Controversial games

Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior
Was a game created by Palace software in which involved allowing players to have two handed swords to run around killing and fighting like a warrior, Now if it was in this time that it was created, there would not be able controversy about it. However created in 1987, this sparked a bit more that we would expect.

The biggest aspect in which people worried about was the front cover, now instead of using digital art created from the game, the developers decided to use real artwork for the cover. This was a bold idea as the game cover consisted of a topless man and a half naked model lying down. This was the same model who had recently done topless pictures for the page 3 section of the sun. People cared more about the cover than the actual game violence that it had. The US especially were outraged by the sexual aspect of it, this however did no good as it made barbarian into a ultimate commercial and selling success.

Barbarian was banned in Germany due to the violence, it also made most of the world make it an 18 game rating and made sure no one bought it under the age. And so they created the censored version of the game to help sales to go up in different countries.

What really struck me however, was simply how the gaming community and also the world has changed when looking at the controversy behind it. Considering people were simply shocked by the cover was something now a days would be seen as laughable as Sexual aspects in games now are huge. It had an effect on the game industry simply by stopping places across the world from buying it and also people were blaming the game industry for a simple sexual picture on a cover. It also effected players as they were given censored versions in Germany and so the game was changed due to a naked picture.  In conclusion this game was a big controversy and it shows just how much society and the gaming world has changed.