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Censorship Entertainment Games

Sim Sin City - Thoughts On Grand Theft Auto 76

Posted by simoniker from the we'll-be-sinning-when-we're-winning dept.
Torill writes "Gonzalo Frasca has some thoughts on Grand Theft Auto in the new issue of Game Studies. He particularly notes: 'When designers create a simulation that encourages experimentation, they are taking a huge authorial risk: trusting their players'. He also weighs in on the controversy over GTA's content, arguing, devil's advocate style, that the Bible, Mein Kampf and Das Kapital have caused millions of deaths, while it is still hard to prove that computer games really have caused deaths at all: 'Do the math. There is actually proof that books are extremely dangerous. They should be considered weapons of mass destruction. If you are really concerned about media effects, forget videogames: you should start burning libraries right now'." Coincidentally, the name of the article ties in with the alleged name of the GTA sequel, again claimed to be 'Grand Theft Auto IV: Sin City', even after (coincidental?) April Fool's jokes and other confusion.
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Sim Sin City - Thoughts On Grand Theft Auto

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  • Hrmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PimpBot ( 32046 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @07:53AM (#7866609) Homepage
    There is actually proof that books are extremely dangerous. They should be considered weapons of mass destruction.

    Heh. Farenheit 451 is coming true.
  • and my only comment is (Eric Cartman Voice) "What's the big fucking deal, bitch?" GTA is violent, offensive, and crude. They even make spelling/usage mistakes ("Alright, we're gonna hit the pay role van"). But it's no more violent than "Boyz in The Hood", or "Goodfellas", or most any other "R"-rated movie. People complain that the game is disturbing children. What's disturbing children is a complete lack of responsibility on the part of their parents. If you are the type of person who would buy a game called "Grand Theft Auto" for your children, the problem isn't with the game, it is with the total abscence of parenting skills you're displaying.

    And as for the "Kill all the Haitians" controversy - Vice City has been on the market for a year, maybe more for the PS2. I know I got sick of those 80's themed commercials a long time ago. As far as I've noticed in the media, there is no wholesale slaughter of Haitians on America's streets. In fact, it was the hubbub that made me go out and buy the game! I bet executives at Rockstar and Take Two Interactive go home at night and roll naked in piles of cash screaming "Thank you for all the free advertising, Haitian Videogame Activists! It's going to be a Happy New Year after all!"

    It's always the same. Whether it's Eminem, GTA, NWA, professional wrestling, or whatever, there will always be some lazy ass parent who would rather trample all over my right as an adult to read the books I want, listen to the music I want, watch the movies I want, and play the video games I want, rather than actually expend the effort to see what their children are reading, listening to, watching, and playing.
    • I bet executives at Rockstar and Take Two Interactive go home at night and roll naked in piles of cash screaming "Thank you for all the free advertising, Haitian Videogame Activists! It's going to be a Happy New Year after all!"

      there's always some corporate executives rolling naked in cash somewhere, isn't there? those silly guys... i'd spend the money and buy hookers to roll naked over.. sheesh
    • "But it's no more violent than "Boyz in The Hood", or "Goodfellas", or most any other "R"-rated movie."

      In fact, I would suggest that a game like GTA3 Vice City is far less violent than the movies that you quoted... the graphics are more cartoonish and the plot more rediculous, which reduces the violent intensity of the game. The problem is not that GTA3 and Vice City are more violent than other games, that argument is foolish because there are many other games that consist solely of violence.

      What makes t

  • The concept of freedom is good. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @08:28AM (#7866689) Homepage Journal
    If the game is worth playing, I'd say allowing the player the freedom to try new things or take multiple paths to win is an excellent way to increase the replay value.

    Now, there are some games are long enough where replay value really doesn't make a difference (Chrono Chross?) because it is physically impossible to play them through more than twice in your lifetime, but for shorter games it's almost a must to avoid complaints of the game being far too short. From what I've heard, GTA3/Vice City offer enough to do to allow a person to spend almost a little too much time in its environment.

    • Now, there are some games are long enough where replay value really doesn't make a difference (Chrono Chross?) because it is physically impossible to play them through more than twice in your lifetime

      The trick is, don't bother sleeping for a couple or three weeks, and spend that 50 hours or so a week playing it. Then you can easily finish it three or four times between the Super Bowl and the start of MLB...

    • From what I've heard, GTA3/Vice City offer enough to do to allow a person to spend almost a little too much time in its environment.

      I've been a fan of GTA ever since it was a top-down 2d game in it's first incarnation.

