MADD Targets GTA IV Over Drunk Driving Scene

eldavojohn writes "The watch-dog group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has set its sights on the rating of GTA IV, primarily because a player can drive drunk in the game. MADD released a statement saying that 'Drunk driving is not a game, and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable.' MADD also is asking Rockstar Games to consider removing GTA IV from distribution 'out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.' Rockstar replied to MADD by saying 'we have a great deal of respect for MADD's mission, but we believe the mature audience for "Grand Theft Auto IV" is more than sophisticated enough to understand the game's content.' As expected, Jack Thompson is making his usual attention-whoring remarks by comparing GTA IV to the polio virus."

Wow...

As expected, Jack Thompson is making his usual attention-whoring remarks by comparing GTA IV to the polio virus."

Won't someone finally lock this guy up in a mental institution? This man seriously needs therapy.

Re:Wow...

My opinion on this mirrors the opinion of many others. I personally WANT Jack Thompson to be running around acting like a moron. Yes, there are some people that listen to him...but the kind of people that listen to him would share his opinion even if he wasn't around.

The reason I want him to run around acting like a moron is this: as long as someone like Jack Thompson is the most vocal anti-video game person out there, we as gamers are safe. We are in trouble when someone comes around that can actually put together a cohesive argument instead of the "Video games cause deaths! Just because!" type of argument. By him being this way, once again, the only people that listen to him are the ones that already have the same opinion.

I would seriously doubt Thompson has been very successful in changing the opinions of folks insofar as video games are concerned.

PR advice

Maybe someone should tell MADD that they would probably have better luck getting their message out if they didn't take positions that are somewhere between sophomoric and insane.

If they really think that people are so completely unable to distinguish games from reality then they should understand that it means that people are so stupid that they can't be educated to stop drinking and driving anyway.

Re:

Won't someone finally lock this guy up in a mental institution? This man seriously needs therapy.

Somebody should offer to either have his grandchildren play GTA IV for an hour or be infected with polio. I wonder which one he'll choose. Oh wait, I know wh

Feh.

The whole point of video games is to do things that you couldn't possibly do in real life safely. In my opinion, MADD should be ENCOURAGING people to drive drunk in GTA IV, using this logic:

"See how much harder and more dangerous it is to drive drunk? And this is just in a video game...imagine what would happen if you did it in real life."

Re:

Until somebody gets so good at driving drunk in the game that they feel they can handle it in real life ^_^

Re:

I agree...after all, that's exactly what happened to me with San Andreas...I got so good at running over drug dealers and stealing their loot I thought I could handle it in real life...

</snark>

In other words:

MADD condones drive-bys as long as you're sober?

Reality Check

Because the drugs and guns and carjackings aren't choices that are violent crimes right? This is stupid. This is also coming from the worthless group that lobbied to allow the federal government to extort money from the states if they didn't raise the drinking age. Feds collect income tax from state residents, then refuse to give the money back unless the state (who is supposed to be the final authority within its own borders) complies with what the feds want them to do. So screw them, I only hope that one day these people will shut the hell up.

Don't mistake me, I think they have a good cause, they are just a worthless bunch of whiners. For example, I think stopping all abortions would be a wonderful cause, but doing it through a massive expansion of education and adoption is a far better way than parading around with dead fetus signs, mailing plastic fetuses, making it illegal, or any of the other abhorrent things the anti-abortionists do.

Exact Opposite of What Should Have Been Said

That's funny last night I was thinking the exact opposite of what the MADD organization came up with. I mean the game tells you look this is NOT safe you really should get a taxi. And I not actually knowing how to hail a taxi yet decided to risk it. Sure enough it was a BIG mistake. The car was insanely hard to control I got within viewing distance of one patrolling policeman and he called in a ton of them to put me out of commission. I think Rockstar came through in this virtual world with a true to life scenario showing that drunk driving is not the way to go. I was thinking the whole time...next time I will take the cab this is crazy! What a waste of my time as I had not saved the game recently!

Drunk driving isn't a choice

It's a way of life. Goddamn dipsoaurigaeophobic bigots

attention-whoring

As expected, Jack Thompson is making his usual attention-whoring remarks by comparing GTA IV to the polio virus."

And, as usual, Slashdot is helping him get even more attention. I want to go on record here and now asking Slashdot to pull this story, out of respect for all of the attention-whoring victims that this jerk has already affected.

Not a game?

