Game Changers: 1980s to 1990s.

Mortal Kombat.

Synonyms: Groundbreaker. Innovator. Pioneer. Pathbreaker.

According to the Merriam Webster: A newly introduced element or factor that changes an existing situation or activity in a significant way.

Also spelt "game-changer"

noun

Game Changer

Game Changers: 1980s to 1990s

By Xiomy Sam DIG 3043 | Professor Madeline

wow

FIGHT!

In The Beginning...

Before there was 2023’s Mortal Kombat 1 for almost every platform imaginable, there was the original Mortal Kombat in 1992: a simple arcade cabinet game that wasn’t dominating the homes of the world until a year later. But how did this game come to be so popular? Why does my brother keep yelling about messing up his button combinations? And more importantly, how did Mortal Kombat become a game changer?

Flashback!

To answer these questions, we need to go back to the year 1991, with four people under the Midway Manufacturing Company: Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel, and Dan Forden. These four individuals had one goal: to create a fighting-type game like Street Fighter II, but…not Street Fighter II. For example, their most desired and notable difference was to have Belgian actor Jean Claude Van Damme play one of their characters. But when they couldn’t get him on the phone, they were at an impasse. Did they want to continue making their 2D fighter game, or did they want to call it quits here? Boon, Tobias, Vogel, and Forden said no and continued working on their game. But what else could they try to add to make things different?

A Few Differences

• Seven playable characters. Not three like Fatal Fury, or eight like Street Fighter II, but they made it work.
• Realistic art style. Sure, both Fatal Fury and Street Fighter II had stylized characters, but they didn’t look like people you’d see on the street! So, the four developers decided with the help of a few martial artists to create sprites that looked human. A lot of photographs were taken of the martial artists in costumes and their movements to achieve that now iconic look of the characters. The only character to not be made this way is the four-armed character of Goro.
• Coloring. Compared to the lighthearted colors of Sonic the Hedgehog and most of Super Mario Bros., Mortal Kombat was a darker game. You saw more grays and blacks than you did white or pastel colors, which was another feature that set the game apart from its colorful neighbors.

However...

This wasn’t enough. Mortal Kombat needed more elements to stand out against other games at the time.

Almost there...

Despite having the first ever hidden character in a fighting game (his name was Reptile, a green-clad ninja), the developers took their exploration one gigantic step further. It was a seriously risky step, but time proved that it was the best one they ever took, and that was to introduce more violence. Go beyond the little punches and “Hi-Ya!”s of the time. It’s time to make the character engage in copious amounts of brutality and bleed like there’s no tomorrow. The game already looks realistic as it is, it wouldn’t make sense if the characters punched and didn’t bleed afterward! And since the game was based around showcasing skills, it wouldn’t make sense if every match ended so abruptly and blandly. And thus, the fatalities were born.

A Bloody Turn

Before the world knew it, people of all ages were finding arcade cabinet combinations for bloody combat finishers in Mortal Kombat. This was exacerbated when the infamous console release of the game dubbed “Mortal Monday”, commonly known as September 13, 1993, hit. Now, more people than ever were trying to discover all the combination moves for an epic ending to a glorious fight. For a few years in human history, the masses craved blood to be spilled, but this time with controllers in hand and at the behest of the now iconic command that was “FINISH HIM”. That ten-million-dollar campaign budget paid off! But all good things must come to an end. Parents were mortified by what was playing on their living and family room televisions. Why were their children playing a fighting game with so much violence? Why wasn’t there a warning for such atrocities on screen? And why was there so much blood? Before the gamers of the 90s knew it, the game was under mass scrutiny and was subjected to censorship unheard of at the time. The blood was sometimes replaced with “sweat” or recolored to green instead, or in some cases, outright removed in some copies. The ESRB was created a few months after the outrage and gave the game the movie equivalent of an “R” rating. Some countries like Germany outright banned the game. And of course, US politicians spoke out about how egregious the game was, and how it shouldn’t be available anymore.

“We’re not talking Pac-Man or Space Invaders anymore.”

Senator Joseph Lieberman. 1994.

But like most things in life, if you tell someone “No”, they’re going to want to do it more. And in most cases? People from all different demographics are going to want to try it themselves.

