The first controversy video game was Death Race.
The two-player arcade game was released in 1976 by Exidy , in which the objective was by controlling different cars to run over some figures called "gremlins", well they were supposed to be gremlins, so you drive a car around running over little gremlins and once you did, a tombstone would pop up.
The game originally was going to be called Destruction Derby and licensed to a arcade game company Chicago Coin to manufacture but this one entered financial difficulties which would eventually lead to the dissolution of the company, after this happened and since the rights had already been transferred they decided to modify the game so that it would be saleable.
The controversy is born of several factors that the game presents, first the presentation of the arcade machine, quite shocking but effective with a game with the "Death" work in it name, the giant grim reaper on the flyer, or the skeletons all over the arcade cabinet were of great impact in the very conservative media of 1976 who was concerned about the game's violent content and its potential effect on those playing, also the "Gremlins" actually had very convenient humanoid forms
The funny thing about all this wasn't the controversy that generated such an unrealistic game, but that all the protests and buzz in news on the game only made the sales of the game doubled due to over exposure, the company Exidy declared "It seemed like the more controversy…the more our sales increased."
This reminded me of a tactic that used by Rockstar Games with its Grand Theft Auto series using negative press to increase thier sales.
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