In “The Agony and the Exidy: A History of Video Game Violence and the Legacy of Death Race,” Carly Kocurek studies the times and culture surrounding the 1976 arcade game Death Race in order to take a closer look at how gratuitous video game violence relates to “legitimized” media violence so that we can understand how moral panics like the one that surrounded Death Race drive production and normalization of violent content for entertainment.

She claims that “discourse surrounding Death Race forged a strong tie between video gaming and violence in the public imagination, ensuring the development of similarly violent games.” Her reasoning is that “public disapproval of Death Race did not squelch distribution, instead driving sales and vaulting Exidy into the national spotlight.” She cites the grossly violent gameplay, public reception, sales figures, and historical context as evidence to this fact.

Alternative arguments include positive reviews for violent games and their subsequent success, although she responds to this by citing the fact that it was the violence that sold the games, not the reviewer’s opinions.

Kocurek’s warrant is that a spectacle sells, and that non-legitimate, intensely violent video games – regardless of their critical reception – are more likely to be profitable than those legitimately violent games such as westerns or government agency games simply because of the commotion they rouse.