What makes for you, a Great Villian in Videogames?

Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 is one of my all-time favorites, the way he taunts you from time to time through the whole game just makes you love to hate him.

Vaas from Far Cry 3. Just play it, and you'll see.

When they are relatable. When you get why they are doing what they are doing. Also they have some sort of personality, they are not one dimensional.

Relentless, has a varied set of tactics, and has (in their mind) a justifiable reason to fight you... Donkey Kong! (the original)
+1 to Handsome Jack though, and of course GLaDOS

"Villains whose motives are hard to find fault in and arguably better than the hero's". There are even memes for this:

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Villains who succeed, like Kefka from Final Fantasy VI.

When they're human in some important ways. Not literally a human being, but you know what I mean. You can feel some degree of pity for them, like Dagoth Ur in Morrowind.

The One Winged Angel.

A good motivation. Sadly, that moves out most of JRPG villains. I want to know Caius tho (13-2 and I think LR too). I'm on chapter 2.

For me it's simple. Way too many developers design their villains with only one thing in mind - evil. The villain is bad, wants to kill everyone and doesn't like nobody. It's like they are not treated as characters, but a necessary piece of plot just so the game can make sense.

Makign a villain interesting often only takes decent writing, and a twist or 2 to make sure they're not completely archetypical.

A few examples:

Martin Walker from Spec Ops: The Line should count. The player character. And more or less of a monster depending on how you play, but never a good guy at the end of the game

Andrew Ryan of Bioshock fame. Convictions strong enough to warp his world view, and access to the resources needed to make his idea of upopia happen. Also, suffering from ambition-induced tunnel-vision, which gets him blindsided by a cunning and power-hungry crook.

The Ethereals in XCOM: Enemy Unknown/XCOM 2. Evil, because they wage all-out war on Earth, in order to enslave, abuse and re-engineer mankind for their own purposes. Interesting because they're a dying race, and their main purpose is to hold off a greater evil

Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. Eh. Really the basic "person who is evil, does evil stuff, defeated by good guys" cartoon villain. Fits well with the cartoony artsyle of the game though. And the outrageous dialogue and some impressive mood swings are enough to sell the character in this case.

Risky Boots of the Shantae series. Might as well throw a lady onto the list. Mostly interesting because she deliberately and repeatedly plays into the heroine's wide-eyed idealism, but also being open to similar tricks herself.

Lavos from Chrono Trigger: Who falls off the regular morality scale, and more of an unstoppable force of nature than anything else.

Good villains arise from meaningful conflict. Such conflict is usually not physical, but internal and personal and not based on world domination or giant bad militias.
The villain is the second most important character in the story. He should be just like the hero, have good sides and bad sides, flaws and strengths.

Examples. Spoilers for Witcher 3, Spec Ops and What Remains of Edith Finch.

If you ever played the Witcher 3 you know that the concept of having villains is sketchy at best.
Perhaps the worst person in that story is Radovid, a Joffrey-like king, but even he has goals and can be reasoned with. His motivations aren't evil, although they are selfish and cruel, in fact you use his connection to a former lover to kill him, adding more depth to his character. He is an episode character, since there are much more interesting, seemingly bad characters in the story.
For example, the Bloody Baron. A cruel warlord, that took a village by force, beat up his pregnant wife and mistreated his entire family, by drinking and didn't stop with such reckless behavior. He is a broken man, perhaps suffering from PTSD, due to the war. He is trying to fix his life, by searching for his daughter, seeking forgiveness from his unborn child, but is held back by his obsessions and demons. Is he a bad guy?
Or take Dettlaff, a vampire who is manipulated by his lover to do the most gruesome murders and his passion for the woman takes extremes in the finale. We might say, than that the woman he loves is a ruthless manipulator, the true bad guy of the story, but we can ask her about the story and hear her side, and frankly she makes some really valid points, she was mistreated her whole life, cast out, raped and laughed at. so...who's the bad guy?
or take the master of mirrors, a literal god-figure with unclear intentions, who chooses to torture a person, due to his past deeds, is he a bad guy?
or is it Eredin, the leader of the White Frost, who tries to take Ciri to use her to stop the frost that is destroying his world?
and so on.
None of these villains are one dimensional, they have different motivations and mind sets and try to achieve their goals.
If a villains only character motivation is evil, it's a shit villain. Take the villain of Dying Light. Some random dude, who kills his own people, screams a lot and does nothing of value at the end, besides killing a few people.

