Politics | Gaming
Controversy and Video Games
Video games, as one of the newest forms of entertainment, have faced a large amount of controversy since their inception, and that controversy extends even to the modern day. This article will serve to highlight some important controversies regarding the medium since it gained popularity.
We’ll start farther back. While video games faced a bit of controversy regarding violent material while they were limited to the arcades, they didn’t hit the mainstream media until Mortal Kombat, the infamous fighting game, received its first entry in 1992.
Here, the characters looked incredibly realistic thanks to 3d modeling being recreated in sprite form for the SNES, and while that gave the game plenty of buyers, the gore in this game was also incredibly realistic for the time. The fatalities the series has become famous for nowadays were on full display. Characters could rip heads off and punch holes in each other, with loads of blood and flesh everywhere. This turned so many heads and enraged so many parents that government hearings led to the creation of a rating system similar to movies, called the ESRB.
Another large controversy regarding the gaming sphere was the inception of mass online gaming with the popularity of the Call of Duty and other shooter franchises in the 2010s with the PS3 and Xbox 360. When these live services with microphones started, there was no content off the table. You could shout slurs, dox people, and commit other heinous acts through the live chat and text. Understandably, this raised a lot of eyebrows and forced Xbox and Playstation to change their policies on online chat.
Controversy regarding video games will always find a way to continue into the modern day. The most recent example are the gacha pulls in mobile-console game hybrids like Genshin Impact, which is literally gambling. You can easily blow hundreds of dollars while trying to win certain characters or items, leading to large amounts of fraud or excessive spending without realizing.
While video games remain a controversial medium for the public for a multitude of reasons, these are the main two:
1: Video games allow you to take control of a character who may possibly glorify or participate in extreme violence, excessive sex, and use of drugs or alcohol. Many think this causes the player to take on these activities in real life as they have inserted themselves into the role of this character who’ve they played as for numerous hours.
2: Video games bolster interaction between players. Online chat via games makes it easy to exploit or take advantage of people, which may foster controversial behavior.
Gaming is now a medium that is 40–50 years old. Kinks in the industry are still being worked out. As the medium continues to evolve and progress, controversy is sure to be inevitable, but at the same time will be resolved or taken care of faster thanks to our experience with the entertainment.
