10 TERRIBLE Video Games (That Revolutionised The Industry)

If the above image of MMORPG Zhengtu Online is enough to give you a decently debilitating migraine, just imagine what actually playing the bloody thing feels like.

Jokes aside, Zhengtu Online (also known as ZT Online) is perhaps the most influential awful game you've possibly never heard of. Active between 2007 and 2018, the Chinese MMORPG shamelessly popularised one of the grossest trends in contemporary gaming - loot box monetisation.

Despite the game's utterly unremarkable, Diablo-esque gameplay loop, it became popular in China due to being free-to-play, albeit with the gargantuan caveat that gear was largely obtained from loot boxes.

And lo and behold, the boxes could only be opened with keys bought with real-world money, granting players the mere chance to gain some sweet, sweet loot.

ZT Online quickly started making money hand over fist, employing increasingly predatory practises to further entice players to part with their hard-earned dollar.

And though you probably didn't know it, ZT opened the floodgates for loot boxes to infest video games at large, with Team Fortress 2's addition of creates in 2010 effectively popularising the practise in the West.

And as we all know in 2023, loot boxes are a bell that can't be un-rung, and their destructive impact on gaming as a whole can be traced directly back to ZT bloody Online.