Scandalous Games

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. This time around, we look at Thrill Kill, an unreleased 3D fighting game created by Paradox Development for the Sony PlayStation that was supposed to come out in October 1998. We look at its surprising evolution from Mesoamerican-themed sports game to BDSM-themed fighting game, its cancellation by Electronic Arts, and its afterlife as a game starring the Wu-Tang Clan.

Topics discussed include: Why people think Electronic Arts is worse than a bank; how Harvard Bonin is a hilarious name; and if hell exists and we all go to it, what will be the manifestations of our worldly vices? 

For more on the history of Thrill Kill from the people who made it, see: Steven T. Wright, “The Secret History of Wu-Tang Clan’s Bizarre Hip-Hop Fighting Game,” Variety, February 15, 2019, https://variety.com/2019/gaming/features/wu-tang-shaolin-style-thrill-kill-1203140669/

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. We finally wrap up our series explaining how video games got age ratings in the United States. We address the December 9, 1993, Congressional hearing about video game violence and how this led to the games industry creating a trade organization--the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA, now known as the Entertainment Software Association)--as well as a comprehensive ratings system: the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). 

Topics discussed include: How different game companies handled content before 1993, how Sega and Nintendo brought their marketing feud into the halls of Congress, and how the ratings system, in many respects, made it easier to put racy content in games.

To learn more about the creation of the ESRB, check out:
Blake J. Harris, Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation (Dey Street Books, 2015): https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generation/dp/0062276700.
Blake J. Harris, "Content Rated By: An Oral History of the ESRB," Gamesbeat: https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/22/content-rated-by-an-oral-history-of-the-esrb-excerpt-doom-to-the-power-of-ten/.
Jimmy Maher's four-part series on the ESRB's creation, The Ratings Game: https://www.filfre.net/2021/04/the-ratings-game-part-1-a-likely-and-an-unlikely-suspect/.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com. 

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. As we work our way towards learning how video games got age ratings in the United States by learning about how violent video games, led by Mortal Kombat, made people anxious about the impact of games on kids. This increased attention to Mortal Kombat and its imitators came at a time when Americans were really concerned about violence in society, especially youth violence. These circumstances, in turn, inspired some people to call upon the industry to rate itself, lest the federal government do it for them.

Topics discussed include: Mortal Kombat clones, the 1993 “Summer of Violence,” the secret origins of Mokap, the underreported epidemic of centaur leg thefts, and how the media ruined the lives of countless children (but not in the ways you might think).

Content warning: (20:00-1:08:48) Discussion of mass shootings, violent crime, gun violence, and mass incarceration.

Important sources for this episode:
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010).
Theodore Chiricos, "Moral Panic As Ideology: Drugs, Violence, Race and Punishment in America," in Justice with Prejudice: Race and Criminal Justice in America, eds. Michael J. Lynch and E. Britt Patterson (Guilderland, NY: Harrow and Heston, 1996): 19-48.
Paul Colomy and Laura Ross Greiner, “Making Violence Visible: The News Media and the Summer of Violence,” Denver Law Review 77, Iss. 4 (“Symposium - Law and Policy on Youth Violence”) (January 2000): 661-688.
LyNell Hancock, “When Denver Lost Its Mind Over Youth Crime,” The New Republic, November 23, 2021: https://newrepublic.com/article/164419/denver-lost-mind-youth-crime-wave-panic
Sara Sun Beale, “The News Media’s Influence on Criminal Justice Policy: How Market-Driven News Promotes Punitiveness,” William and Mary Law Review 48, No. 2 (2006): 397-481.

To learn more about different theories about why the U.S. crime rates went down so much since the early 1990s, see: Dana Lind and German Lopez, “16 Theories for Why Crime Plummeted in the US,” Vox, May 20, 2015, https://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8032231/crime-drop.

Check out Jax’s amazing ending cutscene from Mortal Kombat 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNkRvcUn6VM. 

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com. 

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In our (unprecedented) second episode of this month, we continue our look back at early 90s tech fads that influenced the conversation over video games. This is part of our multi-part series on how video games got age ratings in the United States. 

This time around, we look at the full-motion video (FMV) game, its origins in LaserDisc, its relationship to multimedia "convergence" (where corporations mashed together telecommunications, film, gaming, and anything else they thought would make a bunch of money), and how FMV tried to push games to a mature audience (to the horror of some). 

Topics discussed include: The rise and fall of LaserDisc games, the surprisingly long history of on-demand gaming services, and whether or not virtual reality and FMV games really failed.

For more on the RDI Halcyon, which we only briefly mentioned, check out this amazing deep dive into the system by hbomberguy, titled "Halcyon Dreams: The Legacy of Dragon's Lair": https://youtu.be/CnPOQr1pxY8.   

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com. 

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. We celebrate one year of video game controversies with a mulit-part series on how video games got age ratings in the United States.  

In today's episode, we  look back at tech fads that influenced the way people thought about video games, starting with virtual reality. Would VR give us the Holodeck or the horrors of the Lawnmower Man?  And how did the seemingly limitless possibilities of virtual reality influence video games?