      On the one hand, there is a huge variety of side missions you can do that are only tangentially related to the plot, if at all. These little side missions can keep the game interesting for a little while, but if you're stuck on the plot missions and can't get past them (*cough* DRIVER *coug
    • You must not think the concept of freedom is good in real life if you have that rediculous petition in your sig.

  • Strengths carry over to networked version ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by leoaugust ( 665240 ) <<leoaugust> <at> <gmail.com>> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @08:42AM (#7866714) Journal

    This is GTA3's second major design accomplishment: creating both a main character and a world that allows the game to live practically without any form of verbal communication.

    I think this is a very interesting point. I know he talks about this as an improvement over the NPC's (Non Playable Characters), but if the same strength of non-verbal communication has to be translated into a networked version of the games with Playable/Playing Characters - would the lack of verbal communication succeed there ? What would other alternatives for communication be in this world?

  • WMD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Snowman ( 116231 ) * on Saturday January 03, 2004 @08:52AM (#7866739)

    There is actually proof that books are extremely dangerous. They should be considered weapons of mass destruction.

    The FBI is one step ahead of you: If you possess an almanac, they think you might be a terrorist [cnn.com].

  • Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gleng ( 537516 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @08:56AM (#7866749)
    arguing, devil's advocate style, that the Bible, Mein Kampf and Das Kapital have caused millions of deaths

    The Bible doesn't cause millions of deaths, religious fanatics do.

    Mein Kampf doesn't cause millions of deaths, Nazis do.

    Das Kapital doesn't cause millions of deaths, armed dictators do.

    It's always the same story. You have a dangerously insane person, weapons, and a violent or provocative book, movie, or video game. Which is it that the authorities always try to remove from society?

    • In other words...
      Books don't kill people.... I do.


      (based on Weird Al's NRA parody commercial in _UHF_)
    • Well, come on... we can't remove the weapons from that, that'd be violating the second ammendment. And state-run mental institutions are far, far too expensive (how many of them have been closed down in the last decade or two?). So we've got to take all their good ideas away from them... obviously the crazy people won't figure out how to use the guns/firebombs/whatever without some kind of example... right?

      • Re:Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gleng ( 537516 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @12:08PM (#7867490)
        we can't remove the weapons from that, that'd be violating the second ammendment

        I was speaking generally rather than focusing on the US. The second ammendment has no influence in my country, so owning weapons is quite rightly illegal. I see this as a very good thing. I'm very glad I don't live in a country where any maniac can own a gun.

        I also can't see how a state run mental institution would cost much more than a state run prison*. Surely diagnosis, cure, and rehabilitation makes more sense than inprisonment after a terrible crime has been committed.

        * pure conjecture. I have no idea of the figures ;)

        obviously the crazy people won't figure out how to use the guns/firebombs/whatever without some kind of example

        You have a point there, but you have to wonder. Someone who is unstable enough to make the life altering decision to hurt people or blow something up based on a video game (or movie, book, webpage) is going to crack sooner or later and do something terrible anyway. Removing the stimulus is just treating the symptoms.

        • Ummmm..... (Score:3, Informative)

          by Chmcginn ( 201645 )
          Well, apparently my sarcasm was just lost... sorry. To restate...

          I also can't see how a state run mental institution would cost much more than a state run prison*. Surely diagnosis, cure, and rehabilitation makes more sense than inprisonment after a terrible crime has been committed.

          Well, it actually is a lot more expensive, mostly due to staff issues - the number of guards, orderlies, and doctor per patient is higher (and the pay per capita greater) than the number of CO's. But it's not better...

          • Well, apparently my sarcasm was just lost... sorry.

            Ah, sorry, it's late here ;)

            Yes, I can see now how mental institutions could run to much higher costs.

            Also, how would the potentially dangerous be detected before they commit a crime, without some kind of mass public screening? I can't see that being too popular either.

            I suppose our current systems are the best, or at least most feasable, we have.

        • I was speaking generally rather than focusing on the US. The second ammendment has no influence in my country, so owning weapons is quite rightly illegal. I see this as a very good thing. I'm very glad I don't live in a country where any maniac can own a gun.

          I also live in a country where a few years ago owning a handgun was banned. Gun crime since the ban has increased threefold.
          • What country is this? Can you cite any figures?
            • BBC [bbc.co.uk]
              Gun crime has increased in recent years, including a near doubling of handgun offences since 1996, the year of the Dunblane massacre.

