Controversies surrounding Mortal Kombat
The "Mortal Kombat" series of fighting games, created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, has been the subject of various controversies since its creation in 1992. In particular, "Mortal Kombat" has often been criticised from a broad spectrum of politicians and other critics for its unrestrained use of graphic and bloody violence (both in the game's regular combat scenes and its Fatalities—finishing moves which allow the player to kill or otherwise maim opponent characters). The violent nature of the series, one of the earliest of its kind, has led to the creation and continued  presence of the Entertainment Software Rating Board and other ratings boards for video games. Various "Mortal Kombat" games have been censored or banned in several countries, and the franchise was the subject of several court cases. In Germany, every Mortal Kombat game was banned for ten years from its release until 2015. Mortal Kombat (2011) is also banned in Brazil and South Korea, and was banned in Australia until February 2013. MK11 is also banned in Indonesia, Japan, Mainland China and Ukraine. Controversies and censorship. The "Mortal Kombat" series' violence, particularly its "Fatalities", was a source of major controversy in  1993. 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 1994. 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." 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". "Mortal Kombat" co-creator John Tobias recalled having been "pretty pissed off" about that because of how he felt "the folks like Lieberman" have been "trivializing real problems with their video game nonsense." 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. In 1994, "Mortal Kombat II" was added to the index of works deemed harmful to young people by Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons. The next year, all versions of the game, except for Game Boy's, were confiscated from the German market for violating §131 of the country's penal code, which prohibited showing gruesome violence against humans (the ban ended in 2005, due to the ten-year limitation for confiscations). "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, and partially in Germany (prohibiting any sort of advertising and public exposure). 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 regional 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). The game is also unavailable in Mainland China. 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 Kombat"s 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. Some advertisements were subjected to censorship. The 2011 edition of "Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition" awarded the "Mortal Kombat" series the world record for the earliest video game poster to be censored: "On April 22, 2003, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA ) took the then unprecedented step of condemning the poster campaign promoting ""." The ASA claimed that the poster, showing a hoodie with a bloodstained hand, was "irresponsible" and "condoned violence"; the poster was removed. "", a TV commercial for 2005's "" created by London-based company Maverick Media, was also targeted by the ASA as "condoning and glorifying violence". 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 children. 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 Christian conservative activist against sexual themes and violence in video games and other entertainment media, 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: Feminist and racial perspectives. Some critics have condemned  the "Mortal Kombat" series as sexist and/or racist, especially regarding its many 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, "Mortal Kombat 11" developers were diagnosed with PTSD after spending a long time working with the violent visuals used in the video game, with a worker avoiding sleeping due to having violent dreams during sleeps. The  development company was also criticized 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. Court cases. Section::::"Daniel Pesina v. Midway Manufacturing Co.". In 1996, actor Daniel Pesina (who had portrayed Johnny Cage, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Reptile, Smoke and Noob Saibot in the first two games) sued Midway Games, Williams Electronics Games, Acclaim Entertainment, Nintendo, and Sega. He alleged "that all defendants used his persona, name, and likeness without authorization in the home version of "Mortal Kombat" and "Mortal Kombat  II" and the related products." The case was tried in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois with Judge Elaine E. Bucklo presiding. The court concluded that "alleged use of martial artist's name, likeness or persona in a martial arts video game did not violate his common-law right of publicity." Section::::"Philip Ahn, Elizabeth Malecki, and Katalin Zamiar v. Midway Manufacturing, et al.". In 1997, "Mortal Kombat" and "Mortal Kombat II" actors Philip Ahn (Shang Tsung), Elizabeth Malecki (Sonya Blade), and Katalin Zamiar (Kitana, Mileena, and Jade) jointly sued Midway Games, Williams Electronics Games, Acclaim , Nintendo and Sega for using their likenesses in an unauthorized way. They sought "a constructive trust on all monies defendants received and continued to receive from their alleged breach of their duties to [the] plaintiffs." Ahn, Zamiar, and Malecki alleged "that they were only modeling for the coin-operated video game, not the subsequent home video, home computer, and hand-held versions of the game." With Judge Robert William Gettleman presiding in the Northern District of Illinois court "the plaintiffs lost on all counts because they had all consented to the videotaping and because the choreography and choice of movements  used in the game were not jointly 'authored' by the individuals." Section::::"Wilson v. Midway Games, Inc.". In 1997, thirteen-year-old Noah Wilson was killed by Yancy Salazar, also thirteen. Salazar stabbed Wilson in the chest with a kitchen knife and severed his aorta, leaving Wilson to die after an hour of massive blood loss. The victim's mother, Andrea Wilson, alleged that her son was killed due to Salazar's strong interest in "Mortal Kombat". She claimed that Salazar was so "obsessed" with the game that he thought he was actually the "Mortal Kombat" character Cyrax, who she claimed  used a Fatality in which he grabs the opponent in a headlock and stabs his opponent in the chest. In fact, this Fatality did not exist and was never performed by the character Cyrax. With Judge Janet Bond Arterton presiding, the case was tried in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. The court ruled that "Wilson's complaint fail[ed] to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Royalties lawsuits related to Time Warner's 2009 acquisition of Midway assets. In 2009, Lawrence Kasanoff, producer of the "Mortal Kombat" films, TV series, soundtracks, and live  tour, and his company, Threshold Entertainment, sued Midway in bankruptcy court over what he claimed were his own intellectual property (IP) parts of the franchise. Trying to preserve copyrights to certain "Mortal Kombat" characters and to retain the right to create derivative film and television projects based on the franchise, Kasanoff attempted to block a $33-million bid for "Mortal Kombat" assets by Time Warner, whose New Line Cinema developed the 1990s film adaptations of the games. Two other lawsuits related to millions of dollars of unpaid royalties were filed during the periods of 2000-2004 and 2005-2008 . In 2011, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald M. Sohigian awarded Kasanoff only $14,981 and dismissed his other claims. He also ordered Threshold to pay Time Warner, Inc. $25,412 in legal fees after determining that Time Warner, Inc. was the "prevailing party". Kasanoff appealed the ruling and the denial of a jury trial.