20 Years Later and Still Blaming ‘Mortal Kombat’

It began with a tragic, though not entirely uncommon, news story in December: “Johnstown - A quiet, working-class neighborhood in this small town 40 miles north of Denver quickly became distraught over the news of the death of a popular 7-year-old girl, who allegedly died from abuse by her older sister and her boyfriend.

Zoe Garcia, who was described as “a beautiful little girl”, died on Dec. 6 from “blunt force trauma” to her brain and central nervous system, according to the Weld County Coroner. Her right wrist was broken, her body had more than 20 bruises, her neck muscles were bleeding and a skin flap near her tongue had been torn” (Mike McPhee, Denver Post).

This horrible crime, which occurred in late December of 2007, has finally come to a close here in the early days of July 2008. “Heather Trujillo, the babysitter implicated in the death of 7-year old Zoe Garcia, has been given an 18-year suspended sentence, according to a report from Colorado NBC News affiliate 9 News. Trujillo, who was arrested along with her boyfriend Lamar Roberts, will instead spend six years in a youth offender program as part of a plea bargain” (Michael McWhertor, Kotaku).

If you are wondering what this morbid news story has to do with gaming, look no further than Mortal Kombat. When questioned as to what they were doing, older sister Heather Trujillo (16) and boyfriend Lamar Roberts (17) stated that they were “acting” out the game.

Since its release in the early 90’s, Mortal Kombat has consistently been the front-runner for blame by every conservative mother who both has young children and hates video games. But as we see here, even the gamers will turn on their games when it comes to placing blame in a real-life (serious) situation.

Today, games like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt help by proudly standing alongside it, but almost 20 years ago, Mortal Kombat was really the only game that encouraged (“Finish Him”) realistic, bloody violence and was easily accessible to anyone. The game pit two photo-realistic fighters in an arena where they would proceed to beat the bloody piss out of each other until one was left standing. In what has become a staple of video games, the winner was given the option of performing a “Fatality” on the loser, which involved killing your opponent in a way special to said victor.

Unlike any fighter at the time, the original Mortal Kombat photographed and animated real people into the game. This sense of realism bothered many people for a long time, but today, it is easy to see the comic nature of the game. Even though lead developer Ed Boon and the rest of the Mortal Kombat development team have dropped real people for a more 3D cartoon-graphics approach, Mortal Kombat is still as violent as ever. And it is still making headlines almost 20 years later.