Controversial Games: Vol. 1
DISCLAIMER: This list will be bringing up several triggering and sensitive topics in relation to the main topic at hand. If you are someone who is disturbed or possibly offended about potential topics that could be brought up in this list, proceed with caution, or ignore this list entirely.
Everywhere you look, around every corner, somebody will have something bad to say about any kind of video game, which is just a natural part of being interested in this medium. However, whenever EVERYONE is talking about a video game in a negative light, whether it be for well-deserved reasons or otherwise, it is something that is way more interesting, especially to me. What can I say, I am a sucker for drama, so today, I decided to take a trip down this grimy, dark alley and check out some of the video games that have been controversial for one reason or another over the years.
Everywhere you look, around every corner, somebody will have something bad to say about any kind of video game, which is just a natural part of being interested in this medium. However, whenever EVERYONE is talking about a video game in a negative light, whether it be for well-deserved reasons or otherwise, it is something that is way more interesting, especially to me. What can I say, I am a sucker for drama, so today, I decided to take a trip down this grimy, dark alley and check out some of the video games that have been controversial for one reason or another over the years.
25 Games
Ever since its inception, the Pokemon franchise has been caught under controversy for a MULTITUDE of reasons, whether it be from scumba- I MEAN, uh, "activists" like PETA saying that it encourages violence towards animals, to religious individuals saying that it is the literal creation of the devil, and that you will go to Hell for even playing it in the first place........ yeah. Personally, I think all of those issues people take with the series is pretty silly, but it is so fascinating that a series like this, having a group of some of the most adorable creatures in video game history, has been hated by so many for so long for such specific reasons.
WOO BOY, I mean, where do I even begin with this one? There is WAY too much to go over here, such as how it uses elements like violence against civilians and law enforcement, drugs, sex, nudity, foul language, slurs, and so much more that a wide group of people have spoken out against on numerous occasions. Chances are, if GTA has done something even somewhat inappropriate, somebody has complained about it, and I guarantee you right now that, whenever GTA VI comes out, somebody is gonna be yelling about something that's gonna be in that game. I don't know what it will be, but much like the rest of us, I will be ready to sit back and laugh at these people all over again.
The Mortal Kombat games are some of the most brutal and graphically violent video games that have ever been made, and of course, this violence has brought it under a LOT of controversy. It alone was one of the biggest contributors towards the creation of the ESRB, and ever since then, the series's violence has only increased further and further, all the way up to today, which has lead to some developers even getting PTSD from the violent shit they have created. The controversy isn't limited to just the violence though, such as with the case of when Mortal Kombat 11 came out, where plenty of people were complaining about the sexy-ness of certain characters being toned down in comparison to previous installments, which is... uh.... you all realize there is this magical thing called "pornography", right? You don't need video games for that kind of shit.
Back when Mass Effect was released, it was accused by several specific outlets to contain instances of rape and sodomy, with these accusations making their way to news broadcasts, leading to the game being temporarily banned in several countries due to said controversies. Thankfully, that was all cleared up and disproven, but the series did face controversy again when it came to the ending of Mass Effect 3, which I myself have not seen or heard of myself, but it has been said by many to be one of the worst endings in video game history. Oh yeah, and people also got mad about same-sex relations in that game, because apparently gays aren't allowed to exist, clearly.
For every single Punch-Out game that has ever been made, there has been at least one opponent that is essentially one big racial stereotype, such as Glass Joe being portrayed as the weakest French man to ever exist, as well as with Soda Popinski, a Russian boxer whose original name was Vodka Drunkinski. Naturally, this has garnered plenty of criticism with each entry that has been released, not to the point of reaching the same level of outrage as several of the other games featured in this list, but just enough to make it worth mentioning.
For those who are unaware, The Guy Game is a trivia game where it has the player answer a series of questions, and if the player manages to answer enough of these questions correctly, the game will play FMV footage of various women flashing the audience, censored or otherwise. That in itself was not the reason why this game was so controversial, but instead, it's because of the fact that one of the women in said game that would participate in this, at the time, was a minor. Eventually because of this, as a result of an ongoing court case surrounding said issue, the developers of the game eventually stopped distributing the game entirely, while also making sure to do so while leaving the most scummy remark that they possibly could.................. actually throw yourself into traffic, devs at Topheavy Studios, please and thank you.
There are plenty of scenes in this game that contain instances of extreme gore and torture, which originally got the game an Adults Only rating, meaning that it couldn't be fully released onto home consoles. In order to remedy this, the devs at Volition decided to put on several filters that would appear whenever one of these gory torture scenes would take place, earning the game a Mature rating, and finally getting it fully released.......... these filters don't hide whatever is going on in these scenes at all, but hey, whatever pleases the ESRB, I guess.