              Doubling, not trebling then. The ban on hand guns came in 1997 because of Dunblane.
              • Less than doubling. Without knowing the rate at which it was rising per annum before banning of handguns, you can't speculate about what effect the ban has had. Even knowing, correlation does not mean causation. There are plenty of other possible reasons.
                • Actually it was falling. Obviously A doesnt neccersarilly cause B, but we were told that Gun Crime would fall when handguns were banned. Instead every amesty since has had people handing in old revolvers and stuff that were in display cases, but never the ones on the streets.
        • I'm very glad I don't live in a country where any maniac can own a gun.

          I'm very glad I don't live in a country where it's illegal to defend myself.
          • I don't know of any country where it's illegal to defend yourself.

            Illegal to defend yourself with a gun, yes, but that's just a restriction on the tools you can use.
            It's fairly unimaginative to equate the activity to one style of (pardon the pun) execution.
        • I'm very glad I don't live in a country where any maniac can own a gun.

          Sure you do ... only the law abiding citizens can't. Maniacs can own all the guns they want.

    • Re:Bullshit! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "The Bible doesn't cause millions of deaths, religious fanatics do."

      Yes, but the authors point was to combat the misinterpretation by the media that Grand Theft Auto causes deaths. It would be equally logical to say "Grand Theft Auto doesn't cause deaths, violent people do", which is the true reality of the situaion for both that statement as well as you're own, however no one who is arguing against violent videogames right now understands that simple concept, and this is what he was trying to point out.

    • Re:Bullshit! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'd state it rather differently. Books don't cause deaths (well, not unless a lot of them fall on you or something). The people you mention cause the deaths. The common ground is that the people killing others do so because of the ideas they have. The books are the embodiment of those ideas.

      People who think that burning books solves problems are missing the point. You don't get rid of the ideas by burning the books. You get rid of the ideas by influencing people. Would somebody raised to value all

    • It seems like you don't know what "devil's advocate style" means. The author was making the point that neither the Bible, Mein Kampf, or Das Kapital caused millions of deaths. So your post is just a restatement of what the article was already stating - except the article made the further point of bringing violent video games to the argument.

      How this got modded to +5 I do not understand. Mods and Gleng: here [reference.com]

    • Isn't there a difference between books like the Bible, which are at least by implication didactic and advocate ways to behave, and something like GTA, which is simply an artifact open to interpretation?

      To prove how rhetorical that question is, admittedly by switching genres, I remember that when Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs came out it was hailed as genius partly because it showed the real effects of being shot (in the stomach, Mr Orange IIRC), and consequently de-glamorized violence. [Yes, the ear scene

  • Rule by force is the worst example. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @10:10AM (#7866997) Journal
    When society uses law and force as the ultimate methods of control it should come as no surprise that individuals also use such methods within their micro-societies.

    Play is the freedom to act with reduced consequence. Should we proscribe playing 'cops and robbers' because it causes crime?

    What about 'hunt the WMD'?

  • Just you wait... (Score:5, Funny)

    by clambake ( 37702 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @11:08AM (#7867225) Homepage
    Just waiting for the day that a big crate of GTA CDs falls off a truck and crushes some little hatian boy to death... The "games kill" people will go nuts.

  • Don't burn libraries! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Burn churches and political institutions.

  • They haven't played GTA2 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by M3wThr33 ( 310489 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @11:38AM (#7867353) Homepage
    Just like mentioning hookers, if you have to question where the next GTA will be based you haven't played the first two.

    GTA2 had THREE cities. Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas City.
  • They should be considered weapons of mass destruction

    But damn if getting hit in the head by a hardback book doesn't hurt like the dickens..

  • Not inherently evil... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kreyg ( 103130 ) <(ac.wahs) (ta) (gyerk)> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @04:21PM (#7868824) Homepage
    When designers create a simulation that encourages experimentation, they are taking a huge authorial risk: trusting their players

    I've been thinking things like this for quite a while.

    You know what? Real Life is inherently Evil, because you can do a practically limitless number of evil things in Real Life, while you can only do a limited number of pretend evil things in GTA. Let's ban Real Life!

    GTA is inherently benign until the player actually does something (OK, there might be a little bit of nastniness in the intro). Any actually illegal, violent or Evil actions come from the player, the game isn't just sitting there being the embodiment of evil, even if you believe such a thing can exist.

    Mostly I think we should just ban anyone who can't separate reality from fantasy from playing such games, which would include pretty well everyone who is complaining about it. Oh, wait, big assumption here - that any of them have even played it so they understand what they're talking about.

