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GTA Played By More Than 70 Percent Of Teens 75

Posted by simoniker from the rockstar-getting-good-market-penetration dept.
cdneng2 writes "This Yahoo!/Reuters article indicates that more than 70 percent of American kids have played Grand Theft Auto. The study also indicates that those who played are more likely to be in fights. It's a good thing the authors cautioned that this study did not prove a link between game violence and real-life behavior." The Gallup poll editors specifically and sensibly advised: "The data can't demonstrate causality - boys who are more prone to fighting may simply be more attracted to violent video games."
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GTA Played By More Than 70 Percent Of Teens More

GTA Played By More Than 70 Percent Of Teens

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  • well at 70 percent... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @09:38AM (#6985552)
    If 70 percent of kids are likely to fight, then we should be looking closely at the 30 percent of wierdos who don't want to fight, yes? Isn't that the way it works?

  • Makes sense (Score:5, Funny)

    by green.vervet ( 565158 ) <cheyenne.martin@ f l a s h m a il.com> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @09:43AM (#6985590)
    This explains the sharp rise in carjackings, gun rampages, and drownings in shallow water we've seen recently.

    • Re:Makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)

      by blahlemon ( 638963 )
      That's right. I think as a society we should base all our opinions on shallow, one dimensional poles about easy to attack, hot button, misunderstood, poorly informed issues. That way we can avoid the REAL social problems caused by the harder to tackle issues like, but not limited to;

      Poverty

      Childhood abuse

      Human Rights violations

      Moral Decay

      Political and Corporate greed

      The destruction of the household.

      • "The destruction of the household."

        Which itself is another red herring. It itself is a symptom of greater problems, not the problem itself. There's a real crisis of the individual going on that leads to ruined homes. THAT needs to be addressed long before people wed/breed/etc.
    • Not to mention the rash of disappearances due to poor collision detection. It's a dangerous world out there now. Kids can find heavy weaponry laying about just anywhere! Like under overpasses and behind large crates.

  • Studies show (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Palshife ( 60519 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @09:53AM (#6985671) Homepage
    Studies also show that people play GTA because it's a good game.

    Ass kicking is ass kicking. Your chances of beating the crap out of someone are the same if you lose at chess.
  • boys who are more prone to fighting may simply be more attracted to violent video games

    May I be the first to say "Well, DUH!"

  • When I was in school... (Score:3, Funny)

    by whoda ( 569082 ) * on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @10:09AM (#6985828) Homepage
    The kids playing video games were geeks, afraid for their lives. And to play them, we had to walk 2 miles, uphill, in the snow, both ways, and past the captain of the football teams house.
  • I mean, I respect simoniker and everything, I think games.slashdot.org is a pretty good discussion forum but, seriously, get over the games / violence thing already. This is like, what, the fifth or sixth article in a short time showing a link, real or unreal, between video games and violence. True, they all have different angles and they all, arguably, provide insight to the "problem", but do we have to have more articles about video-game related violence than ones to do with SCO? I mean, if there was a ne

    • Re:DUPE! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by simoniker ( 40 ) * <<simoniker> <at> <slashdot.org>> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @10:20AM (#6985927) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, point taken. I've been feeling a bit queasy about quite so many game violence article, too. We'll see if we can't cut them down somewhat in the future (or at least post round-ups).
      • Yeah, point taken. I've been feeling a bit queasy about quite so many game violence article, too. We'll see if we can't cut them down somewhat in the future (or at least post round-ups).

        Along with software patents, other IP-related matters, corporate consolidation and risk-a-phobia, this is nevertheless one of the most significant 'threats' to games that we face in these litigious and tempestuous times.

        Even games based on real history have to be artificially toned down because of modern sensibilities
        • This is GAMES.slashdot.org, not GAMES-ADVOCACY.slashdot.org. I think most would agree that we're here to read about games, not the shitstorm politicians are trying to keep fueling so they can get get/keep their cushy office jobs.
      • Nah, the best thing to do with violent game articles is blow them up, or riddle them with holes from a minigun, or drive a tank over their screaming bytes.. .. what're you looking at me like that for?

  • Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by I am Kobayashi ( 707740 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @10:17AM (#6985897)
    The survey found that 34 percent of boys who admitted to being in a physical fight over the last year have played "GTA," while 17 percent who were in a fight have not played the game.


