Topic: Petition to ban GTA 5 (Australia)

[kat]

A petition on Change.org - "Target: Withdraw Grand Theft Auto 5 – this sickening game encourages players to commit **** violence and kill women" managed to get enough signatures for Target Australia to pull the game from its shelves whilst other 'violent' games remain. The problem with this isn't so much the game being pulled but rather it's being done as a result of specious and wholly misrepresentative arguments.

Games like GTA have never been marketed to Minors (as many of the Change.org commenters incorrectly suggest), which is actually against the law in many Countries. This means the only way a child under the age of 18/17 (in this instance) would be able to play GTA or other Mature Rated games is for their parents to purchase it for them (knowingly or not, a directly endorsed purchase nonetheless) or through other means of unattended access ("can I borrow the credit card to buy this cool game").

Irrespective as to the actions that can be performed in-game, they are AGE-APPROPRIATE to the intended user ("Mature") who is more than capable of understanding the difference between real and virtual violence and their respective contexts.

Minors are protected by considered and informed purchase rather than blanket bans/boycott's of products they should not be using (especially when boycott's and bans are often argued through outright ignorance). Or where they are, they are doing so with express Parental or Guardian supervision or permission.

[ratty redemption]

kat, i agree with your points.

and i've seen enough gta games over the years, to know this is cherry picking issues that millions of gamers, including level headed females, do not think is inappropriate for a mature rated, highly acclaimed, satirical video game series. let alone interpret as **** or misogynistic. since similar violent actions can be done to the male npc's, and with much more frequency. including **** violence against some male characters. no one is complaining about that saying it's misandric, certainly not male gta fans, even when the game is being played by females.

and no gamers are being forced to act in that specific way depicted in the linked video example. it's not required to progress the fictional story. it's just a few silly game mechanics, that some people will choose to entertain themselves with. other's will be somewhere else in the game world, robbing banks or getting into gang shoot outs, etc.

should we ban all games that might inspire people to rob banks in real life?

that protest is another example of certain people who are already intolerant towards gamers and their legal hobby. no laws pertaining to the game are being broken in real life, so the game should not be banned in my opinion.

considering how hugely popular the gta series is, if these games really were that harmful to society, then we'd see a large increase of gamers re-enacting those crimes in real life. that simply is not the case and never will be. at most, a small number of mentally ill people will play video games and then commit real life crimes. although they will also have watched violent movies, possibly read violent books, and possibly listen to rock, metal or rap music, not to forget the countless news articles that could have inspired them.

should we ban all those types of media and news, just because of a minority of deranged people? i think not.

[kat]

I've not played any of the games in the series so can't speak to the specifics (what the context of player interactivity is), but what appears to be main objection is the passivity of female characters. While it's possible to counter that by saying a majority of aggression and extreme violence are perpetrated against male characters (which you note), what's the broader context? Are ancillary male characters perceived as being similarly unable to defend themselves, passive (incapable) victims in the same sense that female NPC's are often characterised as being. That's moral relativism - all (virtual) life should be considered sacred (to paraphrase) if that's to be used as an argument.

Within the context of GTA though, would the fix be the removal of those character types from the game altogether? What effect would that have on the seedy 'gangsta' theme. Or could those types of characters be empowered in some way, perhaps giving them a gun, or having their respective Pimps/Madame's properly minding the store so to speak. What about adding male prostitutes, etc, etc. Perhaps letting the player run through the game a woman (if the main plot revolves around a guy called "Tony" and 'needs' to be that way, allowing the player to use female characters could simply be ancillary). These seem to be much more reasonable and viable options or addons for the game, and for all we know as disassociated consumers, RockStar may already be working on them. DLC anyone?

Anywho, there are much better ways to deal with issues like this. As for Target, it will be interesting how this hits their bottom line, more so if other publishers decided to preemptively pull their games as well - in 2010, games were a $25 Billion Dollar Industry.

[ratty redemption]

understood, i think.

and if i remember correctly, it's only the various gang members, cops, fbi and random criminals that fight back. i think it's possible to abuse male npc's who will remain passive. there is certainly an infamous torture scene where both men and women npc's are abusing an innocent male victim. that is part of the main story arc. and the player is forced to participate in the torture, the only choice being which "weapon" they use on the guy.

it's uncomfortable to watch, and intended to be so. especially as the characters instigating the torture are white cops and or fbi, and the innocent guy is non white.

also one of the main playable antiheroes is a methamphetamine addict and drug dealer, a cannibal, and possibly male rapist, if i remember correctly. and he frequently abuses, in one way or other, all the people who work with him, and they are all male. he even kills some of his former associates.

it might not sound at all funny, but his character is so over the top, and yet very well acted, and he's one of the best characters i've ever seen in any video game. i just would not want to ever meet someone like that in real life. but that's the point. in the same context i'm a fan of zombie movies and games, but i wouldn't want to ever witness a real life zombie eating someone, especially as i'm a vegetarian.

