Scandalous Games

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Ryan Weaver. Together, we figure out exactly why a 5+ year old game attracted the brunt of the blame for what was then the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and, in the process, we learn about the amazing games that came out between 1998 and 1999. In doing so, an old Scandalous Games foe returns...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends, but sometimes the month gets away from you. As edits are still ongoing on the next installment in our deep dive into DOOM and its relationship to the Columbine shooting. With that in mind, we celebrate the halfway mark through the series with a fun conversation Kate Lynch, Ryan Weaver, and Kevin had during our m...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter and Phil Thomas. In a Very Special Episode of Scandalous Games, we finally turn to one of the most influential events in shaping the public perception of video games in the United States: the April 20, 1999, mass shooting at Columbine High School near Littleton, CO. Kevin, Andy, and Phil examine how...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Matt Shoemaker. In part two of our three-month series on DOOM , we address the relatively muted moral backlash to id’s legendary title between 1993 and 1999. Topics discussed include: GenCon is fun and you should try to go if you can;  recollections on Washington, DC’s loudest critic of violent vi...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Matt Shoemaker who is a tabletop gaming historian and author of Gathering of Gamers . We continue our long celebration of five years of Scandalous Games by starting a deep dive into one of the, if not the, most famous controversial video games: the legendary 1993 sci-fi FPS:  DOOM . In part one of...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends, but we like to take it easy during the summer months for Scandalous Games Summer, where we offer a syncable audio commentary track of a video game related movie. This month, we wrap up the 2026 edition of Scandalous Games summer with the 1995 adaptation of Mortal Kombat (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113855/). J...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends, but we like to take it easy during the summer months for Scandalous Games Summer, where we offer a syncable audio commentary track of a video game related movie. This month, in light of the recent (as of the recording) passing of Double Dragon creator Yoshihisa Kishimoto (https://www.ign.com/articles/yoshihisa-k...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends, but this time it's special because it is the fifth birthday of Scandalous Games! In honor of five years of wild advertising campaigns, colorful characters, and panics of all shapes and sizes, we go back to the well of the Clown Prince of Anti-Simulated Crime...Mr. Jack Thompson. Join Kevin as he performs a...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Ryan Weaver, and special guest Jay Brandstetter from the internet history podcast I'm From the Internet . We bring you the thrilling conclusion of our look at Jack Thompson's personal war against Rockstar and Take-Two and, subsequently, his legal career. This time, the publishers of Grand T...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Ryan Weaver, and special guest Jay Brandstetter from the internet history podcast I'm From the Internet .  This time around, as we await the long-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto VI , we go back to the well of stories about infamous anti-video game lawyer Jack Thompson and take a closer l...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Phil Thomas. We wrap up our look back at the year in controversies that was 2025 with a deep dive into the gaming exploits of everyone's favorite (?) 4chan-pilled, billionaire oligarch/1337 gamer: Elon Musk. We dissect Musk's claims that he is a high-level player in several competitive g...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friend/partner, Kate Lynch. We interrupt our regularly-scheduled second episode on 2025 in controversies to take one more look back at the anti-woke paid award show The Real Game Awards, which, against all odds, aired a new edition on February 23, 2026. Join Kate and Kevin as we review the awards and their (lack of) impa...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friend, Andy Hunter. We take a look back at a controversy from the previous year, examining how the announcement of a remastered version of Halo: Combat Evolved inspired an AI-generated meme-off between GameStop and the Trump Administration. We also keep ourselves sane by sharing our favorite games of 2025. Topics discus...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Andy Hunter. Just in time for the latest installment of the Real Game Awards, we finish our look back at the first installment of the anti-woke game awards show made by gamers courageous enough to give Stuttering Craig Skistimas money. This time, we wade into the role of Warhammer 40,000 and the R...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Andy Hunter. For our first-ever fully in-person recording, we continue our look at The Real Game Awards, the paid game awards show targeted at folks in the anti-woke gaming community. This time around, we tackle their fears over the alleged "uglification" of female characters in video ga...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Andy Hunter. We continue our look at The Real Game Awards, the alternative gaming awards show/business venture of former Screw Attack co-founder Craig "Stuttering Craig" Skistimas. This time around, we take a closer look at their "Worst Game Journalist" category and the moral p...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Andy Hunter. We start 2026 with a closer look at the Real Game Awards, the alternative awards show/moneymaking scheme to Geoff Keighley's Game Awards created by former Screw Attack founder turned anti-woke gaming commentator Craig "Stuttering Craig" Skistimas.  Topics discussed incl...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Ryan Weaver. In our thrilling conclusion to our remastered version of our 2022 episode on the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas "Hot Coffee" mod, we examine the fallout and the lasting legacy behind arguably the most infamous mod in the history of video games.  Topics disc...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Elford Stephens, Phil Thomas, and Ryan Weaver. We're taking December off for the holiday, so to help you through the season (and hopefully soften the blow of the recent news that Grand Theft Auto VI won't be coming out until November 2026), here's part one of a remastered edition of our Pulitzer P...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Matt Shoemaker, whose new book, Gathering of Gamers: Dungeons & Dragons and Other Games Through Gen Con, is available now through Play Story Press (https://playstorypress.org/books/gathering-of-gamers/). If you're interested in the history of North America's largest gaming convention...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Phil Thomas, and Matt Shoemaker, whose new book, Gathering of Gamers: Dungeons & Dragons and Other Games Through Gen Con , is available now through Play Story Press (https://playstorypress.org/books/gathering-of-gamers/).  We continue our deep dive into anti- Dungeons & Dragons moral activist...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Andy Hunter, and recently-published author Matt Shoemaker, whose new book, Gathering of Gamers: Dungeons & Dragons and Other Games Through Gen Con , is available now through Play Story Press (https://playstorypress.org/books/gathering-of-gamers/).  We continue our look at moral panics over Dungeo...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Andy Hunter, and Phil Thomas. We are also joined by a special guest: Matt Shoemaker, who is a game designer, librarian, game historian, and author of the new book Gathering of Gamers: Dungeons & Dragons and Other Games Through Gen Con , which is available now through Play Story Press (https://pla...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Andy Hunter. We finally wrap up our look at legendary (?) video game movie director Uwe Boll's attempt to make a sequel to his 2007 adaptation of Postal we his ill-advised, ill-conceived 2024 Indiegogo campaign to finance Postal 2 .  Topics discussed include: Uwe Boll vs. Alex Jones: the Figh...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Andy Hunter. Having learned about Uwe Boll's 2007 adaptation of Postal , we pivot into his attempts to make a film sequel to Running with Scissors' flagship/only game franchise, starting with Uwe's 2013 Kickstarter campaign to finance Postal 2 . Topics discussed include: how Veronic...