Scandalous Games

In today's installment of Scandalous Games Theatre, Dr. Kevin Impellizeri, PhD, recites Jack Thompson's "A Modest Video Game Proposal," delivered via open letter on October 10, 2005, in which the self proclaimed "only certified sane lawyer in the State of Florida" offered a $10,000 charitable donation in the name of then Take-Two CEO Paul Eibeler if a game company dev...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Phil Thomas, and Elford Stephens. We finally wrap up our look back at the year of controversies that was 2024. This time around, we look at a whole bunch of weird and wild Pokémon related stuff that came up during the previous year. Topics discussed include: the potential murder related implications...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Phil Thomas, and Elford Stephens. We continue looking back at the previous year that was with a sample platter of gaming related controversies that came up over 2024. This time around, we look at some wild backlashes against Sony in the Helldivers II community and the alleged role of video games in t...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Kate Lynch, and Phil Thomas. For our first recording of 2025, we share our favorite gaming experiences from 2024 and take a look at the tumultuous state of the games industry over the past year, including  the discussions of corporate greed, massive layoffs, and huge live service failures. Also, a s...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Elford Stephens, and Phil Thomas. Part Two (of two) of our remastered edition of our deep dive at Postal 2 (Running with Scissors, Whiptail Interactive, PC, 2003). This time, we go past the game's less-than-stellar reception and learn how developer Running with Scissors found a second life in t...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Elford Stephens, and Phil Thomas. We're taking a month off for the holidays, so enjoy part one of a two-part remastered version of our episode on Postal 2 (Running with Scissors, Whiptail Interactive, PC, 2003), the crass magnum opus of the rudest, crudest dudes in gaming: Running with Scissors...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Elford Stephens, and Phil Thomas. We reach the thrilling conclusion of our deep dive into the history of college sports video games and why there weren't college football video games for over a decade until the release of EA Sports College Football 25 . Topics discussed include: The NCAA loses a...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Elford Stephens, and Phil Thomas. On Elford's triumphant return, we start looking at the state of college football during the 2010s that led to the end of the NCAA Football video game series. Plus, we tackle the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul boxing match in the latest installment of Scandalous Games Spor...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Andy Hunter, and Phil Thomas. Today, we dive into the legal battle over video game likeness rights and how some experts argued the name, image, and likeness rights of college athletes came in conflict with video games' growing free speech rights in the 2010s. This discussion will get us one step...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch, Andy Hunter, and Phil Thomas. We've focused a lot on how college sports brings in billions of dollars while the athletes have seen little to none of that for the majority of their history. Today, we start looking at how video games became the battleground where athletes pushed back against the s...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Phil Thomas. As we get to the bottom of why it took 11 years to get a new college football video game, we take a closer look at how schools and the NCAA treat college athletes and the lengths college programs will go to not compensate players (even with a full education) to preserve amateurism. To...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Phil Thomas. We start actually talking about video games by diving into 20 years of college sports themed video games and how everybody seemed to make money on them but the players. Plus, the first installment of "Scandalous Games Sportschat!" Topics discussed include: Dick Vitale brande...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Phil Thomas. We've covered the early history of college sports and the creation of the NCAA. Now we look at how college football became a multi-billion dollar enterprise thanks in no small part to the mad scramble for TV money. Topics discussed include: Penn fools around and finds out, the fr...

Hooray for our 50th episode! Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Phil Thomas. It's the start of the college football season in America, and we are weeks into the launch of EA Sports College Football 25 , the first American college sports video game in 11 years. With that in mind, we start a deep dive into why it took so long to...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Phil Thomas, and Kate Lynch. We're still in the midst of Scandalous Games Summer as Kevin prepares for another exciting series of video game related controversies, so we're kicking back with another syncable audio commentary. This time, join us we talk through the 2020 Paul W.S. Anderson f...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends, but this month we're celebrating the start of our third year and the end of our 14-part (!!!) series on Dave Grossman with something we're calling "Scandalous Games Summer," a set of syncable commentary tracks while we recharge and prep for some new stories. This month, we're watching an...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Kate Lynch, and Phil Thomas. At long last, we have finally made it to the final episode in our extremely deep dive into the self-proclaimed "killologist" Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. In our thrilling (troubling?) conclusion, we close the book on arguably the most influential figure in the viole...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends:  Kate Lynch, and Phil Thomas. This time around, we finally start wrapping up our deep dive into Dave by learning about his career as a police trainer and the kinds of totally healthy and not dangerously upsetting messages he shares with America's law enforcement communities, school officials, and anyone els...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Kate Lynch, and Phil Thomas. We continue looking at what Dave has been up to over the past decade and how the self-proclaimed killologist may be putting out more work into violent video games, quantity still doesn't equal quantity. Plus, what does it mean when a guy who thinks Bible says it&apo...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Kate Lynch and Phil Thomas. We leave the quirky little town of Harvest to continue our look into the self-proclaimed "killologist" Dave Grossman. This time around, we start looking at what Dave has been up to on the violent video games train in the last decade or so, and we take some time...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends. This time, we wrap up Harvester with an interview with Aarno Malin, host of "The Harvester Show" and the Harvester Facebook page. Aarno graciously shared his experiences as a Harvester superfan and we discuss the process of tracking down people involved with the game, and he shares his thoughts on what...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter and Kate Lynch.  Today, it's the thrilling conclusion to our look into the over-the-top PC game Harvester  (DigiFX, Merit Studios, 1996). We warp up by examining how its creators attempted to market Harvester , its reception (or lack thereof), and its surprising resurgence over the past decade....

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter and Kate Lynch. This time, we continue our deep dive into the wild horror themed point-and-click adventure game Harvester  (DigiFX, Merit Studios, 1996). This time, we shift our focus to this game's troubled production and some of its pre-release hype. Topics discussed include: Harvester's...

Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Andy Hunter, Kate Lynch, and Elford Stephens. This month, we take another break from the "killologist" to take a closer look at the wildest 90s PC game you may have never heard of: Harvester (DigiFX, Merit Studios, 1996). We start our deep dive into this cult piece of 90s PC weirdness by examining the...

 Historian Kevin Impellizeri shares a story of a video game controversy to his friends: Kate Lynch and Phil Thomas. We've gone too far to turn back now, as we continue our long look into Dave Grossman and why people should not listen to him. Today we continue our deep dive into Dave's tactics by seeing how his "killological" philosophy made its way into the State House and the...