Parents Are Doing Kombat Over Violent Video Games

The words finish him appeared on the video screen, and the player maneuvered the controls to carry out a brutal blow that decapitated his opponent.

The realistic graphics depicted blood spurting from the severed neck.

It was just one of the many deaths acted out in the popular video game Mortal Kombat II.

“Nice game. Bring the family,” said one of the boy’s friends, and they picked up their sodas and walked out of the 7-Eleven.

Many of the most popular video games on today’s market feature that type of hand-to-hand combat.

Because of the violence in the games, parents on the Palos Verdes Peninsula have turned to local officials, pressuring them to remove Mortal Kombat and other video games from two cinema complexes, the Terraces in Rancho Palos Verdes and the Peninsula 9 in Rolling Hills Estates.

George Krikorian, who owns those and six other cinemas in Southern California, said he has received more than 100 protest letters in the past two months, all from people living on the peninsula.

Leading the effort is resident Bill Ruth, who said the content of the games is desensitizing youth to the horrors of violence and is even encouraging such acts.

He has raised his concerns with local schools and churches and wants Krikorian to exchange games such as Mortal Kombat, X-Men and Terminator for what he considers equally challenging but nonviolent entertainment.

The violent games are interactive and addictive, he said. “It’s different from sitting and watching TV passively. When you’re playing them, you’re controlling the outcome. We’re teaching our kids to solve their problems through violence,” Ruth said.

Responding to the community’s distaste for the games, Rancho Palos Verdes officials are working on changing ordinances so that the city can limit the number of games allowed in businesses and the hours they can be played.

But the city cannot control the content of the games, Mayor Steve Kuykendall said.

“The right to have those games and to put them out and to use them is an absolutely protected right under the First Amendment,” Kuykendall said.

Krikorian’s peninsula theaters contain a total of 19 games, mostly videos.

He supports the rating of games so that the age limit of players is restricted, but adds that video games should not be singled out by people worried about increasing violence in society.

“They certainly have valid concerns, but I really don’t think this is the way to deal with it. I think they should start by not letting their kids watch the 6 o’clock news,” Krikorian said.

However, he said he is considering removing the games from his theaters.

“Until such time there is a rating system . . . maybe the best thing is for us not to have the game because we’re not there to offend people.”

Legislation to establish a “video game rating administration” in an effort to control video violence is due to be introduced by Assemblywoman Diane Martinez (D-Monterey Park) on Monday.

In the meantime, Mortal Kombat II is in 90% of all major arcades, Krikorian said.

To Peter Donovan, 18, of Lomita, the game is a natural progression from horror movies such as “Nightmare on Elm Street” that he watched as a child.

“Anyone who grew up in the ‘80s is used to it,” said Donovan as he played the game recently at a 7-Eleven.

“We grew up with Freddie Krueger and all that stuff being fed to us. It doesn’t shock us. It’s only parents who are worried.”