    Shouldn't this number add up to 100? Of all the boys who admitted being in a fight, aren't the only two possibilities that they either (1) have played GTA, or (2) have not?
    I am sure I am missing something....

  • Twisting Statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by robbway ( 200983 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @10:24AM (#6985971) Journal
    Excerpt: Although the study showed twice as many boys who had played the criminal adventure game reported having been in a fight in the last year, the survey's authors cautioned that did not prove a link between game violence and real-life behavior.

    Later on, the article does paraphrase that this does not show causality. However, a lot of care is always required in interpreting statistics.

    If I gave a sample group peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but didn't put jelly on 30% of the sandwiches, I'd have 70% PB&J, and 30% PB. Now, if I were to randomly select one person out of the group, observe his sandwich, then put him back into group, and repeat, the number of PB&J's would be about 70% and PB's would be 30%. Guess what? The probability I'll select a person with a PB&J is more than twice that of a PB.

    The important thing to realize is that the violent behavior displayed by the teens that play GTA is not statistically different than random chance. If they took a lot of samples, it's actually less, being 2-to-1 more likely (67% probable) instead of 7-to-3 more likely (70% probable).
    • It also depends on where these studies were taken and the soci-economic reality of the individuals interviewed. Were they from lower or higher income? Is there violence at home? Is it a one parent or two parent house? Do both parents work or is one home all the time? etc, etc.

    • Re:Twisting Statistics (Score:5, Informative)

      by tessaiga ( 697968 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @11:56AM (#6986810)

      You make an excellent point, although it took me a couple of reads to figure out what your analogy was trying to say. (Mostly because the numbers in your post appear to come out of nowhere, and I didn't figure out where you were getting them until I went through the exercise myself.) Perhaps a clearer way of putting it would be:

      The survey found that 34 percent of boys who admitted to being in a physical fight over the last year have played "GTA," while 17 percent who were in a fight have not played the game.
      34% of boys in fights played GTA, 17% did not. This makes a total of 51%. (By the way, where did the other 49% go?)

      That means that of their subset (boys who got into fights), 34/51 = 67% played GTA.

      The Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing found in an online survey of 517 teenagers aged 13 to 17 conducted in August that 71 percent of boys in that age group have played "GTA," along with 34 percent of girls.
      Of the total group (i.e. all boys surveyed), 71% had played GTA.

      Comparing the two statistics (67% vs 71%), and given that their margin of error was 5%, we can conclude that the group of violent boys did not show a statistically different tendency towards playing GTA.

      I wonder if the news story didn't misquote some of the statistics in the Gallup poll, because as written this doesn't make a lot of sense. (Not to mention the fact that boys in fights who played GTA + those that didn't should = 100%, but it doesn't.) My guess is that the newshound that churned out this story was probably an arts major who didn't pay close enough attention to the details of the poll and made a small typo or two somewhere in reporting the results.

  • 70% of who?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Merkuri22 ( 708225 )
    I want to point out that the article states that 70% of teenage boys play GTA, not 70% of all kids. I just didn't want readers to think that Slashdot thought all kids in America today were male. :)~

  • NEWS FLASH! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by g-san ( 93038 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @10:45AM (#6986125)
    Violent Television is watched by more than 95% of everyone.

    • What the hell was the point of this survey? They begin with the usual shocking statement - boys who played GTA were more likely to be in fights - and then backpedal into saying there's no causality here. So what exactly was the study trying to prove? Rockstar should have paid for this study and called it successful market research.

      The only genuine stat in there is that far too many underage kids are playing GTA... which is a dubious claim anyway if you consider how the underage kid's mind works.

      Intervie

  • For once! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 )
    For once the article about violent video games informed the reader that there was no causality. Usually you have to look to the /. comments to find that out, if you didn't already know it. At least someone out there has a little bit of common sense.

  • Oh boy. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @11:26AM (#6986512) Homepage Journal
    These stories are starting to irritate me. I might be able to jump on this GTA causes violence bandwagon if not for a few things:

    1.) Where's the increase in violence? Why aren't we seeing a flood of copycats?

    2.) The show Jackass has had a couple of copycats. If kids are so weak willed that TV tells them what to do, how come there weren't millions of Jackass'esque attempts?