Take the villain of What Remains of Edith Finch, a game that doesn't really have a villain, but has very interesting characters and motivations.
The villain of that story is Eddie, the grandmother that made everyone believe in the non-existent curse and encouraged reckless behavior, while indirectly killing at least two of her family members. This is never said out loud in the story (besides maybe the end), but you can peace this together from all the stories.

Spec Ops The Line subverted expectations, made the villain the player itself. This further illustrates the importance of a good antagonist.

Well the main rule is that you need to be Jon Irenicus. Can't think of others.

There are two kind of villains which I truly admire in their behaviour and character.

The first is a person driven by madness/insanity, in which case it makes for a great villain due to the fact that, unlike a normal person, you cannot reason with them. They also have a dark, twisted humour which makes for a much more interesting character to interact with. A good example of that is Vaas from Far Cry 3, or Joker from Batman. Handsome Jack (Borderlands 2) also somewhat fits this category, for obvious reasons (that spooning out eyeballs story was crazy but hilarious).

The second kind of villain is the one who is not "evil", but only has different ideas (sometimes evil ones, but without intend) of what is right. A villain that you can somewhat relate to, is a good villain. An example would be the Templars in Assassin's Creed, namely Haytham Kenway from Assassin's Creed III. As a matter of fact, I always felt Haytham has a better behaviour throughout the game than Connor - He has a somewhat unethical way of doing things, but he has a clear idea of what he believes is right, and will do what is necessary to achieve it. Connor, on the other hand, felt disoriented, lost, and without a clear goal other than revenge.

i don't exactly know what makes a good villain for me, but it's a combination of attitude, looks, and how far they go to achieve their goals. i even think their voice also affects me, sometimes i can't take them seriously. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

great villains:
- fontaine in bioshock 1
- irenicus in baldur's gate 2
- demichev in singularity
- randall and norma in the walking dead: michonne
- rais in dying light
- saren in mass effect 1

failed villains:
- jack in borderlands 2
- alduin in skyrim
- eredin in the witcher 3

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Someone mentioned good taunting... Well, here is the best taunting ever, coming from a fantastic villain with a little God's complex.

Some of the best evil villains are ones that are purely evil and you know it, like rather than setting off a bomb in a place they torture and murder someone and you see brutally everything

Or the best evil villain is one who you can sympathize with and perhaps even cheer for and lament their death by the hero

Well, it's probably the one who doesn't explain his moties or plans [to a hero or whoever] and just does stuff on a whim. True, pure evil doesn't need motivation after all. Or there is no point calling the corresponding activity to be evilish at all - could be simple psycho or anything else of that sort.

I like Bowser, a great villain need to look like a dinosaur

I like when they have a goal that makes sense.

I really don't like how some video games paint the villian to be very powerful to the degree that he can only be defeated after figuring out how to a) weaken or b) trick him/her/it when the villian is actually (mostly) human. A good villian has it's own set of motives and moral compass that makes it understandable why he does what he does. Or he's just the last man standing after mowing down waves and waves of enemies. Both work fine for me ;)

There's a definite line that cannot be crossed by a villain in order for me to enjoy a game.

The Joker in the Arkham games is a glorious villain. He's beyond deplorable in his lack of respect for human life and the sickening acts that he has committed, but he's so incredibly charismatic and interesting that all other villains in the series seem lackluster in comparison. Mark Hamil's amazing performances definitely add to my love of this character as a villain.

On the other hand there is Walking Dead: 400 Days' story arc with Russell. Russell's companion during the segment was so disgusting and so offensive that I still seethe just thinking about it. I hated that guy with such an almighty passion that I will never play 400 Days again, despite loving everything else in the series.

SO, a villain has to be interesting - both in personality and visually - but must not be morally sickening like Mundus in DmC: Devil May Cry. I was quite upset by the intro to the game (and a few of the cutscenes) featuring this sicko, just not enough to put me off of the game completely.

Clear as mud?

Perfect example: Gary Smith from Bully: Scholarship Edition.
Why, you may ask?!
Gary is an extremely mean and egomaniacal person. He would always pretend to be the friend of his pawns, feed them with lies, use them for his own interest, and then mock them at their own face (bully them, make them look inferior, etc.). He never cares about anyone else than himself. He thinks he's extremely smart, much smarter than the rest of the school. He's extremely unstable and his main aim is to become the king of the school. He likes to create chaos just because he CAN! He knows everything around the school and the town and knows other people's weak points, which makes him extremely capable of manipulating them. So, you shouldn't be afraid of his brawn, but about his smarts - and what's scarier than a smart, arrogant, and manipulative person?