It is a video game where you assassinate John F. Kennedy................. I think it speaks for itself.
In the original release of Mario Party 8, there is a line spoken by Kamek that reads "Turn the spastic! Make this ticket tragic!". This single line managed to cause the game to get quite a bit of controversy over in the UK, as the word "spastic" is considered offensive over there. Because of this, the game was then quickly recalled and re-released, to where they changed Kamek's line to now say "erratic" instead.
Back around the time of the game's initial release, a development build of Dead Island was accidently released on Steam, where in said build, one of the skills for the character Purna, known as "Gender Wars", was labeled as "Feminist Whore" in the game's code. This, obviously, garnered plenty of controversy, leading to Deep Silver removing the term from the game's code, and clarifying that it was a joke that was made by one of the developers, while apologizing for its inclusion in said code................. I 100% guarantee you that this developer lost his job, no doubt about that.
Back when this game was initially released, it was done without the approval of Office Create, who are the current holders of the Cooking Mama license, which caused the game to get removed from the Nintendo eShop, and get reworked into a completely different game known as Yum Yum Cookstar. Also, before anyone asks, yes, there were rumors floating around that this game was a cryptocurrency miner, but those were quickly disproven, so that is not the case.
For those of you who are unaware as to what South Park is, it is, without a doubt, one of the most controversial TV shows that has ever been made in the past 25+ years, and of course, The Stick of Truth was no exception to this. Before the game was initially released, Ubisoft, the publishers, decided to have several parts of the game censored for various regions, such as one part which involves the player character being anally probed, and another part that involves the player character performing an abortion. Naturally, this was done in the most tongue-in-cheek way that South Park could possibly get away with, and has since been modded out of the game in said region through various means. Also, the Nazi imagery was censored out in Germany for... obvious reasons.
................................no explanation needed.
In the original release of The Stanley Parable, there was an instructional video included that was titled "Choice", which included a scene of a white man setting fire to a small, black child. This received criticism from several outlets, labeling it as racist, so, in response, the dev would then update the game to change what happens in said instructional video.
This game never garnered controversy in the traditional sense, but it did catch itself in some legal trouble, specifically with Capcom. They had filed a lawsuit against developer Data East, claiming that the game had broken several copyright infringements pertaining to Street Fighter II, and Street Fighter as a whole. However, eventually, Data East ended up winning this case, on the grounds that not only was this game based on foundations set in Data East's own Karate Champ, but also because the elements found within Fighter's History HAD to be included in the game for it to actually work as a fighting game. So, uh, good job on that one, Capcom, ya bunch of DUMMIES. It's fine though, cause I'm sure they can't land themselves in too much more trouble............. right?
Let's be real here, if you know this game, you know exactly why it ended up on here. It was one of the most inappropriate and vulgar games that had ever been made on a Nintendo console at the time, with plenty of swearing, sexual content, graphic violence, alcohol and drug use, torture, and more risque content like domestic abuse. Of course, nowadays, we all look back on this stuff and laugh (for the most part), but this was some pretty heavy shit that Nintendo allowed on their systen (and that doesn't even refer to the literal shit in the game), and naturally, people got mad at it.
Most of you reading this probably have no clue what this game is, but it is significant to include on this list, as it is definitely one of, if not THE first example, or a video game to face massive controversy. Despite how primitive it looks and plays, it got into trouble due to the fact that the game's objective was for you to run over a bunch of "gremlins", while they all screamed in agony. This managed to cause the game to get so much backlash, that the devs ultimately pulled the game from being sold entirely. It seems so simple, looking back at it, especially nowadays where you have games dedicated to committing as many violent kills as possible...
In terms of the game itself, the original Tomb Raider never faced any sort of controversy whatsoever initially upon release, until fans managed to get their hands on the game. Sometime later, a patch was created for the game known as "Nude Raider", which allowed players to see a fully-nude model of Lara Croft in-game, which caused Core Design to try to get this patch removed off the face of the Earth........... even though someone out there definitely still has it.
Much like Mario Party 8, this game received backlash specifically in the UK for its use of the word "spastic", causing it to get recalled sometime after release. Unlike with Mario Party though, Sega never went to change the line so it could get redistributed in this territory. That kinda sucks, but really, in all seriousness, who gives a fuck about Mind Quiz anyway?
While most of Portal 2 managed to avoid controversy with a lot of people, it managed to land it hot water with several families of adopted children, claiming that the game was insensitive towards said adopted children, due to a line in the game where Wheatley would insult the player by saying "Fatty fatty, no parents". I would comment on that, but I'm more so confused on how THAT line was the one that got the game in trouble, when GLaDOS said arguably much worse things, including things about abandoned children, beforehand.
