The
Mortal Kombat series, particularly its "
Fatalities", was a source of major controversy in at the time of its release. A
moral panic over the series, fueled by outrage from the mass media, resulted in a
Congressional hearing and helped to pave the way for the creation of the
Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) game rating system. In 2010,
Mortal Kombat co-creator and long-time producer
Ed Boon revealed that he had actually sympathized with much of the outrage and admitted, "I wouldn't want my ten-year-old kid playing a game like that."
1993 U.S. Congressional hearing and response During the U.S. Congressional hearing on video game violence,
Democratic Party Senator
Herb Kohl, working with Senator
Joe Lieberman, attempted to illustrate why government regulation of video games was needed by showing clips from 1992's
Mortal Kombat and
Night Trap (another game featuring
digitized actors). Brought in as an expert, Professor
Eugene F. Provenzo commented that such games "have almost TV-quality graphics [but] are overwhelmingly violent,
sexist and
racist."
Nintendo, which had a policy of screening games for content like blood, had refused to allow gore in ''Mortal Kombat's'' release for their home system. Meanwhile, their rival,
Sega, released the game with their MA-13 rating, resulting in a great commercial success for them when millions of consumers chose their version over Nintendo's. Nintendo's representatives attempted to use that fact to attack Sega during the hearings. In response to these developments, Sega's Spanish division cancelled the release of their version of
Mortal Kombat in Spain, fearing the game would stir up as much controversy there as it had in the United States and the United Kingdom. Lieberman had been one of the first politicians to voice concerns over
Mortal Kombat in 1993, and continued to be one of the most avid critics of violent video games. He later referenced the series and
DOOM in a 1996 statement, when he joined Kohl and the psychologist
David Walsh in a campaign to inform Congress about the new wave of violent games such as
Resident Evil. During the 2000s, however, the controversy surrounding the series had wound down significantly. In 2006,
AP writer Lou Kesten wrote that while Lieberman had remained "one of the video game industry's most persistent critic[s,]
Mortal Kombat is no longer the flashpoint of the game violence debate. Its brand of
mano-a-mano brawling is seen as kind of old-fashioned today, now that the likes of
Grand Theft Auto are serving up the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent civilians."
Time commented in 2012 that "the reason the 1992 classic remains seminal is because it broke an implicit
taboo about what was okay to put in a game."
Game ratings, bans and censorship As with the first
Mortal Kombat game, the extremely bloody content of
Mortal Kombat II became the subject of a great deal of controversy regarding violent video games.
Mortal Kombat II has been censored in its original release in Japan, where Nintendo insisted on changing the blood shown in the game from red to green, as well as making the screen turn black-and-white for all character-specific lethal
Fatality moves. The backlash that Nintendo of America had received for their own similar censorship of the first
Mortal Kombat, however, informed the company's future business practices, and so the sequel and following games in the series were released by them uncensored. In 2009,
Mortal Kombat developer and publisher
Midway Games was forced to tone down the
Joker's finishing move to secure the ESRB T-rating for
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. In 2010,
Swiss Social Democrat politician
Evi Allemann unsuccessfully campaigned to outlaw
Mortal Kombat,
Manhunt, and video games displaying interactive "cruel acts of violence" in Switzerland. The series' 2011 reboot game
Mortal Kombat has been banned by law in a number of countries, including entirely in
Australia and
South Korea, The
Australian Minister for Home Affairs,
Brendan O'Connor, asked to be briefed on the decision, citing "public disquiet on the issue", and the game was eventually allowed in the country in 2013 when the R18+ rating came into effect. Due to stated reason of the inconsistency of the game with the local legislations, the previously planned releases of 2019's
Mortal Kombat 11 have been canceled in
Indonesia,
Japan, and
Ukraine (in Ukraine because of laws banning
Nazi and
communist symbols, in Indonesia because of laws regarding communist symbols, not including Axis symbols during
World War II). The game is also banned in
Mainland China.
Germany In
Germany, numerous titles in the series were added to the
List of Media Harmful to Young People by the
Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors between 1994 and 2013 and some titles were even confiscated by the courts. Games on this list may no longer be offered or sold to minors, and such titles may no longer be publicly advertised. Games that have been confiscated may also no longer be sold to adults.
Mortal Kombat X was the first part of the series to receive an 18+ rating from the
USK and was therefore allowed to be sold freely. Since 2020, several titles have been gradually removed from the
List of Media Harmful to Young People and the confiscations have been lifted. On September 27, 2024,
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, the last remaining title in the
Mortal Kombat series, was removed from the
List of Media Harmful to Young People.
