. But to know for a fact that you could kick that character's ass, and in all three of the above examples, you did on more than one occasion, and to have them still gain the upper hand and then laugh in your face made me want to ANNIHILATE them.

Also, in non-game land, I've always hated lawful evil characters. These are the badguys who take advantage of the system and do things that are perfectly legal but are morally heinous. They manipulate psychologically and emotionally but never physically assault anyone, so they can't be brought to justice. Dolores Umbridge and Nurse Ratchet type characters.

[Brian Wilbur]

PHOENIX WRIGHT 3 SPOILERS:

I absolutely DESPISED Dahlia Hawthorne. She is probably my #1 hated antagonist ever. I could be alone -- but I have never wanted to see someone go down more than I wanted to see her go down.

In addition, it seems like every Phoenix Wright antagonist, at least to me, is really a pleasure to see go down in the end. Could be a little skewed for me since I'm a huge fan of visual novels though!

MOTHER 3/EARTHBOUND SPOILERS:

In a way, I also really hated Fassad. He just kept coming back, and the fact that he was torturing an innocent (and very lovable) character was, although comical at times, a good reason to hate him.

I also really, really hated Pokey/Porky. Didn't even expect him to turn up, but when I finally realized he was behind much of the game's negative events, I was in angry disbelief for a moment.

I think that, for me, any antagonist that ends up recurring within a single title (especially after they're already supposed to be gone/dead/redeemed!) seem to be the ones I hate the most.

Also Fontaine as said above.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years..._100_Heroes_and_Villains

this may be relevant here. it's the top 50 villains (and top 50 heros) in movies as judged by the american film institute

[Hangedman]

I don't want an antagonist I hate

While it's not easy to do, it's still not as interesting as an antagonist I can understand/identify with or etc

Being conflicted by a game is so much more interesting (and difficult to induce, I think) than being mad at it

[leonelc29]

how to make you hate a villian? they take away your best weapon and never return it in a fight. the other easy way: annoy you. it's quite easy to create the antagonist you hate than antagonist you like.

[ElTipejoLoco]

I recall hearing somewhere that a story is often only as good as its antagonist(s). That aside, I think everyone's already pretty much covered the basics in this thread.

Whether or not you'll hate a villain probably boils down to the setting of the game, and how immersive (which in gaming, as I understand it, stands for 'ease for a player to imagine oneself in their player character's shoes whilst using the least possible amount of their own imagination') the experience is.

Being acutely aware that you are not the ridiculously-haired guy wielding a weapon three times their body weight like an origami paper crane is probably a good way to be detached from the plight of said character's fellows and environment. "Oh, the planet's going to get crushed by a giant rock? Why don't I just fly up there and use my thousand-slash-move to cut it into harmless bits, like I did with the forty dudes that were harshing our mellow?"

That's probably another thing. Whether or not you feel hatred for a villain or whether or not you re-direct that hatred for the game's design might also depend on whether the gameplay clashes heavily with the plot; If you have a bunch of guys who seem to be able to basically summon Captain Planet several times over for the maximum amount of damage, it's a lot harder to think they're in any real danger unless the game suddenly decides to change the rules ("you can't use those ridiculous attacks unless the PLOT lets you!").

Gameplay and plot dissonance aside, people are unique. It's impossible to make people hate (or like) specific characters consistently. You can certainly try, though, and hope for the best. The standard 'would I feel this way about this type of person' sort of mentality probably helps, the same way it does for most other things that are subjective.

tl;dr: No guaranteed way to make people feel a particular way about fictional characters, it's all a gamble, lots of variables.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

In a strange way, the idea of hating the antagonist because the way they respond IN GAME - ie they steal your weapons, they have a particularly annoying hard-to-dodge attack, etc - seems almost like a bit of metagaming. Surely if you hate the antagonist and want to defeat them because of a plot reason, that's good, but if you hate them because of the way that sprite/character/boss/whatever behaves in-game, that's just a game design issue and shows you've created something which really annoys people. A small number would respond to that by being more determined to win, but the majority lose interest in fighting a foe they find to be 'unfair'.

[ollie]

I think as well as working on making you dislike the antagonist, the best way to create the affect you want is to make a protagonist that the player really really identifies with and wants to succeed - that'll amplify anynoe who stands in the way.

[Bree]

Phoenix Wright in general has some of my favorite love-to-hate characters. Perhaps it's because they are so blatantly lying and/or evil that it compels me to do everything in my power to slap their lies right back in their stupid faces.

[S.Laser]

Perhaps the most reliable way to make people dislike a character is to make them a sadist or a bully.
Just show them intentionally causing pain to someone else. Whether physical or mental doesn't matter.
The effect is amplified if they enjoy it, and if the abused is a sympathetic character.
Having them destroy whole towns usually wont work. The way it is done is to impersonal in most games.
Also, making the villain an obsessed torturer is less effective than you might think.
Mainly because it is not very believable. Small things can be far more effective for characterization than grandiose ones.
Mainly because they are more believable.