Stabbing for GTA4

[Wezil]

I agree trying to keep it out of children's hands is fultile and as a libertarian, it is not something I would support anyway. As I pointed out earlier, I would have obtained a copy. Age restrictions never stopped me.

Now, if we can agree children will be playing this game can we now (after 4 pages of non-issue flaming) finally get around to talking about the effect this might have on the culture? Maybe?

[Imran Siddiqui]

OMG!! Kids are seeing violent R rated movies!!! Everything will collapse!!

And why did you object so strongly to the Tipper Gore comparison now?

[Kuciwalker]

Now, if we can agree children will be playing this game can we now (after 4 pages of non-issue flaming) finally get around to talking about the effect this might have on the culture? Maybe?

When I was 12 I raced around Streets of SimCity blowing up cops. Look how I turned out

[Imran Siddiqui]

Maybe we should ban then?!

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
When I was 12 I raced around Streets of SimCity blowing up cops. Look how I turned out

I don't really worry about you and I and most of the posters at this site.

It is the "problem children" that take things like this in undesirable directions.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
OMG!! Kids are seeing violent R rated movies!!! Everything will collapse!!

And why did you object so strongly to the Tipper Gore comparison now?

My you like setting up strawmen. One each in two subsequent posts. I'll deal with this one first.

I didn't say "everything would collapse". I think it is a net negative on society. There is a big difference between the two.

Tipper wants to ban and censor things whereas I don't. Your comparison does not apply. I would like people to make better choices and/or be better parents.

Your second strawman about me wanting to ban things clearly shows what I suspected all along - you aren't even reading my posts. I have said this was not my position , several times, in unmistakable language.

(edit - unless of course you were responding to Kuci. In which case disregard the last part. ).

[DaShi]

I don't know about GTA4, but elevator music makes me want to punch people.

[asleepathewheel]

I can confirm that you actually can go on a date with another dude.

Spoiler:

it doesn't end well

[Asher]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080501.wgtgaming0501/BNStory/Technology/home

The moral lesson that drives GTA IV

SCOTT COLBOURNE

Globe and Mail Update

May 1, 2008 at 10:00 PM EDT

I wonder: What would happen if I did this? That question is the driving force behind many video games, including the new Mature-rated Grand Theft Auto IV for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360: You can experiment and push physical, ethical, legal and moral boundaries within the relatively safe confines of a virtual play space.

This week, I also wondered what would happen if I read a new book, Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games, and then spent a few days kicking the tires of the new version of the game that inspired its title. It worked out pretty well because both works have a lot in common: They are political, often angrily so, and they are brilliantly conceived.

That's a lot of grand theft for one week. One evening, I wandered into another room to give myself (and the whirring Xbox) a break, just in time to see on TV a character in the 1990 series Twin Peaks burst into a police station and yell, “Grand theft auto! The Log Lady stole my truck!” I thought that was a cue to get back to work.

A lot of people who don't usually talk games had Grand Theft Auto on their minds this week, and that is a good thing for the most part. The authors of Grand Theft Childhood, Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner, point out that many players, especially teens and kids, use video games to “build and strengthen social relationships with peers.” Games provide plenty of talking points.

The trick is getting everyone talking together, and Olson and Kutner may be able to help with that. They are on the psychiatry faculty at Harvard Medical School and run the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Inspired by their son, who at the age of 6 petitioned his principal to get games put on the kindergarten curriculum, they conducted a large study into the effects of violent games on 12-to-14-year-olds. They interviewed and surveyed 1,254 middle-school students in the United States and then talked to many of their parents as well.

The results may shock some people: Among the boys studied, 44 per cent listed Grand Theft Auto, which is rated for players aged 17 and over, among their regularly played games; it was the most popular choice by some distance. It was the second-most-popular game among girls, just behind The Sims.

What attracts the kids? For that, back to Grand Theft Auto IV. Say what you will about its developers at Rockstar Games, who delight in creating and then feeding on controversy, the new game proves yet again that they are extraordinary coders.

The design elements that make up the game's setting, Liberty City, have been exhaustively detailed this week in reviews. I have one anecdote to add to that mix.

A lot of people focus on the graphics in the game –, which, until you see the faces at least, can be easily confused with TV car shows on the Speed channel, or perhaps with the characters in David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (if you are playing one of the more violent story missions). But underneath those pretty visuals are codes – sets of rules, really – that dictate what you can do in the game.

Often these rules are applied by virtual police officers, which makes sense, and they stepped in during an altercation I had with a disgruntled passenger in a cab I had stolen. (It happens.) The two police officers didn't see me steal the cab, but they did see the passenger throw the first punch. I wasn't in the mood for a fight and moved back. The officers arrested the man, put him in the back of their car and drove away.

As hockey players know, referees always catch the retaliation, but that is some incredible artificial intelligence on display: Who's in the wrong is a hard question to answer, let alone program into a game.