Drunk driving is not a game, and it is not a joke.

True enough. Regular driving is also not a game (in fact, "using a vehicle as a toy" is explicitly illegal in most places). However having a video game involve driving (even reckless driving) isn't a problem, is it?

Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable.

Many forms of entertainment describe crime. Books and movies depict theft, murder, rape, etc. Many video games involve killing or worse. These are all, in real life, choices and preventable crimes. Does that mean that our fiction and entertainment cannot involve these subjects, out of some sort of "respect for the victims"?

Rockstar's response is right on the money: adults should be able to distinguish between entertainment/fantasy/fiction (where murder may be depicted, or drunk driving may be a game) and reality (where these things are illegal and unethical). Adults who cannot make those distinctions are a danger to society (regardless of what video games are on the market).

When did MADD cross the line...

...from an organization with a noble cause to a right-wing, Prohibitionist, Evangelical, whiny group that would desire a socialist nanny-state with breathalyzers in every car? I mean, sheeeesh!!!

All Driving Games have Drunk Driving in them

How to play:

1. Imbibe alcoholic drink of choice until plastered.

2. Put driving game of choice in console (or have non-inebriated person do it for you).

3. Play game.

This works just as well with GTA IV (or Vice City) as with Mario Kart.

MADD's real motive...

MADD's founder broke with the group in the 1980s:

MADD founder Candy Lightner broke ties with the group in the 1980s. In 2002, she told the Washington Times: "[MADD] has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned ... I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving."

MADD is a bunch of nutcases that want ANY amount of drinking to be illegal. If we let these special intrest groups take our freedoms away, one by one, we will no longer be a free people. Our founding fathers would be ashamed.

Games are just that - games. They are a convenient way to explain what would otherwise be called bad parenting.

-ted

MADD sponsored Drunk Driving Simulator?

http://www.autoworld.com/news/Dodge/Neon_DD.htm [autoworld.com]

"Chrysler has found a safe way to demonstrate this dangerous situation to teen drivers with the Neon Drunk Driving Simulator, a specially equipped Dodge/Plymouth Neon that mimics the effects of driving after drinking alcohol.

Sponsored by Chrysler Corporation, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the U.S. Department of Transportation, the National Association of Broadcasters and local Chrysler Corporation dealers, the Neon Drunk Driving Simulator will travel to more than 250 schools. The vehicle has made more than 2,100 public appearances in more than 200 cities since the program began in 1988. To date, over 750,000 people have tried the Simulator.

So... it's OK to let people experience the negative effects of drunk driving in a real car, but in the safety of your own living room? NEVER!!!!

Actually

The drunk driving scenes didn't seem so bad to me, then again I was drunk.

I got to that scene last night...

I was playing GTA IV last night and took "my cousin" to a local bar to hang out. Watching two virtual russians stumble around plastered was quite possibly the funniest scene in the game (so far). I could barely control my character and he was tripping over his cousin while they were both laughing and mumbling. The scene was simply great.

Hailing a taxi (well trying to at least) got random incomprehensible shouting as my pretend character and his cousin stumbled in the streets of Libery City. Finally after 3-5 minutes the pretend character I was controling was "sober" enough to actually drive a car. So after 10 attempts to jack a car I finally managed.

Driving now was a horrid affair. The car was very unstable and hard to control. A slight left would smash my character into the walls, lamp post, pedestrians... The bar, silly me was well across town so it was a huge challenge to navigate there. But that's not all...

COPS, POLICE, 50... would see my pretend characters virtual drunken ass driving and give chase. Yes, even in a pretend game drunk driving was illegal and had I gotten caught served a penalty. Luckily It is only 1 star and easy to evade even at the slow drunken pace.

My assumption is that MADD had only caught wind of the drunk driving in GTA and didn't actually witness it. Had they experience the same scene i had, they'd know that while funny as all heck, there were penalties.

Now... My mother had been an alcoholic in my youthful years. She loved to be out all night at bars drinking her life away. On a school night when I was 8 she was out with her friends drinking till 2am. Yes that is a horrid act in it's own right leaving a kid in the car to drink but that is not the case to prove only back ground... Well her Beau of the time was going to drive us home, her more sober friend offered me a ride and somehow I refused and stupidly allowed me to ride with my mother and her drunken boyfriend who was driving.

