Games are long thought to be for kids who want to have fun. Not long after, adults or those young at heart are now enjoying the full potential of video games. Arguably, the focus of gaming is to let out stress, experience, and playout fantasies. Due to the demands of players, the video game industry isn’t shy of having its fair share of controversy.
Through the advances of technology and time, a lot of video games come with certain themes that players work to resolve. These issues or problems range from finding a treasure to saving a princess from a turtle-like dragon. As time passes by, a lot of more mature themes made its way to games.
Graphics also evolve, from simple pixelated human figures to full-scale 3D rendering of whole people. The gaming world sees almost no limits. These mature themes then became issues with parents, as the primary audience and patrons of video games were more focused on the young.
However, both gaming enthusiasts and protesters alike will agree that most of the games listed below are on a whole new level of offensive, grotesque, and controversial. Here are five of the most controversial games ever made.
Bully – Rockstar Games
As an open-world adventure game, Bully lets you control a juvenile male in a preparatory school aptly named “Bullworth Academy.” The game aimed for the player to rise among the ranks and become a popular student in the school.
Parents immediately grew worried due to the game’s approach of glorifying bullying and belittling its victims. A lot of the gameplay for Bully includes childish behavior such as hitting people with your knee, vandalism, and performing wedgies on unsuspecting students.
Mass Effect 3 – Electronic Arts
Mass Effect is a game that has fame with a lot of players due to its graphic portrayal of controversial themes. For one, the game allows the player to explore a broad range of freedom when it comes to relationships.
The game was so free that people even tried romancing robots! Robots in the game are plentiful and are sentient. A lot of people immediately talked a lot about the game and several sites like robots.net created a lot of topics when it comes to the future of robotics.
A few parents also decided that the mature relationship themes in the games were too much. Due to these features, the game’s publisher Electronic Arts received a ton of complaints. The issues in the title sparked debate among people on a national scale. EA refused to censor any content, and the game went to be one of the successful franchises for the company.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Activision
When it comes to depicting war, one of the games that top the list is the Call of Duty franchise. In a particular mission in Modern Warfare Installments , the player plays an undercover CIA operative in Russia who has to participate in a terrorist attack in an airport. The mission aimed to shoot as many civilians as possible to prevent other terrorists from blowing your cover.
This mission sparked a lot of controversy due to the rise of several terrorism-related incidents throughout the world. Due to the severe backlash, a lot of alterations were made in the game. Some changes included a condition in which the player fails the mission if he or she shoot any civilians. Another change was the inclusion of skipping the mission entirely.
Mortal Kombat – Midway
One of the most notorious entries in the list, Mortal Kombat is as vile as it gets. It’s currently in its 11th iteration in the franchise. When it first became available in 1993, it instantly garnered a lot of attention from angry parents and protesters. The main issues weren’t the fact that it was a fighting game, but it was due to the ultra-violent finishing moves known as “Fatalities.”
Fatalities are the reward for a player when they win a match and hit the right buttons at the right time. The immense uproar from a lot of individuals gave birth to the ESRB or Entertainment Software Rating Board. This group is responsible for giving out ratings to future releases that determine its availability to specific age groups.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – Rockstar Games
Perhaps one of the most famous and controversial games in this list, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has a ton of violence and crime openly available to the player. However, the controversy did not come from the various violent acts in the game but a hidden adult feature.
This adult feature was hidden deep in its codes and could only be made available through a particular mod. A mod or modification are changes in the game that can affect gameplay and it’s aesthetics. Popular mods include Counterstrike and Dota 1.
Takeaway
Although games were meant to pull stress away for a lot of people, a lot of these games have their fair share of controversy. From mind-numbing and senseless violence to drug-related frenzies, the games mentioned above have a ton of notoriety when it comes to controversy.