Legislation The
Australian Senate had set up an inquiry in response to the original
Mortal Kombat,
Time Killers, and
Night Trap, and the surrounding media coverage; the Senate's inquiry led to the Commonwealth Classification Act, which came into force on March 1, 1995, and introduced the
Australian Classification Board. Almost exactly 18 years later, the Board finally banned the 2011
Mortal Kombat game for its "explicit depictions of dismemberment, decapitation, disembowelment and other brutal forms of slaughter." The game's publisher,
Warner Bros. Interactive, appealed, but the appeal was rejected. However, following the introduction of an adults-only rating system in 2013, the ban was overturned in Australia and the game re-rated R18+ uncensored. In 1998, the
Florida House of Representatives'
Barry Silver sponsored a bill to regulate video game violence, which he stated "[has] affected the moral fiber of our youth." The bill's initial proponents included Florida's Democratic
Governor,
Lawton Chiles (who alleged that violent video games can become "an instruction manual for murder and mayhem") and
Florida State University Professor Murray Krantz, a specialist in child development. Eventually, the bill garnered support from more than 50 lawmakers and various groups ranging from the Florida
Parent-Teacher Association to the
Christian Coalition of America. After seeing a videotape of
gameplay from one of the
Mortal Kombat games, the House Governmental Rules and Regulation Committee passed the bill unanimously. Opponents, such as the
Interactive Digital Software Association's founder and president,
Doug Lowenstein, regarded the bill as
unconstitutional, violating the
First Amendment's freedom of speech provision with potentially far-reaching consequences. In 2002,
U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. decided that video games are not speech at all and thus do not deserve First Amendment protection. Limbaugh based his opinion in part on his review of four games including
Mortal Kombat, misnamed in court documents as "
Mortal Combat". In 2005, California passed a statewide ban on selling violent video games to minors, proposed and championed by former
Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, the ban was eventually struck down by a 7-2 vote in the
Supreme Court case
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association in 2011. The court ruled that "video games qualify for First Amendment protection", making the ban unconstitutional. The justices' majority opinion declared: "Reading
Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing
Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones. Crudely violent video games, tawdry TV shows, and cheap novels and magazines are no less forms of speech than
The Divine Comedy, and restrictions upon them must survive strict scrutiny." Justice
Elena Kagan was quoted as calling
Mortal Kombat "an iconic game, which I am sure half of the clerks who work for us spent considerable amounts of time in their adolescence playing."
Advertisement censorship Mortal Kombats advertisements received criticism as well. In 1993, Senator Lieberman, referencing one of Sega's television commercials for the game, argued that the ad itself too promoted violence.
Blood on the Carpet, a TV commercial for 2005's
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks created by London-based company Maverick Media, was also targeted by the ASA as "condoning and glorifying violence".
Studies on video game violence • In 2000, psychologists
Craig A. Anderson and Karen Dill conducted two related studies on the effects of media violence. The studies involved notably violent games, including
Mortal Kombat and
Wolfenstein 3D. They concluded that playing such games makes players, especially males, act more aggressively. Following the studies' publication, a year-long "flurry of new scrutiny" was directed at
Mortal Kombat by U.S. lawmakers and the media. • A 2008 experiment by Richard J. Barlett, Christopher P. Harris, and Callie Bruey also examined how playing
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance affected subjects'
hostility and
heart rate. They interpreted their findings as evidence that players exhibited "more
aggressive thoughts activated in
semantic memory." • In a 2010 experiment conducted by psychologists
Brad Bushman and Bryan Gibson, using
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe and two other violent games (
Resistance: Fall of Man and
Resident Evil 5), the authors concluded "that the aggression stimulating effects of a violent video game can persist long after the game has been turned off, if people ruminate about the violent content in the game." • The following year, Dr. Brock Bastian from the
University of Queensland's School of Psychology performed an experiment in which participants played
Mortal Kombat, fighting against each other and against
artificial intelligence-controlled opponents. The study, published in the
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, claimed to have "found evidence that playing violent video games leads players to see themselves, and their opponents, as lacking in core human qualities such as warmth, open-mindedness, and intelligence." Bastian concluded that "the findings of this study point to the potential long-term effects of violent video game play and suggest that repeated exposure to these
dehumanizing experiences may result in chronic changes in self-perception." • Bruce D. Bartholow, a psychology professor at the
University of Missouri, said that there is a fear that this simulated violence can translate into real-life violence as "the extent that a player learns to make specific or violent responses in the context of the game, those same skills could transfer to similar scenarios outside the game, potentially increasing aggression in nongaming situations."
