We've been talking about controversy and heavy content regarding the games themselves, but there has also been controversy surrounding some of the advertising campaigns for games. Here is an article about controversial game ads in magazines. I couldn't get the second page to work when I clicked on it. This article shows a couple more, a Hitman ad and a very gross ad for Nanotek Warrior.
Also check out some controversial TV commercials that were actually banned. Only a couple of them are offensive enough, the rest were banned for silly things like "promoting dangerous driving". I think they're mostly foreign ads.
It's interesting to think about the games that used to be surrounded in controversy back in the day but nowadays even the video game playing nephews of the Senators who like to discuss these sorts of things wouldn't even have heard of them.
Death Race a very old arcade game where you really can't tell what you're hitting, but it's based off of Death Race 2000 and the original name was Pedestrian so critics said it depicted vehicular homocide
Carmageddon definitely depicted vehicular homicide
Night Trap was considered very smutty because it had girls in their underwear
Mortal Kombat was one of the major reasons why the ESRB was created
we've already mentioned the incredibly offensive (but incredibly obscure) Custer's Revenge
The original Doom is a Mass Murder Simulator and has the most realistic depiction of violence ever. (Actually this shouldn't be on here because for some reason game violence critics still bring it up)
You can also consider all the games that are very controversial but don't really get mentioned out side of the gaming community. I've never heard of Jack Thompson and his ilk mentioning God of War oddly enough. Snatcher had scenes of very graphic violence. In NARC you blew up people with a rocket launcher, but it was okay because they were drug dealers.
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I don't know if I'm surprised or not that Jack Thompson et al tend to avoid the bloody fantasy games. God of War has some pretty strong stuff (I'm thinking of the scene where you slowly set a captured soldier on fire while he's begging for his life - and this is a puzzle element)...and yet, our teenagers are in very little danger of commiting heinous acts against ogres or medusas. There's this sense that fantasy violence is fine, but as soon as "real" guns are involved it's not - and really, what's the difference between shooting a blue alien with a plasma gun and shooting a car salesman with a .45? Generally, we use the same buttons and triggers to do it.
I'm sure we've come across the Kane & Lynch Playboy ad: http://www.gemaga.com/2007/12/02/ign-kane-lynch-site-is-a-giant-playboy-ad
http://kotaku.com/gaming/oddities/sexing-up-kane--lynch-306227.php
That isn't the only odd marketing strategy used by the game: http://kotaku.com/gaming/kane-&-lynch/kane--lynch-site-fibbing-about-reviews-scores-329529.php
I don't think they have the Playboy ad on their site anymore, but they still have the quotes.
I'm not sure why violence in a fantasy setting doesn't set people off as violence in a real world setting does. One reason might be that the fantasy genre is still considered a kids' world with unicorns and fairies (although Harry Potter did get critized for encouraging kids to practice Satanism). Similarly, sci-fi is viewed as a world with aliens and robots. I wonder why only specific fantasy games/books/film/etc. strike up controversy and others don't. Maybe one reason is that people take whatever is the most popular or most well-known at the time and twist it to their own agenda.
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