Overshadowed by Controversy: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[Thrill Kill]]'' for the PlayStation was billed to be the "new ''[[Mortal Kombat]]''", with the technical feat of up to four players fighting in the same room as its selling point, but the gratuitous violence and hardcore sex content, which garnered a rare "Adults Only" (AO) rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board, was too much for [[Electronic Arts]] to swallow, ordering Paradox Development to scrap the game; former Paradox employees who worked on the game eventually leaked beta and pre-final builds of the game to a scene group, and the game engine was later reused for ''[[Wu-Tang Clan|Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style]]'', ''X-Men: Mutant Academy'', ''X-Men: Mutant Academy 2'' and ''Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots Arena''.
* Perhaps hypocritically enough, EA [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|purposely courted controversy]] for ''[[Dante's Inferno (video game)|Dante's Inferno]]'' by staging a fake protest where twenty protesters picketed at E3 2009 and condemned EA for what was viewed as a sacrilegious and insensitive game. EA later confirmed that it was just a publicity stunt to drive up hype, only for ''actual'' Christian bloggers to condemn the video game giant for pulling off such a tasteless stunt.
* ''[[Doom]]'' not only courted controversy for its gore and occult imagery, it also came under fire (pun not intended) for being associated with a number of school shootings in the United States, most notably the [[Columbine]] massacre where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 24 others. It didn't help that Harris and Klebold were avid players of the game and made WADs themselves (though contrary to sensationalist reports, the "Harris levels" were not at all based on the Columbine High School's layout and did not contain sprites of the school's students and faculty), and that Harris said that the killing would be "like playing Doom", and "it'll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, World War II, Vietnam, Duke Nukem and Doom all mixed together", and that his shotgun was "straight out of the game". Upset by the mainstream media's stereotyping of video game players as degenerate youth, the ''Doom'' community distanced themselves from the shooters by deleting and/or banning any (re-)uploads of the Harris WADs and defended themselves and the game from any sort of direct responsibility. Prominent Doomworld community members Javier "Dukrous" Heredia and Scott "Covaro" Cover both explained their side of the story to news media (in Covaro's case during a round-table talk with Bill and Hillary Clinton on ''Good Morning America''), contending that the community is comprised of law-abiding citizens and would not in any way emulate the actions depicted in the games.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20010909175952/http://www.cnn.com
** Ironically enough, the latest entry in the series, ''[[Doom Eternal]]'', courted controversy not for its hellish imagery but for its use of a ''kernel-mode'' driver by Denuvo as an anti-cheat deterrent. While kernel-mode drivers have been successfully used elsewhere provided that there is transparency over what it does and that the drivers are easily removed when uninstalled, security concerns and Denuvo's already dubious reputation caused backlash which forced Bethesda to have the driver removed in favour of a different anti-cheat solution.
* ''[[Kingpin: Life of Crime]]'' also had the unfortunate timing of being released shortly after the Columbine tragedy. Xatrix Entertainment, later known as Grey Matter Interactive and merged with Treyarch, was faced with mounting pressure from legislators and [[Moral Guardians]] who were scrambling to seek the truth as to what motivated Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold into going on [[Going Postal|a blood-drenched rampage]]. American senators debated on the game's obscene content, and the National Institute on Media and the Family singled out ''Kingpin'' in its 1999 report on video game violence. Xatrix responded by implementing a [[Bowdlerise|safe mode]] option upon installation where players can opt for a censored experience devoid of blood and with bleeped-out profanities. Xatrix CEO Drew Markham assured in an install-time message that the game "was never intended for children" and was made "with mature themes made for a mature audience." Regardless, many retailers have chosen not to stock the game, making it a commercial failure and leading to Xatrix's demise; they would later reform as Grey Matter Interactive which only developed a few games before shutting down for good.
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