For the most part, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, naturally, has a pretty squeaky clean record, except for with the Chinese government. Over in China, plenty of players were creating displays in the game that was meant to support the ongoing Hong Kong protests, and in response, the game was pulled from digital stores in that country. This one kinda stings, especially since none of the controversy is the game's fault, but hey, it gives us more reason to hate China and their government, so I'll take it.
Right alongside Mortal Kombat and Lethal Enforcers, Night Trap was highlighted as one of the main culprits in the 1993-1994 Senate hearings on violent video games, with it being cited as having realistic violence, sexual or otherwise, and instances of child abuse, among other things. Looking back on it now, we all know how much of a poorly-acted cheesefest it really is, but it was one of the big contributors to the creation of the ESRB, and it now wears that controversy like a badge of honor, so I guess it all worked out.
There have been PLENTY of controversies that have arose surrounding Overwatch and its sequel, being about/involving the sexualization of female characters and their victory poses, characters having alternative outfits that have been viewed as racist, characters having cosmetics that have been considered religiously offensive, the over-abundant use of lootboxes in the game, and the closing of the original game just to be replaced with Overwatch 2. As these issues continued to pop up overtime, most of them (keyword being "most") were addressed by Blizzard, painting the image that they were a company that truly cared about the game and the people that played it, only to then completely mistreat their fans over and over again while doing pretty horrible things behind the scenes................. fuck you, Blizzard.
It's a video game based on the Columbine High School massacre................. again, it speaks for itself.
Aside from the quality of the game itself, as well as how it is now considered to be one of the worst games ever made, Daikatana's main source of controversy can be traced back to before the game was even released. There was an advertisement for the game prominently featured in magazines, which proudly proclaimed, and I quote, "John Romero's About to Make You His Bitch", while also telling you to "Suck It Down" at the bottom of said advertisement. Of course, this caused quite a bit of a ruckus amongst the people, but I mean, you gotta admit, they weren't exactly lying with this statement........ after all, if you did actually buy Daikatana back then, you are now John Romero's bitch.
7 Comments
gotta get manhunt up in here
Oh boy, the amount of JRPGs that should go on this list. Let's just focus for now on Xenoblade Chronicles 2's coomer character designs + camerawork, and Fire Emblem Awakening/Fates/3 Houses/Engage letting you romance children.
Smite - had some controversy over the years for pretty much the exact same reasons as Overwatch. Also, they've released numerous skins where they've just stolen a concept either from other games or fans who had designed their own concepts. Most notably they had a skin that was just Scorpion from MK, cost around $10 and they had to remove it from the game but never refunded the purchase (at least not to a friend of mine who bought it)
Ethnic Cleansing - Probably pretty obvious
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - No Russian and the Favela map
Bully - The media ran with the name and touted it as a bullying sim. Also, you could kiss another boy
Doom - for all the Satanic imagery and being linked to Columbine
Too Human - had to recall and destroy all copies of the game due to being developed using a stolen version of Unreal Engine 3
Postal, Super Seducer, Custers Revenge, Phantasmagoria, Hatred, No Mans Sky, Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk all have some really well-known drama surrounding them
Ethnic Cleansing - Probably pretty obvious
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 - No Russian and the Favela map
Bully - The media ran with the name and touted it as a bullying sim. Also, you could kiss another boy
Doom - for all the Satanic imagery and being linked to Columbine
Too Human - had to recall and destroy all copies of the game due to being developed using a stolen version of Unreal Engine 3
Postal, Super Seducer, Custers Revenge, Phantasmagoria, Hatred, No Mans Sky, Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk all have some really well-known drama surrounding them
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Fallout 76, on top of releasing in an unfinished state, had issues surrounding player bans, cheap special edition bonuses, and an over-priced in-game store. Also Fallout First, the in-game subscription, created a class war between players who paid and those who didn't.
Devotion was a Taiwanese game that had a small Xi Jinping/Winnie the Pooh joke, causing it to get review bombed by Chinese players.
FIFA 18, Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, and Overwatch were listed by the Belgian Gaming Commission as being in violation of their gambling laws.
YIIK received criticism for the way it referenced Elisa Lam's death.
Not sure if these are big enough controversies, but LawBreakers, The Culling 2, and Radical Heights launched and died incredibly quickly. I guess you could put most live-service games here in that case.
Devotion was a Taiwanese game that had a small Xi Jinping/Winnie the Pooh joke, causing it to get review bombed by Chinese players.
FIFA 18, Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, and Overwatch were listed by the Belgian Gaming Commission as being in violation of their gambling laws.
YIIK received criticism for the way it referenced Elisa Lam's death.
Not sure if these are big enough controversies, but LawBreakers, The Culling 2, and Radical Heights launched and died incredibly quickly. I guess you could put most live-service games here in that case.
I remember following the Cooking Mama Cookstar controversy and that was a crazy rabbit hole.
imshitting420
28 days ago