the gta series explore some of the limits of human depravity. are they meant to be entertaining? definitely. are they meant to teach people how to act in real life, absolutely not. at least i doubt any of the hundreds of men and women devs who work on those games would want gamers to think of them as simulators to practice real life crimes in.

if i had young kids, there is no way i would want them playing gta, but then i wouldn't want them having access to **** either. however, for adults that understand the context of these games, i see no reason why those adults shouldn't be able to experience them, either directly or watching other gamers play them, as millions of people are doing so on youtube and in each other's homes, all around the world.

what i do think should happen though, is youtube should have age gates. so kids have some barrier between them and content like this. but that is not likely to happen since google care more about ad revenue regardless of viewer age, then they do about limiting violent and highly suggestive content to kids, that may not be developed enough to understand the context.

[kat]

Re: GTA. That puts the petitions concerns into better context. If the idea of the game is to be satirical and bombastic in the representation of 'gangsta' or 'thug' life (black gang or Mafioso irrespective) then makes sense there would be extremes, an adult would understand the consequences of context.

Re: YouTube. If it were voluntary (it would have to be) it would be a useful tool, especially where Minors are concerned.

[ratty redemption]

re: gta, agreed. people being offended by gta is akin to taking the south park tv show, film and video game seriously.

plus nearly all the white males in gta 5 who have distinct character traits are portrayed as lowlifes, irrespective of their wealth, or occupation. they all lie, cheat, betray each other, and generally brake the rules.

the most likable character in my opinion is the playable black guy, and he's a petty criminal, who lives with his aunt and pet rottweiler. the other two playable characters start off the game robbing a bank and killing multiple waves of cops. and yet i've not heard of any real life cops being offended by how they are portrayed or abused in the game.

gta even has a metal music fan character, who is portrayed as being very low in intellect, has a speech impediment, and who doesn't like washing, even after being covered in mud etc, and who lives in a trailer park. myself being someone who grew up listening to rock and metal music, i found this hilarious.

maybe the offended people wrongly assume that if a game has somewhat realistic looking graphics, that is intended to be serious? as opposed to south park that is designed to look like a poorly animated kids cartoon.

re: youtube age gating, agreed. and i would use that feature myself if they ever implement it.

[kat]

To put the GTA V issue into perspective; 34 Million people World Wide purchased the game since its release. There don't appear to be any breakdowns available of sales per territory but for the sake of argument Australia likely had less than 5 Million total life-time sales of GTA V (probably closer to 2 Million - Australia as a territory generated c.$1.2 Billion revenues in 2012). That would mean the game was removed off the shelves by less than 1% (2% if sales are closer to 2 Million) of that objecting to it's content (and very few of those actually appear to have bought the game anyway).

Additional Reading
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-16-grand-theft-auto-v-best-selling-game-of-2013-npd
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/grand-theft-auto-5-has-now-shipped-32-5-million-copies/1100-6417498/
http://metro.co.uk/2014/11/24/gta-v-officially-the-uks-best-selling-game-ever-4960202/

[kat]

Remember Aliens vs Predator in Australia? This isn't their first rodeo!

[ratty redemption]

i remember that, and the left 4 dead 2 debacle, but what are you referring to "This isn't their first rodeo"?

[kat]

The Censorship bandwagon. It's not their first outing so they are well practiced in the fine art of ignorance

[ratty redemption]

understood, and he he. i guess we could say that is their "game" of choice. ie if people don't like playing video games, than petition to get them banned.

[kat]

Look at the games being petitioned its no coincidence they are all (almost without exception) high-profile products with a high level of preexisting marketing exposure, GTA V is a case in point as the publicity push on that game is global. What better 'tool' could the discerning political ideologue use than to co-opt and politicise the games release.

Of the thousands of console, PC and mobile titles released every year the 'issues' raised by the Triple-A big budget games are only noteworthy and worth their time because its so much easier to hi-jack and inject whatever 'cause' is in need of being disseminated into the aether to change the zeitgeist when it's someone else's money and effort. They just sit back and laugh at the fallout that typically results in what they were wanting. And yes, it IS that Machiavellian.

[ratty redemption]

interesting and agreed.

do you think a small but very gory indie game like overgrowth, which has been in development for years, would be worth these moral crusaders going after? the violence in that makes gta look tame, although it's anthropomorphic animals fighting each other, and doesn't include any humans, as far as i'm aware. incidentally they use blender for their character modeling and rigging i think.

[kat]

If Overgrowth had a multimillion dollar budget then yes they likely would use it as a platform. As it doesn't, like other games of it's limited statue and reach (by nature of it being an Indie dev'd game) it won't be touched. Games like that never are, there's just not enough political capital to be had from them.

[ratty redemption]

interesting, so that proves that it's not really the content of a specific game that these people are going after, more like what can a well known game do to promote their ideology?