Most of that is simulating what maybe was initially at the base of success at the start of company of tight-knit friends who also were entertaining together. I think, that the problem here is very simple - getting rid of people who feel restless and do not appreciate the effort that is done for them and do not feel belonging to the team(!) and do not have their own suggestions, but have their own enjoyment by being disgruntled, because that is how they feel in general.

The problem here has nothing to do with participating in these awkward events, that probably does some job of bonding, but it has a problem with incompatible people that are brought together and have to withstand each other. I have experience of working on both sides - where there were group events and where there were none. And the hell that I remember is about where there were none, because at those jobs nobody also cared for improvements for people, who were there "just to do their job". In fact that thinking lead to some of the people in criminal situations with knive fights(at work!!!) and did other crayzeee stuff to just deal with boredom of "just doing a job that they are paid for". You simply have no experience and appreciation of not getting that wish to come true. I had learned that in a hard way and just - no... I'd rather have a work event(and it doesn't matter what I think about them), than "work incident".