Sneaky...

Thanks to the widespread attention brought to the game, people learned that the newly distributed and very much censored version of Mortal Kombat was not as censored as they thought. Some sneaky-eyed gamers learned two combinations: ABACABB and DULLARD. Once one of those was typed into the corresponding game version, all that sweat, green goo, or nonexistent fluid was replaced with its vivacious superior. The games were restored to their original, bloody state. Once the secret was out, sales skyrocketed to the billions for the 2D fighter game. Kids were quoting iconic lines like “GET OVER HERE” to the best of their ability again, and even some adults found a game that was finally up their alley versus a game targeting young children and teens.

Redefining Culture

Once Mortal Kombat rose to fame, it was hard to ignore its presence in pop culture. The once one-off game turned into a franchise with many sequels, movies, TV shows, and even a recent reboot. It also is heavily referenced in media today, including card games, music, WWE Story Time, many parodies, and even the smash hit, LGBT+ show that was HBO’s Legendary. In gaming culture? The game proved to audiences that video games were not just for children with tons of quarters and a few hours to spare. More adults poured themselves into arcades just to get a taste or even found themselves in local stores trying to buy the game for themselves. In more recent times, you can find people talking about Mortal Kombat because of the impact it made on other games. For example, when Samurai Showdown, Killer Instinct, or SoulCalibur 4 made their version of a fatality, people immediately pointed out this feature because it followed the trend of Mortal Kombat’s fatalities.

Conclusion

Mortal Kombat 1992 was a gruesome, violent, and yet enticing game in a world in which video games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokémon Red & Blue, and The Legend of Zelda were everything. Nothing was ever violent, and if it was, it was usually implied or hidden within the cute art style of the game (for example, picking up turtle shells and dropping them out of the map). Sure, there were some moments where things got tense, but never filled with gore. None of those games ever yelled “FINISH HIM” in bright, flashing colors, eagerly awaiting your input. They waited for you to pull down the flag from the pole or hit a certain egg-shaped man enough times before he was thwarted once again. Some people were still busy turning their kid’s room into a Pac-Man Museum, after all! So, when a game as R-rated as Mortal Kombat arrived on the scene, people were, as previously established: appalled. Street Fighter II never had violence of this caliber! And compared to other games, Mortal Kombat was also a lot more realistic and darker-looking compared to the others. Most games of the time were vibrant, with a cheerful theme song, and sound effects that would make any person perk up with joy. Mortal Kombat on the other hand? Punching sounds that sound reminiscent of an old kung-fu movie, blood splatter everywhere versus little blue sparks or gold shimmers, and even a pit of very sharp spikes that, unfortunately, do more than just make you lose your rings. It’s not hard to see why this game stood out (and was eventually dubbed as a game-changer) compared to other releases at the time.

Now, what made this game successful and popular? Simple! It was the forbidden fruit of the masses. It had blood, guts, glory, music, and a sliver of a story, all at the price of a few coins and hours of your time. Sure, it followed the same trends of two characters fighting on screen for a limited time, a leaderboard, and a tournament-style progression, but it also did more than that. It took the trend of memorizing combinations and took it one step further with finishing moves, or as some would call them, fatalities! And lastly, it increased the target demographic of the video game industry for years to come. The game proved that video games weren’t just for kids but for adults too. If it weren’t for Mortal Kombat, who knows what types of games adults would be stuck with besides the typical match-three games.

Conclusion

Sources

https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/05/05/the-history-of-mortal-kombat https://press.umich.edu/Blog/2022/02/Mortal-Kombat-A-Landmark-Video-Game-30-Years-On https://www.esports.net/news/fighting-games/mortal-kombat-banned-countries/ https://3rdvoicegaming.com/2015/05/06/mortal-kombat-retrospektive-1-mortal-kombat-1992/ https://www.mksecrets.net/mk1/eng/mk-development.php#google_vignette https://mortalkombat.fandom.com/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_in_other_media/Others https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27620071 https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/13/20812985/nearly-30-years-ago-mortal-kombats-blood-forever-changed-the-video-game-industry https://gamerant.com/fighting-games-fatalities-not-mortal-kombat/