Many parents did not allow their children to own, rent, or even play this very violent game (McNamara, 41) When the game was released, there were only two major gaming systems and Mortal Kombat was available on both the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis. Both took different approaches to the game. Nintendo opted not to have the blood in the game knowing that they would take a very steep drop in sales. Sega, on the other hand, made blood available but only if a special code was inputted. Sega's sales skyrocketed, almost doubling that of Nintendo's (McNamara, 41).
Recently, the American people have faced the harsh reality of what human beings are capable of when students at Columbine High School slaughtered many members of their class. The public was shocked and outraged and immediately looked for a cause for .
4 -.
the attack. It was soon learned that the student killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, played a popular computer game called Doom, which was deemed one of the most violent games available (McNamara, 40). It was believed, from that point, that the shooters had been inspired by the violent game. Although the parents of the shooters, as well as the President of the United States, all blamed games for the attack, this simply isn't true. Harris and Klebold drew upon the most violent things they could find in any media. They played violent video games, watched violent TV, and went to violent movies (Hanson, 3). Any or all of these could have caused them to attack their fellow students.
Earlier, in 1997, another student entered his Middle School in North Carolina with a gun and shot eight people (Rattiner, 1). During this attack, the shooter was able to fire nine shots. Eight of these shots hit people, and three of those eight struck someone in the head or neck (Hansen, 1). Mike Breen, the attorney for the parents of the three students killed, has filed a law suite against the video game industry for $100 million.
