There seem to me to be two elements here. They are interwoven in the article and in practice they may not be separable.

The first is the speech-like or communication act. This is exemplified by the example of leaving the desecrated photo for your partner to find. However, the act of publishing some of the games mentioned is also a speech-act. "Come have fun burning these effigies". This issue should be considered alongside other speech-act pros and cons.

The second is more unique to video games. I was involved in the development of multiplayer games already 25 years ago. When playing games you are reprogramming the emotional and values oriented modules of your brain.

Of course every moment changes something in you, but that is on a trivial level. When you take actions in a graphic environment, when you do an act that you would find taboo in real life, the short term and longer term sub-linguistic modules that make up who you are - will change.

It may be true to a lesser extent when watching passively, but game designers are sometimes explicit in their ability to change you and your priorities. For example, when you spend time trying to achieve a goal (even putting some pixels in to top left corner), your motivations are being changed.

I do not wish to propose conclusions. There are cognitive values in (some) games as well as social. Having fun is also valid part your preference structure. I am making a more factual claim (though hard to track experimentally) that you are making changes in playing, particularly with the sort of games described in this article.

(1) Do you want to make those changes? (2) If you can program yourself to be a worse person, is it ethical to do so?