How Mortal Kombat and the Moral Panic Revolutionized the Gaming Landscape

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On December 9, 1993, Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman addressed Congress at a
Congressional hearing on video game violence. He asserted that the video game industry had overstepped ethical boundaries, particularly targeting Midway’s Mortal Kombat, a violent fighting game that had recently made waves on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System after its arcade success. “Blood will splatter from the heads of the contestants,” Lieberman warned. “The game’s narrator guides players to finish off their opponents, offering choices on how to execute them, from ripping out their hearts to decapitating them with the spinal cord attached.”

The aim of Mr. Lieberman’s hearing was to compel the U.S. gaming industry to implement a formal rating system to restrict minors from buying violent games. He was successful; this led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board. However, he also fueled a moral panic that had started with Mortal Kombat’s arcade debut in 1992. This concern heightened following the major home console launch on September 13, 1993 (the event dubbed Mortal Monday). U.S. news networks
sent reporters to gaming centers, questioning teens who passionately battled against each other. Newspapers consulted worried child psychologists, while the BBC featured author Will Self live on “The Late Show” to discuss the concerns.

In hindsight, viewing those hearings juxtaposed with the games they critiqued is fascinating. Just released this week, Mortal Kombat: Legacy Collection compiles the first four titles in the franchise across arcade formats and multiple home consoles, along with several spin-offs for the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation. The original game now feels like a nostalgic relic from 1990s youth culture. Its digitized visuals, crafted by filming actors executing martial arts moves and converting the footage into 2D animations, have a charmingly clunky and low-resolution quality that renders the controversial fatalities more amusing than horrifying. A highlight of the collection is the Fatality Trainer, which lets you practice each title’s gruesome finishing moves. Had this mode existed back then, it would have likely been my sole focus.

Revisiting the game now, it’s evident that it stemmed from a small team of enthusiasts who had grown up on ’80s horror flicks. Initially, Midway created a four-person team, including programmers Ed Boone and John Tobias, aiming to develop a combat game featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme. However, when that partnership dissolved, Boone and Tobias envisioned a contender to Capcom’s popular Street Fighter II, drawing inspiration from a wave of violent martial arts films such as Bloodsport and The Best of the Best. Boone described it as “an MTV version of Street Fighter,” and the team borrowed concepts from iconic films like “RoboCop,” “The Terminator,” and “Enter the Dragon,” often facing challenges during development. The company recognized that embracing violence could lead to notoriety, and no one hesitated. As Boone recounted,
in a 2022 interview with Polygon, he noted, “If something happened, I would ask, ‘Is this going too far?'” The CEO’s response was, “No, go further.” Under the leadership of [Midway game designer] Eugene Jarvis, who had just played a notably violent game called Narc, the team was encouraged to push boundaries even more.

Essentially, the moral panic ignited by Mortal Kombat in the early 1990s mirrored earlier concerns about video games in the 1980s. This was fueled by the fear of new entertainment technologies infiltrating homes unchecked and affecting children’s minds, and paradoxically, it propelled the series’ success. Following the Christmas season, Mortal Kombat became the best-selling game, moving 6 million copies across various platforms. The collection illustrates how gaming adapted in the age of 32-bit consoles, transitioning from arcade concepts to handheld devices and evolving into action-adventure spin-offs like Mortal Kombat: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces.

For the gaming industry, the Mortal Kombat controversy escalated into yet another battleground in the console wars. Sega capitalized on the heated debate, allowing Mega Drive users to unlock the full gore of the arcade version through a “secret” code, while Nintendo aimed to preserve its family-friendly brand by removing fatalities and transforming blood into gray “sweat.” Unsurprisingly, the Sega version became the top seller.

Since then, media hysteria surrounding video games has persisted. Doom remained a frequent tabloid topic throughout the 1990s;
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s interest in the game was blamed for the Columbine school shooting. The 2010s saw Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty regularly targeted, while more recently, Fortnite has faced accusations of leading a generation of schoolchildren into
addiction. Yet, Lieberman’s fervent examination of Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, and Lethal Enforcers in a boarded-up Senate chamber retains its unique appeal.

This was a pivotal moment for the gaming industry, marking a shift from child-focused games to those aimed at teens and adults, transitioning from abstract puzzles and platformers to graphically rich shooters, gory beat-’em-ups, and action-adventures. Midway set out to discover just how far they could push the envelope, and their findings would influence the entire industry.