    *sigh*
    • So is it possible to complete the game "legally"? If not, the game isn't exactly "inherently benign", as completion requires at least some offensive or "corrupting" actions.
      • It is what you make of it. You are not compelled to finish the game - if you don't like what you have to do, you are quite free not to do it. That was my whole point, did you miss it that completely?
        • You're also free not to eat, as long as you don't mind dying. The premise of GTA is such that you're forced into illegal behavior - you're already a criminal on the run, right? The game would be what you made of it if it allowed alternate methods of completion, like standing in line for the supermarket, and the ability to shoot at passing cars with a sniper rifle and cause all that GTA mayhem was just one option.
          • You never actually "complete" GTA. The game never ends.
            You can aim for "100% complete" if you like, but then, there's a million other stats in the game as well that you might want to aim for. Such as number of people rescued in paramedics missions.

  • Weak (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pudge ( 3605 ) * <slashdotNO@SPAMpudge.net> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @11:51PM (#7870807) Homepage Journal
    He seriously weakens his point by asserting that any books have caused any deaths. The Bible and Mein Kampf have killed no one. People use books to kill, or encourage others to kill. The book itself causes nothing.

    And in this sense, he is mostly attacking a straw man: the most serious detractors of violent video games rarely assert the games cause violence, only that they encourage violent tendencies, etc.
    • His argument isn't about GTA being a non-violent game! He's looking at why the game has been succesful. How it succeeds where Shenmue failed. Maybe if you'd actually read the article, you'd realise that.



      Why can't anyone ever talk about those aspects of GTA, instead of immediatly chiming in with "GTA doesn't cause violence, that's bullshit!"

      • Re:Weak (Score:2)

        by pudge ( 3605 ) *
        Maybe if you'd actually read the article, you'd realise that.

        Maybe if you understood what I was saying, you wouldn't have posted something that was entirely irrelevant to my post! Oopsie on you.
        • What you were saying was irrelevant - although I agree with your point. His argument was not about the violence used in the game. His article was not about the violence used in the game. That was merely a paragraph or two. But forget it.

          • Re:Weak (Score:2)

            by pudge ( 3605 ) *
            What you were saying was irrelevant

            I didn't say his whole article sucked, only that he weakened that one point. I don't think it is irrelevant.

            But forget it.

            No! YOU forget it! :)
    • Come on - he's making the point that the same people who claim that games make people killers (i.e. idiots) should also seek to ban books. Even these idiots aren't claiming that games *physically* kill anyone, rather that they incite violence. Which as he says, is clearly the case with some books.

      With your last point, I think you're making an extremely nit-picking point ... there is VERY little difference between asserting "that the games cause violence" and "that they encourage violent tendencies". I als

      • Re:Weak (Score:2)

        by pudge ( 3605 ) *
        Even these idiots aren't claiming that games *physically* kill anyone, rather that they incite violence. Which as he says, is clearly the case with some books.

        He said the books DO kill people. Please go back and read, KTHX.
        • I did read it thanks. I accept that what he wrote isn't very clear), I think it's fairly obvious what he meant (unless you get your jollies from being unnecessarily pedantic). The author doesn't appear to be completely insane so he cannot ACTUALLY be claiming that books physically kill. What he means is that books incite violence, or that they cause violence. Which is exactly what some people say about games. Which was the point of my post.

          • Re:Weak (Score:2)

            by pudge ( 3605 ) *
            What he means is that books incite violence, or that they cause violence.

            And, since he said they actually cause death, he was therefore weakening his case. Exactly.
    • He seriously weakens his point by asserting that any books have caused any deaths. The Bible and Mein Kampf have killed no one. People use books to kill, or encourage others to kill. The book itself causes nothing.
      Which is exactly the charge levelled at GTA and other video games. No one has yet suggested that anyone has died on the razor sharp edge of a GTA3 CD.

      • Re:Weak (Score:2)

        by pudge ( 3605 ) *
        Which is exactly the charge levelled at GTA and other video games.

        What I said is that the most serious detractors of these games do NOT charge this.
        • What I said is that the most serious detractors of these games do NOT charge this.
          The post-Columbine rash of people claiming that "video games made them do it" support my assertion that they do make those claims (I don't know if you class these people as "serious detractors" or not, but they were certainly highly visible). Can you produce some evidence that they do not?
  • Ok, I will be first in line to say that parents could show more miles of discretion in what they allow their children to play. I'll also be first in line to say that as an adult, violent videogames can be a great diversion - especially for those dissatisfied with office work. That said however, it strikes me as unbelievable as to how often peaceful strategies in gaming is ignored. The only FPS-type games to give it credence is Deus Ex, and even there you have to opt for the frequent take-down. This mirrors
  • Didn't someone already come out with a GTA-like game based in Springfield?

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