The debate is hotter than ever, with video game fans on one side and politicians and parents on the other. This is a history of the debate, including when it started, what has been done, and what games have lit the fire.
Video game violence has become a hot topic in recent years. Video games have matured, switching from the days of colourful Pac-Man clones to the gritty, seedy underworlds of Grand Theft Auto. Through this transformation, they have found critics and supporters. Though this may all seem recent, it’s a debate that has been boiling for years.
The Beginning
The origins can be traced back to 1976 when a small company named Exidy released Death Race into arcades. The title featured players running over gremlins with a car, racking up points in the process. Though the game made all attempts to make people aware that these were not humans that they kill, still the primitive graphics of the day allowed for nothing more than stick figures. Parents were also disturbed by the crosses, which appeared when you kill a person. Very few cabinets made it into production, and with the controversy, even less still exist today.
Various other games would come and go, and there was only the occasional debate. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the Atari 2600 would feature crude depictions of decapitations. It was gratuitous enough to raise eyebrows. It’s become a collector’s item in recent years, with a short and small life in stores due to the outcry.
Congress Goes into Action
The debate would settle for many years until 1992 when both Mortal Kombat and Night Trap surfaced. Gaining the attention of both popular media and Congress, video games had finally met their match. The brutal violence of Mortal Kombat, complete with digitized characters portrayed by actors and fatalities, would bear down on the industry for years. Players competed in one-on-one fighting competitions, much like the game that inspired it, Street Fighter II. The difference was the then extreme amount of gore, deemed too graphic, especially when the player could kill their helpless opponent when the match was over.
Night Trap would stir a similar debate, launching alongside Sega’s excited CD add-on for their Genesis console. The game was played using actual video, a novelty at the time. Different Strokes TV star Dana Plato was the lead role in the game, guiding players as they attempted to stop blood-sucking zombies from killing girls having sleep over party.
Those two games were enough to launch a congressional hearing, spurred by Joseph Lieberman and Herb Kohl. They threatened those in the industry to do something about the content in these games, or they would. Game makers responded with a rating system.
When Mortal Kombat came home, developers release it on multiple systems. Sega created their own rating system, enforced by the company’s CEO, Tom Kalinske. The game carried with it an MA-13 rating, equal to a PG-13 film. With a secret code, gamers could unlock the gore from the arcade game on their Sega Genesis, toned down likely due to the controversy and the console’s power. Nintendo chose to censor the game entirely, changing most of the fatalities and removing all instances of gore. Sega’s version outsold the one for the Super Nintendo by the thousands.
Night Trap would be pulled from shelves entirely. The most offensive content needs to remove, and it needs to re-release with an MA-17 rating or that of an R rating from the MPAA. The rating system would stick, at least temporarily, until 1994.
Doom would be the next game to stir up controversy. Created by id Software, Doom was for personal computers where it quickly gained fanfare. It’s original perspective, used a few years previously on Wolfenstein 3-D, was incredible and unique at the time. Players controlled their character from their own eyes as they shot down various monsters in an attempt to escape hell. Enemies died in brutal ways, and always in a puddle of blood.
The ESRB is formed
It was one of the games, including the many sequels and knock-offs of Mortal Kombat, which lead to the formation of the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board). Created by the IDSA (Interactive Digital Software Association), this current rating system has been in place for over ten years. The IDSA was changed to the ESA (Electronic Software Association) not long after.
The ESRB is an independent body of the industry. They rate games differently, yet somewhat similar, to the method the MPAA uses on major feature films. Game companies submit paperwork describing the game’s content and gameplay. Included is a video of the worst material the game offers. People, both gamers and non, are brought into to evaluate the video, provide their thoughts, and what they believe the rating should be.
Once they complete the process, they ship the game. Companies never send any home console game without the ESRB’s stamp. Certain PC games do slip out, mostly smaller independent titles, from companies that cannot afford the ESRB’s price.
The methods of the ESRB are fuel for critics who believe they do not have the public’s best interest in mind. Since the game companies fund them, they rarely hand out the most reliable rating: AO, for Adults Only. People never see the evaluation for any game console until Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was found to have hidden content on every commercial copy.
Grand Theft Auto
The GTA series began in 1998. It was crude but innovative. Players are in control of a character completing various jobs, which include murder amongst other things. The series began to grow by word of mouth because of its open-ended nature. It’s considered a virtual sandbox, allowing players to explore freely, killing or not.
It gets released on various consoles, including the Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation, PC, and even the Game Boy Color. A sequel, along with an expansion pack to the original (which added new stages and missions) was released. It wasn’t until Grand Theft Auto III on the PlayStation 2 that parents and Congress began to make their voices heard.
GTA III was a fully 3-D expansion on the concept. The gore and violence were far more realistic with a new viewpoint. Where people play the original version from a top-down perspective, GTA III dropped players down to street level, just behind their character. They were free to do as they wished, whether that was shooting and killing, performing car stunts, racing, putting out fires (after stealing a fire truck), or just exploring.
The game’s missions were the section of the game that caused the most controversy. As a hitman, players were required to kill to advance. The games M rating was doubtful as the title became hard to find due to sales expectations set too low. It was banned in multiple countries, while those that allowed it could barely keep out of gamer’s hands.
It would share a sequel in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, set in the 1980s. Most of the media attention and gameplay aspects were no different from III. The third and most recent sequel, San Andreas, could very well change the landscape of video games forever.
Hidden Code
A year after the PlayStation 2 version was released, the game made its way onto the PC. A curious hacker, exploring the game’s code, found the hidden game code on the disc that could be unlocked to reveal a secret sex sequence. Within a matter of weeks, people see the content on the home console versions.
It sparked the most extended debate yet, with the most vocal critics of the industry (including attorney Jack Thompson and Senator Leland Yee) pointing out that the ESRB had failed. The actual segment that started the controversy was not accessible through regular play. Players needed to either download a patch to their computers for the PC version or use an external cheat device to access the content on the PlayStation 2.
The mainstream media coverage was intense, forcing the ESRB to re-evaluate the then M rated title, only to revoke it and force a new AO rating. It was a landmark, it was the first time when ESRB changes a game’s rating, and the first AO handed out to a console game. Retailers immediately pulled the title from their shelves, and Rockstar games, the publisher, plans to re-release the title later this year with the content wholly removed to maintain an M rating.
With another set of even more powerful consoles due for release in the next two years, games will become even more realistic, with vivid graphics that will start to rival those in major special effect films. With them will likely come more controversy, and advanced games aimed at the adult crowd, something that has become a growing segment of the population, one so large it has become the key demographic for the industry.