Real-life violence In the aftermath of the
Columbine High School massacre in 1999, the subjects of
DOOM and
Mortal Kombat returned to Congressional hearings about the alleged impact on the youth. United States President
Bill Clinton stated that "video games like
Mortal Kombat,
Killer Instinct, and
DOOM, the very game played obsessively by
the two young men who ended so many lives in
Littleton, make our children more active participants in simulated violence." Attorney
Jack Thompson, a conservative activist against explicit content in video games and media in general, represented the families of three of the Columbine victims in unsuccessfully trying to sue the producers of
DOOM and
Mortal Kombat. Some critics have alleged that the
Mortal Kombat series influenced particular cases of real-life lethal violence other than the Columbine massacre: • In 1999, Brazil banned
Mortal Kombat,
Postal,
Carmageddon, and four
first-person shooter games for allegedly inspiring 24 year-old medical student Mateus da Costa Meira's
deadly shooting rampage in
São Paulo, which was primarily blamed on
Duke Nukem 3D. But the ban was later abolished years later with the popularity of the Mortal Kombat series in the country. • In 2007, 20 year-old Patrick Morris used a shotgun to kill 15 year-old Diego Aguilar in
Klamath Falls, Oregon, in what prosecutors alleged was a drug deal-related killing. However, Morris' defense attorney alleged that violent video games such as
Mortal Kombat "may have blurred Morris' ability to distinguish reality and the consequences of his actions." • In 2008, in the so-called "
Mortal Kombat murder" case, 17 year-old Lamar Roberts and 16 year-old Heather Trujillo were accused of beating to death Trujillo's seven year-old half-sister, Zoe Garcia. The teenagers told investigators they were acting out moves from a
Mortal Kombat game. At a preliminary hearing, prosecutor Robert Miller stated: "Zoe Garcia was the object of abuse by both Heather Trujillo and Lamar Roberts caused these injuries with ." Roberts and Trujillo were convicted of murder. • In the aftermath of the 2012
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,
Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the
National Rifle Association (NRA), named four violent video games, including
Mortal Kombat, as contributors to the increased incidence of
killing sprees in the United States. Many commentators regarded LaPierre's choice of
Mortal Kombat as an odd and outdated pop culture reference. • In 2015,
CNN's
Ashleigh Banfield described the
Charleston church shooting as "
Mortal Kombat murders".
Feminist and racial perspectives Some critics have condemned the
Mortal Kombat series as sexist or racist, especially regarding its Asian characters.
Guy Aoki, the president of the advocacy group Media Action Network for Asian Americans, rebuked
Mortal Kombat II in 1994 for allegedly perpetuating existing
stereotypes of Asians as martial arts experts, with the game's portrayal of characters such as
Kung Lao,
Liu Kang,
Raiden,
Scorpion,
Shang Tsung, and
Sub-Zero. Allyne Mills, publicist for the game's publisher
Acclaim Entertainment, answered: "This is a fantasy game, with all different characters. This is a martial arts game which comes from Asia. The game was not created to foster stereotypes." The characters' racial diversity and the inclusion of female characters were also criticized by the psychologists
Patricia Marks Greenfield and Rodney R. Cocking in their 1996 book
Interacting with Video, writing they "cannot assume that this greater diversity represents a more
progressive identity politics, for one could argue that it merely increases the racist and sexist potential of the individual fights." In 1995,
critical studies professor
Marsha Kinder denounced
Mortal Kombat II and
Mortal Kombat 3 for allegedly allowing players to have what she termed "a
misogynist aspect to the combat." In a 1999 book titled
From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, written by media scholars
Justine Cassell and
Henry Jenkins, the series was used to represent "the basic boy cyberworld of aggression, action and dead bodies." Critics alleging the
Mortal Kombat series being sexist and incompatible with women included liberal journalist
Ellen Goodman, among others. On the other hand, U.S. Appeals Court Judge
Richard Posner considered
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 to be "a feminist violent video game". Finding that
Indianapolis' attempt to ban
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 violated the First Amendment, Judge Posner wrote "the game is feminist in depicting a woman as fully capable of holding her own in violent combat with heavily armed men. It thus has a message, even an 'ideology' just as books and movies do." Judge Posner further marveled that "the woman wins all the duels. She is as strong as the men, she is more skillful, more determined, and she does not flinch at the sight of blood."
Harm to game developers In 2019, a developer of
Mortal Kombat 11 was diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after spending a long time working with the violent visuals used in the video game and reference material used to create the visuals, reportedly avoiding sleep due to violent dreams. They alleged that coworkers who worked on the animation experienced similar discomfort, and criticized the development company for lacking formal process, standard procedure, or guidance available for workers who needed to step back from the violent content, or felt such work had begun to negatively affect them. The studio was also accused of instituting
"crunch culture", with employees regularly working 80 to 100 hours a week to meet submission deadlines, contractors working overtime due to inadequate wages, and delayed communication between the development and testing departments. ==Court cases==