An arcade game (or coin-op) is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses, such as restaurants, bars, and particularly amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers (such as claw cranes).

The golden age of arcade video games lasted from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. While arcade games were still relatively popular during the late 1990s, the entertainment medium saw a continuous decline in popularity in the Western hemisphere when home-based video game consoles made the transition from 2D graphics to 3D graphics. Despite this, arcades remain popular in many parts of Asia as late as the early 2010s.

In the early 1990s, the arcades experienced a major resurgence with the 1991 release of Capcom’s Street Fighter II, which popularized competitive fighting games and revived the arcade industry to a level of popularity not seen since the days of Pac-Man. Its success led to a wave of other popular games which mostly were in the fighting genre.

Enter Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat is an American video game franchise, developed by Midway Games’ Chicago studio. In 2011, following Midway’s bankruptcy, the Mortal Kombat development team were acquired by Warner Brothers, and turned into NetherRealm Studios, the game becoming a property of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

The series is known for its high levels of bloody violence, including, most notably, its Fatalities—finishing moves, requiring a sequence of buttons to perform, which, in part, led to the creation of the ESRB video game rating system.