List of controversial games
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Throughout history, games -- board, card, physical, and video -- have been a source of controversy, and many have been outlawed. The following is a list of games that have aroused some sort of social controversy; more information about each game's controversy is available in the article on that game.
Contents |
Controversial games
Physical Games
- Dodgeball (the game permits, and in some variants encourages, dangerous activity that has resulted in injuries)
- Red Rover (like Dodgeball, the game permits, and in some variants encourages, dangerous activity that has resulted in injuries)
- Smear the queer (Tag variant alleged to be a veiled reference to Gay bashing and potentially as injurous as tackle football)
- Soccer (fan violence often under the influence of alcohol, and physical brawls among players are widely reported)
- Hockey (violence among ice hockey players is well documented and often glorified in popular thought and hockey video games, though frowned upon according to the rules)
- Bloody Knuckles (and variants, a game involving striking the other player's hands even to the point of drawing blood)
Card and Paper Role Playing Games
- Dungeons and Dragons (see steam tunnel incident and Patricia Pulling)
- Magic: The Gathering (players must purchase new cards frequently to stay competitive; cards have had demonic themes)
- Trading card games (the general template for these games was patented by one company)
Board Games and Gambling
- Ghettopoly (depiction of ghetto was judged racist and offensive)
- Online gambling (Accesibility to minors, perpuation gambling addiction)
- Slot machines (see Compulsive gambling)
- Texas Hold 'em immense popularity of the game has drawn many teens and tweens to gambling.
- Pinball (accused of inspiring gambling when players could earn money to "buy off" free games won, lead to "for amusement only" labels)
- Billiards (pool halls were targetted by community activists as inspiring gambling on the outcome of games and 'pool sharking')
- Marbles ("playing for keeps" in which players, usually children, could win the marbles of their opponents was often banned in American schools)
Video games
Violence
- 25 to Life (player commits violence against law enforcement officers and uses human shields)
- Carmageddon series (goal of game is running over pedestrians; graphic violence when doing so)
- Death Race (arcade game with goal of killing pedestrians with cars)
- Doom series (demons and violence)
- Duke Nukem series (Violence, sexual content, profanity and steroids used as a power up)
- Grand Theft Auto series (drug use, language, violence)
- Hitman series (killing lots of people, usually at close range)
- Kingpin: Life of Crime (profanity and gang culture)
- Killer 7 (for graphic violence and sexuality)
- Light gun games (Allegations of gateways to gun violence, violence against police officers, examples: Chiller, Area 51, The House of the Dead)
- Manhunt (Extreme violence)
- Mortal Kombat (graphic "fatality" killing moves; along with Night Trap, led to the founding of the ESRB; bloodless version created for the SNES and Sega Genesis version required a code to "unlock" the graphic content)
- Postal and Postal² (violence against innocent victims, and use of the name 'Postal', which was accused of spreading stereotype of violent postmen)
- Pyro 2 (ascii based federal terrorism)
- Quake (Demons and violence)
- Resident Evil series (for graphic violence)
- Rise of the Triad (Digitized actors with lots of violence)
- Silent Scope (stand-up sniper arcade game; player holds a gun and looks through a scope while shooting his victims; accused of being a "murder simulator")
- Soldier of Fortune (gratuitous violence)
- The Suffering (graphic violence; monsters based on violent crime)
- Under Ash (has strong real-world ties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict)
- Nemesis the Warlock (violence; killing more than 50-60 enemies and then using their corpses to climb to next level)
- Halo (video game series) (extreme graphic violence)
- Prince of Persia: Warrior Within(for graphic violence and sexuality)
- Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter(for extreme graphic violence)
- Half-Life 2(for extreme graphic violence)
- Unreal Tournament 2004(extreme graphic violence)
Adult Content
- See also:Adult video games
These games have been the subject of controversy mainly due to sexual themes, graphic nudity, obscene language, or drug use.
- BMX XXX (nudity; the PS2 version was toned down at Sony's demand)
- Conker's Bad Fur Day (profanity, scat)
- Custer's Revenge (1980s video game with "rape" goal)
- Duke Nukem 3D (player can pay strippers to dance and reveal breasts)
- Gals Panic (a Qix-like game where you uncover images of scantily clad or semi-nude models)
- Hentai games (hentai is pornographic anime)
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (a mini-game of simulated intercourse was left in the game's programming but disabled: See Hot Coffee mod)
- Leisure Suit Larry series (goal of game is to "score"; constant sexual humor and dialogue)
- NARC (Presence of "adult book shops" and prostitute non-combatants as background scenery in one stage, drugs are present throughout that are confiscated by police as evidence)
- Night Trap (vampire-themed brutality and non-graphic voyeurism)
- Panty Raider (players fire green goo at female characters, disolving their outer clothing and photographing them for aliens)
- Phantasmagoria series (graphic rape scene)
- Playboy: The Mansion (sexual)
- Kingpin: Life of Crime (profanity)
Social Issues
These include controversy due to recent or historical events and precedents that make a game potentially inappropriate.
- Bully (promotion of school bullying)
- Cannon Fodder (original packaging artwork featured a Poppy plant, a reference to the UK dead during World War I)
- DJ Boy (reputedly racist imagery based on caricatures)
- Ethnic Cleansing (promotes killing non-whites as part of a "race war")
- KZ manager (Lets the player "manage" a Nazi-era concentration camp)
- JFK: Reloaded (re-enacts the assassination of John F. Kennedy)
- Wolfenstein series (banned in Germany for depictions of Nazi symbols)
- Lineage (Supposedly causing addiction, murder over virtual theft)
- EverQuest (Supposedly causing addiction)
Other
- Firebug (goal is to burn down a building)
- Pokémon (banned in Saudi Arabia for allegedly possessing children and promoting Zionism; controversial at times for allegedly promoting evolution or satanism; and for one card using a swastika-esque symbol called a manji in the card game.)
- The Warriors (Violence and drug use to refill the player's health.)
Video Games Bans by Country
China
China has banned games such as Battlefield 2, C&C Generals, and Hearts of Iron for portraying the country in an unfavorable political light.
Germany
Germany routinely ban video games for retail sale if they include violence against humans. To get around this proscription, video game developers often create a special version of the game in which blood is colored green, so the developer can claim that the player is shooting zombies or space aliens. The European versions of the Contra series were named Probotector, and the characters changed to robots because of this. This ban lead to the creation of the Army Men video game, with its depiction of plastic Army Men to get around the ban.
Germany also routinely bans video games that include any reference to Nazis, such as Wolfenstein 3D, in which the player fights hundreds of Nazi soldiers, and which features swastika artwork on the walls.
South Korea
South Korea has banned Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for having a scenario that has Seoul, the capital city of South Korea destroyed in a sea of fire. The delicate situation between North and South Korea means that the government is under severe pressure to ban media that depicts war between the two nations, for fear that it could shove the diplomatic situation over the edge and spark an actual conflict. Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 were banned for similar reasons.