Gaming's 10 Biggest Scandals

GamePolitics has a list of ten of the most well known gaming scandals to hit the games industry. Starting back in 1993 with the senate hearings on Night Trap (a game that arguably led to today's ESRB), the list catalogs some things that the companies responsible would probably just as soon forget. "Hot Coffee (2005) - needs no introduction. Cheeky Rockstar programmers left hidden sex animations (accidentally or otherwise) buried in the PS2 code of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Modders made sure they didn't stay buried for long. Rockstar's denials only made things worse. And then Hillary got involved ..." At the post's close they call for additional nominations, as it's definitely not an exhaustive list. They left off the ESRB's decision to re-rate Oblivion , for example. What 'scandalous' gaming events can you see rating with this topics?

Comments

Night Trap

[doublefrost]

I remember everyone rushing to buy the game when the story broke out. Maybe that was the idea.

EVE Online

[L-Train8]

How is an MMO game where the developers are cheaters who give themselves and their friends an advantage? That's scandalous. http://endie.net/cs/blogs/endie/archive/2007/05/25 /Eve_Online_Developer_Cheating_Again.aspx

Let's not forget some historical controversies

[solar_blitz]

I can think of several different controversies or scandals in the video game industry that need to be explained. Yes, Mortal Kombat is definitely one of them. Harris and Klebold are another. But aren't we forgetting some others?

Christian Conservative backlash over Pokemon is one of them - summoning demons, doing demonic acts, James the cross-dresser, etc. As well as Jewish backlash against Pokemon because one of the Japanese card had the manji character on it (essentially a swastika), even though it was in use for thousands of years prior to World War II, and African American protests over the character Jynx, which was based upon a reference to picadilly characters in old Japanese comics. Oh, and the epileptic seizures caused by an episode of Pokemon.

Also consider the Gizmondo, which had everything from a trashed 1 million dollar ferrari to the Swedish mafia. Oh yeah, and Phantom.

Then there was that lawsuit Universal Studios threw against Nintendo in the early days over the creative license of Donkey Kong. Nintendo won, by the way. And got Universal to pay off their legal fees.

"Oblivion scandal" shame for ESBR.

[SharpFang]

For those who don't remember it: man-boobs forbidden.

Oblivion originally used the same skin for both male and female models. Males had normal male chests with normal nipples on them. Female models had an extra unremovable piece of clothing - a bra or a strap of cloth, or some other halter, so the breasts never show. Except a mod removed the piece of clothing and what you got were stretched, misplaced textures of nipples that came from the male body.

Result? "Bethesda tried to sneak adult content into the game!" outrage. And re-rating it.

Incidentially, the male nipples appearing on female models were more offensive (and caused re-rating the game) than a mission to murder all children of a mother, then the mother herself, or performing a live sacrifice (ok, not actually human, but sentient...), or murdering innocent citizens on behalf of a schizophrenic madman... oh well, things that kids shouldn't be allowed to play. But cheating, stealing, murdering innocents in cool blood, that was all OK to ESBR. Piss-poor textures of nipples weren't.