Well the car didnt get far before hitting a stone wall, flipping 3-4 times and landing upside down in someone's yard. I woke up in her friend's car. I suffered a broken tibia and elbow and got to spend christmas in a wheelcheer. She suffered most of her life with a bum hip until a recent replacement.

Long story short my mother smartened up and will never get into a car after drinking, nor with anyone who has drunkin. I would qualify myself as one of MADD's statistics. One of the "Millionas of people" who have suffered drunk driving trauma in their life. While no life was lost it is still traumatic.

Speaking on my behalf I found the GTA IV drunk scenes hilarious. I found it to be a fun and refreshing challenge to an ever increasing stagnating market. I love the game and have played every GTA released so far. I've yet in real life to drive drunk, shoot cops, run over people, jack a car, pick up use and shoot hoes, deal drugs, participate in a gang war, drive by shooting, break an enter, steal and save someone from a burning fire and do unique stunts. Though I've managed to do all that and more playing GTA...

Jack Thompson needs to get a real education and job. MADD needs to stop speaking for me and quite honestly STFU. MADD served their purpose and needs to vanish. THey got draconian laws passed. what more do they want? "Driving while buzzed" now? What's next "Smelling Alcohol before driving is bad and will get you tossed in jail and lost license for 10 years"?

oh, i see

... mugging, shooting, armed robbery, theft, running from the cops, etc is all a game - but DUI is not. glad we got that one sorted.

Re:Awesome

What's even more ironic is that the game specifically says "Driving in this condition is a bad idea, better call a cab". The scene in question is designed to teach you how to use the cabs in the game. If you drive anyway the police will arrest you, even open fire on your car if hurt someone and refuse to stop. The game is actually very clearly anti-drunk driving.

Re:Awesome

Yep. When you go drinking ingame, you're usually accompanied by another character. And they will almost always dissuade you from drink driving.

Even Roman, Niko's lazy drunkard cousin, says "If you drink and drive, you're an idiot."

('course... Roman does turn up drunk during the intro sequence, but hey.)

Re:Dear MADD,

Shut up.

"Shut up"? I'd go with "Fuck MADD". Seriously. An orginization that started for a fairly laudable purpose (combating drunk driving and assisting the victims of it) has turned into a neo-prohibitionist organization that spends as much time demonizing alcohol as it does fighting the problem of drunk driving. Even the original founder got fed up with the group and left. She was quoted as saying something like 'I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving'.

This is an orginization that encourages practices that are (IMHO) un-American. Practices like random police roadblocks (normally associated with military directorships), implied consent laws (5th amendment, what?) and my personal favorite: Getting the drinking age raised to 21. Gotta love the irony -- you can get married, join the military, sign a contract and borrow money from the bank -- but you can't legally purchase booze. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. Besides which, you could make the argument that this is counterproductive in terms of reducing drinking -- prohibit something and you just make it that much more attractive for teenagers.

Recently I heard that they've come out in favor of mandatory ignition interlock systems for all automobiles -- not just as a punishment/deterrent for those previously convicted of DUI. Yeah, I should have to pay extra money for my car and blow into a tube every time I want to start it just because a small minority of people make stupid decisions and drive drunk.

Want some sanity on this issue? Take a look a the DUI positions [motorists.org] of the National Motorist Association. Turns out there are ways to combat the problem of drunk driving that don't involve shredding our civil liberties or demonizing alcohol.

Re:Dear MADD,

I had a lengthy conversation with a MADD representative one day. She was calling to solicit contributions. I spent probably twenty minutes with her debating their position on alcohol in general and their "mission creep".

She was essentially irrational about it. I pointed out that possession and consumption of alcohol was (generally) not illegal. She went off on a tangent about how drugs and alcohol kill children. I pointed out that she was calling as a representative of MADD and was, in theory, attempting to prevent drunk driving, not drinking in general. The conversation quickly meandered back over to a general anti-alcohol rant.

Eventually I told her that I had no respect for an organization that claims to fight drunk driving, a laudable effort, but is actually a bunch of teetotalling prohibitionists. They've never called back. :)

Re:Dear MADD,

Besides which, you could make the argument that this is counterproductive in terms of reducing drinking -- prohibit something and you just make it that much more attractive for teenagers.

There's another side effect too. Back before my buddies and I turned 21, booze was too much trouble to acquire (have to find somebody to pull for you, pretend to like him/share with him/whatever, etc.) So, we typically just avoided the whole mess and sat around smoking weed. Those retailers never check ID.