In this troper's admittedly limited experience, a "Villain Game" has the best chance of lasting if the player characters are Pragmatic Villains. (Just in case: a Villain Game is any tabletop RPG where the players are running the bad guys and the GM is in charge of the good guy opponents.)

An inversion with this Troper and video games. I tend to max out my KarmaMeter on a given game, not necessarily because I'm all that nice, but because I find the "evil" options impractical, pointless, or plain stupid. In Black and White, using things like fireball or lightning burns up resources you can use to build up your village. Bioware games? You play evil, you lose your best party members (KOTOR and Jade Empire are notorious). Sims? Happy Sims unlock really nifty rewards, and unhappy Sims are usually stuck in dead-ends jobs that make them unplayable. I suppose my playing style is Pragmatic Heroism.

Evil in Bio-Ware Games is supposed to be not worth it because all evil deeds are in the end not worth it.

I agree with TheSims. Happy Sims can do pretty awesome stuff, while killing Sims can take a very long, expensive, and frustrating time.

Try to play Civilizations 2 like that. You need a pretty strong economy to sustain all the money penalties for being good in the early game. Of course, some of the evil options put dents in your population, but even the biggest ones are still barely scratches on your empire's paint job.

I'm curious. Is it theoretically possible to be a CompleteMonster, yet follow PragmaticVillainy?