    3.) How come advertising isn't a much stronger tool? If it's so easy to control kids minds, then why aren't commercials causing big headaches for society?

    4.) Why has it been so freaking hard to find a link? It's hard to imagine that there's any children in the USA that don't have access to a TV, yet despite 40 years of exposure, they're still chasing this one. I wouldn't mind if this research was being used to find ways to improve child education through TV/Games, but instead it's being used to hang it. WTF?

    5.) Why aren't we seeing studies that look at well balanced adults that grew up on games? My generation had Mortal Kombat, and that created quite a controversy. That game was blamed for all that's wrong with the world, but now that that generation is in their mid 20's, how come nobody's looking at them and saying "strange, lots of these people went on to be successful."?

    If you want to prove to me that GTA or any other scapegoat game is causing harm to our kids, then you've got quite a bit to discuss with me first.
    • "My generation had Mortal Kombat"

      I remember that. Wasn't the version for the SNES made so that there was no "blood?"

      "Yea, we don't mind you kicking the crap out of your opponent. BUT GOD HELP YOU IF HE BLEEDS!"
      • "I remember that. Wasn't the version for the SNES made so that there was no "blood?""

        Yes, that's true, though it does show an interesting decision made by Nintendo.

        The original Mortal Kombat for SNES had sweat flying off the opponent instead of blood. Nintendo was very hard nosed about this. Their reasoning was that they wanted to make sure that parents were comfortable in buying games for their kids without having to be overly involved in what's in these games. (Interestingly enough, that view might

  • No effect whatsoever (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ThePyro ( 645161 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @11:33AM (#6986575)

    Going by their numbers...

    70% of all boys have played Grand Theft Auto

    66% percent of all boys who have been in fights have played Grand Theft Auto [34% / (34% + 17%) ]

    So if you've been in a fight then you're LESS likely to have played Grand Theft Auto :)

  • The purpose of the poll? Publicity. The result of the poll? Grief and Marketing. Grief:

    Moms across America uniting to make junior's life misserable a videogame.

    Marketing: "70% of our main target group? We better make a game like that too"

    According to the Gallup poll 70% of ALL teenage boys have played GTA. That's roughly 20 million teenagers, represented by a Gallup sample of 517 boys. At a ratio of 38684,7 to 1, that better be one hell of a sample job to represent the entire teenager base, which is

  • I think simoniker described the gist of this article.

    ""The study also indicates that those who played are more likely to be in fights. It's a good thing the authors cautioned that this study did not prove a link between game violence and real-life behavior.""

    It's the same old crap again in the media as usual. Oh yes blame kids violence on video games when in fact schools and parents should be blamed for poor teaching and poor parenting. You must never point fingers at the real problem - oh no that's too f

  • As a GTA Player... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mraymer ( 516227 ) <{mraymer} {at} {centurytel.net}> on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @12:04PM (#6986883) Homepage Journal
    I'll admit that, in reality, I sometimes feel small urges to take "shortcuts" over curbs and over... heh... people... but those urges are so easy to suppress, and I am sure I've played this game a *LOT* more than most people. Perhaps being 21 and unemployed has something to do with it... heh...

    Gaming is really my only source of income ( when the economy isn't totally fucked, I can sell MMORPG items/accounts for decent money ).

    In fact, I've played so many games that, often times when I go outside and see clouds or a sunset, I think "Damn... I'm surprised my GeForce3 can do this, oh... that's right, reality doesn't run on my computer."

    Heh. I'm actually not kidding, I have thought that before. At any rate, despite all those mental lapses in how I perceive reality... I have no criminal record. I am not a violent person. In fact, I am sure playing violent video games is a form of venting any violent tendencies I may have.

    So, despite what all the blame shifters [homelinux.org] would like to believe, gaming doesn't make us all crazy.

  • Hold on now (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MilenCent ( 219397 ) *
    First, let me say that I have *not read* the article mentioned in the article. I don't have enough time right now to go through that, but I do consider myself having enough time to chime in on the debate, which is essentially the old "Is GTA3 corrupting our nations youth?" argument that's been going on since the game was released.