And distinguishing right from wrong is really the driving force behind the GTA experience. The game's primary writers, Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries, have strong opinions on the matter, and in the story and the many satirical pokes at news outlets, the Internet, advertising and politicians of all stripes, the game makes it clear that its authors think everyone in the media is wrong most of the time, except maybe them.

Other people will play and read this instalment of GTA differently, but for me the central theme – whether in the story of Niko Bellic, the game's central character and a former combatant in the Bosnian war, or a random stand-up comedy routine by a digitized Ricky Gervais – is the widespread effect of war. State-sponsored violence takes a beating in Grand Theft Auto IV.

The scattershot political commentary in this game is aimed at a lot of targets, often broadly, but enough of it sticks to recognizable authorities that it isn't too far-fetched to wonder if a GTA-inspired surge at U.S. polling stations might play a role in the presidential election come November.

And that anger, directed at the ways in which modern media and political leaders can get distracted from the issues that matter, is echoed by Olson and Kutner. After completing their study and researching childhood development, they summed up much of their findings in what I think is the strongest paragraph in the book: “More important, focusing on such easy but minor targets as violent video games causes parents, social activists and public-policy makers to ignore the much more powerful and significant causes of youth violence that have already been well established, including a range of social, behavioural, economic, biological and mental-health factors.”

Their advice to parents is to relax, identify the true markers that indicate if their children have problems, and then take a more active role in their kids' use of video games. The chapter “Practical Advice for Parents” could help with that, and I think video-game players of all ages can do their part as well.

All week, people who don't play video games have been exposed to a high dose of hype, and a lot of them are probably curious. If they bother to look for themselves, they will find that, whether the game is Grand Theft Auto or Mario Kart, the player takes the rules provided by the game makers and then dictates what happens. When I play Grand Theft Auto, for example, I don't intentionally injure those police officers. (I may steal their car, but I'm sneaky about it.) When you show a new viewer a game, discuss your rules or your family's rules, and then show them something that fits their interests. There is a lot more focus in this episode of GTA on casual games – bowling, eight-ball pool, darts – and many of the satiric jabs at modern culture can be enjoyed by a wide range of people, providing they have the maturity to understand them.

Right now, I'm planning a trip through Liberty City with my parents. I'm thinking of finding an ice-cream truck that plays Flight of the Bumblebee, speeding up the tempo as we drive faster, and then heading over to the pool hall.

That and flipping through some pages from Grand Theft Childhood should make for a good little Saturday.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Wezil
My you like setting up strawmen. One each in two subsequent posts. I'll deal with this one first.

I didn't say "everything would collapse". I think it is a net negative on society. There is a big difference between the two.

Tipper wants to ban and censor things whereas I don't. Your comparison does not apply. I would like people to make better choices and/or be better parents.

Your second strawman about me wanting to ban things clearly shows what I suspected all along - you aren't even reading my posts. I have said this was not my position , several times, in unmistakable language.

(edit - unless of course you were responding to Kuci. In which case disregard the last part. ).

Uh... you may want to know what you are talking about before you post about things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipper_Gore

According to an article by NPR, Gore went "before Congress to urge warning labels for records marketed to children."

Yep.... those warning labels... same thing as banning stuff .

[Wezil]

I'm a little older than you Imran. Tipper has a past bigger than that.

I can't help but notice you still won't address the issue however. No fun when you can't misdirect to strawmen?

You are hell bent on doing a Tipper Gore comparison so you can do guilt by comparison. Address the damn issue.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Because the "issue" is utterly idiotic. And the Gore comparison is apt because the reason she and her hoard jumped on board to the labeling craze because she thought violent music had damaging effects on society.

There is absolutely no proof that it is a "net negative" on society, just as Elvis wasn't a "net negative" on society for his sexual dancing and caused the Ed Sullivan show to only show him from the waste up.

Besides, you were the one who brought up Gore first... you know the whole "social commentators" comment?

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Wezil
Strange you should mention Roman gladiators. Some argue the cultural decadence of Rome led to/mirrored the decline of the empire.

And I suppose those bloody medieval tournays led to or mirrored the decline of West-European civilization, at least if you allow for a lag of half a millenium or so.

[Aeson]

You are confusing issues Colon. Medieval tourneys had nothing to do with the rise of Western civilization. They certainly were a product of (if not a factor in) the suppression of the civilization. It was trade and new (and rediscovering old) ideas that brought Western civilization out of that mess.

Just because a negative factor doesn't lead to the complete annihilation of a civilization doesn't mean it's not a negative factor. (Though in this specific case, the tourneys were probably a step up from general everyday rape and pillage the participants would have engaged in in their other hobbies.)

As for our own culture (US), it is definitely on the decline due to decadence. We are fast becoming a nation of obese, entitlement seeking, addicted (not just chemically), lazy, reactionary, violent, spoiled brats. It won't end well if that continues. The glorification of violence in our culture is a contributor.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Violence has always been glorified in our (modern) culture. The wild west movies which spread the idea of the American cowboy weren't exactly all peaceful.