Topics discussed include:  The surprisingly long history of VR; the potential marketing benefits of the Data Codpiece™; how VR invaded TV, movies, and video games; and the possibilities and pitfalls of "teledildonics."  

Check out Fatroll Gaming (Phil's Elden Ring show): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4AxENRyXMhWlPG14-fgTog 

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com. 

Celebrating the end of our first year of deep dives into video game controversies, we bring out of the vault our pilot episode.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and John Dukes. In today's episode, we  look back at the Health Hero series, a set of health educational games from the 1990s. We talk about Captain Novolin, Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon, Packy & Marlon, Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus, and The AIDS Avenger, and how they tried to teach kids about diabetes, smoking, asthma, and HIV/AIDS.

Topics discussed include:  our ideas for a diabetes-themed game, the amazing lineup of Super NES games the Health Hero series tried to compete with, and whether these strange, possibly terrible games might have actually been a success.

If you want to learn about more recent educational games in a variety of subjects, check out the Games for Change game directory: https://www.gamesforchange.org/games/.

For more on Captain Novolin, check out Cassidy's deep dive over at Bad Game Hall of Fame: https://www.badgamehalloffame.com/captain-novolin/.

Special thanks to Sean-Paul (https://twitter.com/HelloMrKearns).

Editor's Note: The game Kevin mentioned but didn't name near the end of the episode is a 2013 browser game called Auti-sim: https://gamejolt.com/games/auti-sim/12761.
For more on Plague, Inc., check out: https://www.gamesforchange.org/games/plague-inc/.

*Correction: Sculptured Software also developed the SNES version of Mortal Kombat.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Kate Lynch. In today's episode, we take a deep dive into the research that claims playing violent video games leads to aggression, antisocial behavior, and violent crime. The gang examine the evolution of "violent video games" as a political issue in the United States, why so much of the research is flawed,  and the motivations of the people and organizations behind the studies.

Topics discussed include:  a video game based on C. Everett Koop, the relationship between video games and sass, and the chilling relationship between violent video game studies and police violence.

If you want to know more about the debate over violent video game research, check out Patrick M. Markey and Christopher J. Ferguson, Moral Combat: Why  the War on Violent Video Games is Wrong (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2017) .

For more on Dave Grossman, check out the following pieces:
Josh Eells, "Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, the 'Killologist' Training America's Cops," Mens Journal (February 8, 2017):  https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/lt-dave-grossman-the-self-described-killologist-training-americas-cops-w463304/
Bryan Schatz, "'Are You Prepared to Kill Somebody?' A Day With One of America’s Most Popular Police Trainers," Mother Jones (March/April 2017): https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/dave-grossman-training-police-militarization/.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In today's episode, we go back to the Postal series to look at Postal’s 2003 sequel: the “anti-PC” PC game Postal 2. We look at its development, the fortunes of its maker (Running with Scissors), and how the company handled criticism.

Also, Kevin makes an argument for why Postal 2 might be the first "MAGA video game."

Topics discussed include:  the logistics of using a cat as a silencer, whether Gary Coleman represented everything wrong with America, and Running with Scissors’ unsurprising embrace of the Alt-Right.

Correction: based on Steam achievement statistics, by making it through Wednesday, Kevin managed to surpass 75.5% of Postal 2 players (https://steamcommunity.com/stats/223470/achievements).

For more on Postal III’s rough production, check out Matt McMuscles’ “What Happened?”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJnivzm-WjA.
For a detailed analysis of the entire Postal series, check out Noah Caldwell Gervais’ video  “Postal, Hatred, and Weighing the Worth of Asshole Simulators”: https://youtu.be/kivtv6wabBk. 

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 

More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.

 Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Ryan Weaver. In today's episode, we take a deep dive into "Hot Coffee," the infamous 2005 mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that unlocked a hidden sex mini-game left in the game's code, prompting denunciations from moral crusaders, calls to regulate violence and sex in video games, and the filings of so many lawsuits.

Topics discussed include:  how hard was it to actually access the hidden content, ways Rockstar/Take-Two might have avoided the scandal, and Take-Two's various shady financial wheelings and dealings,

Shout out to some great write-ups on the scandal, which provided some of the basis for this episode's research:
David Kushner, Jacked: The Unauthorised Behind-the-Scenes Story of Grand Theft Auto (London: Collins, 2012).
Simon Parkin, "Who Spilled Hot Coffee?" Eurogamer, December 2, 2012: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-30-who-spilled-hot-coffee. 

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 
More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com. 

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Andy Hunter. In today's episode, we examine Edmund G. Brown, Governor of the State of California, and Kamala Harris, Attorney General of the State of California v. Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association aka Brown v. EMA, a landmark 2011 Supreme Court ruling that granted video games free speech protection in the United States.

Topics discussed include: the history of laws banning access to "violent video games," why they kept failing, Jack Thompson's feuds, and what Rod Blagojevich has been up to since getting thrown out office for massive corruption.

Check out all the records on the case, including oral arguments and the Supreme Court's ruling: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/08-1448.

Theme Music: Occam's Sikhwee by Sikh Knowledge (Free Music Archive: https://bit.ly/33G4sLO), used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US (https://bit.ly/33JXogQ) 
More info, including show notes and sources at http://scandalousgamespodcast.wordpress.com.