    And, let me say that I have never played GTA3! I have a Gamecube. I've never had a PS2, and I sold my X-Box as soon as I got my fill of ToeJam & Earl 3. (Very underrated g
    • It's true that whenever I play an RPG with any sort of difficult moral choice, I do feel a bit of emotional weight over the decision. While I play, I lose some of the sense that it is "just a game," because playing it "right" requires so getting into the story. One of the defenses thrown up for GTA3, however, is that it's just a game. My point is, if it's any good, it's not.

      BS. There is a difference between a game and reality. If good games cause you to lose your grip on reality and become the character
    • You can indeed hire a prostitute to regain health, however, there are a million other cheaper and easier ways to do so. You can also run over prostitutes, just as you can run over anyone else in the game. The amount of cash involved, however, is so trivial that it's not even worth the effort. The whole prostitution thing is just an Easter egg - you could play the entire game and never notice it (I did, in fact), and it's in no way necessary or a major part of the gameplay.

      Also, GTA is most certainly not al

  • Garbage In => Garbage Out.

  • Yet another example of the news media misreporting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) * on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @12:28PM (#6987078) Homepage
    the headline is that 70% of teenagers play violent games. However, the actual article says that 70% HAVE played GTA3. There is a difference between saying that they play it and that they have played it. Saying that they have played means that they have tried it. They may or may not have played it more than once. I HAVE played GTA3. I don't play it (I don't own a PS2 and haven't gotten around to buying it for the pc. one of these days...)
    This is like saying that X% of people are drug users when in reality X% of people had only tried drugs.
    However, as the headline states, it is a lot more sensationalistic and more scry to think that 70% ARE playing these evil murder simulators.
    • The article says 71% of boys and 34% of girls have played this one particular game.

      That comes out to around 52% of teenagers have played it, *not* 'over 70%' -- there are slightly more girls than boys.

      Some kids may have played violent video games other than GTA but not GTA. There is really no information in the article about how they would have determined how many teens 'play violent video games' on a regular basis, so I assume they did not determine that factoid at all.
  • since a few people are chiming in with this, is an irrational fear of the police. Even when I'm not doing anything wrong, I feel like they're going to run me over or open fire. I really need to take care of some trees in the backyard, but I'm gonna catch a bullet if I turn on that chainsaw.

  • Personally (Score:3, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Wednesday September 17, 2003 @01:59PM (#6987907) Homepage Journal
    After playing enough Day of Defeat, I now run around looking for Germans to shoot and yell 'Go Go Go!'
  • I've 'played' GTA1, 2, and 3 (haven't play VC or London) for a grand total of oh... 3 hours. Does this mean I have a higher chance of getting into a fight than someone else who has never played any of the GTA games? (And no, I have not been in a fight for 5 years now and yes, I am a wuss)
  • So i'm normal now??!!!! So should I just stop playing games altogether to regain my sense of individuality?
  • Am I the only one that thinks that an ONLINE survey of the demographic in question, consisting of ONLY 517 people isn't the most balanced and representitive poll out there? It seems to me that 70% of all American teenage boys (or whatever), that played GTA, is a bit too high and a bit too unbelieveable. And slightly off topic, I recently recieved an email from Jack Thompson, replying to my questioning of his lawsuit and tactics. From what he had to say, his basis is pretty weak and pulls out all the "cont
  • I propose a study of how many instances there are of teenagers getting in light saber fights. Now if only I can find funding for research...
  • (This is guaranteed to be marked as flamebait, but I've got to say it.)

    Last sentence of paragraph 4 in the article, "They have been decried by parents and lawmakers, among others, for depictions of graphic violence against women, law enforcement officers and the elderly." HEAVEN FORBID there be violence against women in a game where violence is one of the major points. I note the distinction they made, that it's violence against WOMEN and not simply violence against people. Violence towards men is acceptab
    • Violence against men is not only socially acceptable, it's damn funny. Nothing funnier in a sitcom, a reality tv show or a "funniest videos" clipshow than some man getting a shot to the nuts.
  • "The data can't demonstrate causality - boys who are more prone to fighting may simply be more attracted to violent video games."

    Of course it doesn't. At a guess, lets try this one:

    GTA is 18 rated here in the UK, and its status as unsuitable for children is hardly a big secret in the rest of the world either. This means kids that have been playing it are less likely to be having strict parenting, as they have probably been allowed to. Note that I'm generalising, and parents may well have made a careful de

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