What is the worst video game in gaming history? Some might say any of Grand Theft Auto games because of the violence. Others might mention Phantasmagoria for other reasons. Many games have been controversial over the years. But not a single one comes close to being as terrible as an Atari 2600 game called Custer’s Revenge.
Colonel George Armstrong Custer was a Union cavalry officer during the U.S. Civil War and later a commander in a series of wars against the Native Americans. In what became known as Custer’s Last Stand, he greatly underestimated the Native American population in a village he planned to attack at Little Bighorn. While he was expecting his forces to encounter an 800-strong army, Custer didn’t expect that the village had been reinforced heavily and his 650 men would be facing as many as 2,500 Native American warriors. Ultimately, thanks to numerous strategic missteps, Custer’s forces were decimated and he drew his final breath – an end many consider fitting for a man who quite enjoyed attacking Native American civilians.
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Custer was a controversial figure in American history and so was the video game that bears his name. But oddly, Custer’s Revenge wasn’t the most controversial game in history – at least in the halls of Congress.
A History of Video Game Controversies & Politics
Video games have traditionally been controversial according to traditional media – not because there should have been much controversy in most cases, but because they are an easy scapegoat whenever politicians need a target. For instance, the Sega CD game Night Trap drew the ire of Democratic Senators Herb Kohl and Joe Lieberman in 1993. The Senators depicted it as a game that sexualized violence against women, with the player’s goal being to inflict torture on them. In reality, the game was about stopping a group of wannabe vampires from doing those things (without the sex). Gameplay-wise, one can think of it as an early concept idea for Five Nights at Freddy’s with a cheesier plot and more possible endings (six was a lot back then). At the same time, Lieberman and Kohl attacked Mortal Kombat and DOOM for their violence. Ultimately, Night Trap was removed from shelves and the other two games went on to launch immensely successful franchises that live on today.
Not every game’s controversy is undeserved, however. Phantasmagoria, for instance, closely links sex and violence and was removed from stores because of a particularly graphic rape scene. Grand Theft Auto has also drawn attacks because of its sexual content. But the protagonist of any GTA game has traditionally been anti-rape in the sense that he didn’t sexually assault anyone – even if he did just murder a prostitute whose services he had contracted. Duke Nukem and Leisure Suit Larry have additionally been criticized for their sexual content. While Larry is a desperate slimeball who schemes (usually unsuccessfully) to get into women’s pants, he would never stoop to rape – and neither would Duke.
Nowadays, video games become the subject of discussion after nearly every mass shooting, which is invariably blamed on a well-debunked theory that video games cause violence. President Donald Trump, for example, responded to a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida by claiming that “the level of violence in video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, like Trump, feels that video games cause violence, calling developers “little creeps” who “come up with games to teach you how to kill people.” However, exactly one game has ever existed that was designed to teach people how to kill: America’s Army, which was developed as a recruitment tool and in many ways a training simulator for the U.S. Armed Forces. Who were the “little creeps” who developed it? The United States Army. The game has been called “the most realistic portrayal of weapons and combat of any game” yet received zero criticism from politicians – exactly the same amount as Custer’s Revenge received.
Custer’s Revenge: The Worst Video Game Ever Made
While most video game controversy is overblown, Mystique’s Custer’s Revenge deserves every bit it has received over the years. It released in 1983 on the Atari 2600 before it became fashionable for politicians to blame video games for seemingly everything. That’s not to say it didn’t receive criticism; It did – but not from politicians and certainly not in the halls of Congress. By any metric, this game was a spectacular failure, selling only 80,000 copies – just under 1.9 million fewer than the notoriously bad E.T. game for the Atari. Custer’s Revenge offers very little by way of a plot. Somehow alive, a mostly naked Custer, who is sporting an erection, gets “revenge” for his death by walking across the screen and raping a Native American woman who is tied to a pole. The only difficulty the game provides comes in the form of arrows that fly toward Custer as he attempts to make it to the unfortunate woman. Points are awarded for every second Custer spends penetrating her.
Everyone hated Custer’s Revenge. Atari sued the developer over it, claiming the game damaged its image. Protests were staged. Some cities banned the game entirely (though oddly, Congress stayed out of this battle despite the controversy). The developer claimed the helpless woman tied to a pole was a willing participant in the act, but few have ever believed that assertion. The game was taken off the market and Mystique perished in the Great North American Video Game Market Crash of 1983 – a fitting end to a company that would shamelessly produce and defend such a product.
Video game controversies will continue as long as people are willing to chuck reason in a garbage bin and ignore the actual causes of whichever woe of the day makes it fashionable to target them. But some games in rare cases – like Custer’s Revenge‘s glorification of rape – deserve the controversy they generate. This game was an embarrassment to the video game industry that should not have been released in the first place. If anything, Custer’s Revenge deserved the anger that other, more tame games have received. But Custer didn’t fire a single bullet in this game. He didn’t kill a single person. And, of course, it wasn’t on the market when American politicians needed a scapegoat for something.
Custer’s Revenge released September 23, 1982 for the Atari 2600.
