The debate would settle for many years until 1992 when both Mortal Kombat and Night Trap surfaced. Gaining the attention of both popular media and congress, video games had finally met their match. The brutal violence of Mortal Kombat, complete with digitized characters portrayed by actors and fatalities, would bear down on the industry for years. Players competed in one-on-one fighting competitions, much like the game that inspired it, Street Fighter II. The difference was the then extreme amount of gore, deemed too graphic, especially when the player could kill their helpless opponent when the match was over.
Night Trap would stir a similar debate, launching alongside Sega's hyped CD add-on for their Genesis console. The game was played using actual video, a novelty at the time. Different Strokes TV star Dana Plato was the lead role in the game, guiding players as they attempted to stop blood-sucking zombies from killing girls having a sleep over party.
Those two games were enough to launch a congressional hearing, spurred by Joseph Lieberman and Herb Kohl. They threatened those in the industry to do something about the content in these games, or they would. Game makers responded with a rating system.
When Mortal Kombat came home, it was released on multiple systems. Sega created their own rating system, enforced by the company's CEO, Tom Kalinske. The game carried with it a MA-13 rating, equal to a PG-13 film. With a secret code, gamers could unlock the gore from the arcade game on their Sega Genesis, toned down likely due to the controversy and the console's power. Nintendo chose to censor the game entirely, changing most of the fatalities and removing all instances of gore. Sega's version outsold the one for the Super Nintendo by the thousands.
Night Trap would be pulled from shelves entirely. The most offensive content would be removed and it would be re-released with a MA-17 rating, or that of an R rating from the MPAA. The rating system would stick, at least temporarily, until 1994.
Doom would be the next game to stir up controversy. Created by id Software, Doom was released for personal computers where it quickly gained fanfare. It's original perspective, used a few years previously on Wolfenstein 3-D, was incredible and original at the time. Players controlled their character from their own eyes as they shot down various monsters in an attempt to escape hell. Enemies died in brutal ways, and always in a puddle of blood.