10 Video Games That Make Losing Truly Painful

Losing in videogames is par for the course, but some games raise the stakes more than others. They'll have you barely on your seat, demanding concentration while holding you on a knife edge between substantial reward and crushing punishment.

Any gamer will have their share of defeats, but great games hold onto their players by offering fun gameplay and incentives, helping anyone push past the game over screen.

Keeping you motivated is the secret to instilling a mentality in your player base that keeps them going - and having fun - through adversity. The games covered here are shining examples of how to balance challenge with reward to "make the punishment worth it".

Whether it's through unlikely drop rates, appropriately gated content, simple revenge or sublime rewards, these games have some very effective motivators that earned them their substantial following.

However, this doesn't take away from the fact that each has a cost for losing. A cost that'll effectively embed itself in your psyche when playing, meaning you'll do anything to avoid paying it again.

Growing up you're always told "fail to prepare, prepare to fail", and high ranking players of Blizzards genre defining MMORPG live by this mantra. It's not uncommon to see crowds of players working together for hours to gain buffs for an advantage in a single forthcoming raid.

This behaviour is necessary to make progress in the late game. It asks for hours of your time while placing the possibility of losing it all around almost every corner.

When your whole party does wipe, and they will, its a choice between walking the immeasurable distance back or resurrection sickness... god forbid. Either way all of those hours you put into gaining your buffs are meaningless now. The only thing saving you from the descent into madness is the fact that your whole party feels the same way.

So why endure this outright abuse? Well, for loot obviously. Loot is the mechanism to keep players engaged... and enraged because there's two dice rolls for every drop. Firstly the loot you're there for has to actually spawn. Then, get this, you have to win another roll for the single piece of loot between your party members.

However, this ever-present adversity is exactly what makes World of Warcraft so rewarding.