I do agree that some people out there crying loud against this and that are hypocrite or with double standard. However, there's an argument that Jim uses over and over, and I don't quite agree: do u always have to have first hand experience in order to comment/criticize something?

Hi JW, as someone who does reviews I do tend to go with the idea that you should have first hand experience to criticize. I guess there might be some areas where this wouldn't apply, things that have high barriers, such as space flight.
But with a generally available popular medium like games, I definitely think there should be first hand experience, not necessarily with GTA but at least with some games of a similar nature and design.
To continue with the movies comparison, imagine if there was someone who was highly critical of movies and loudly stated that they were worthless and damaging to people. Now imagine that that person admits that they have never actually seen any movie (though they have seen snippets and had movies described to them by others).
Do you think that person would get any attention by the media or newspapers? More likely they would be laughed at.
I don't see why it should be any different for video games.

I'm a 40 year old gal who's been playing video games since Atari 2600 and I am a pen and paper D&D player.

Video & RPG games let me vent my office frustrations in a safe way that doesn't hurt anyone and, as a bonus, they let me explore my story telling creativity as well as develop problem solving and teamwork skills

People need to take personal responsiblity for their actions and stop blaming games, music, movies, tv, and comic books for their bad behavior

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I can absolutely, positively, legitimately criticize prostitution without ever having had any "first-hand" experience with it. (And I have no intention of ever getting that experience.)

Similarly, with "pre-emptive" military actions against sovereign nations on the basis of paranoid fears over WMDs and terrorist associations.

Similarly, with capital punishment. (I have no intention of ever pressing a button to release poison, gas, electricity, or trap doors.)

Shall I go on?

In response to Richard Eng above:

I think your missing the point a bit when talking about prostitution, wmds, capital punishment. We dont need to see or experience these things to take a moral decision.

What Jim and JW are saying is the people that make the decisions to ban games usually don't even play them and simply base their decisions on what others tell them.

Now, as an experienced gamer I can see the logic in making these games 16+, 17+, 18+ or whatever but this needs to be enforced properly because at the moment its not effective.

A parting comment:

I have always been of the view that these idiots that take a shotgun to school or w/e then blame it on music, games, films etc ....are essentially disturbed people who would have committed crimes regardless of a fun game.

The opposite is more true. Think of all the leading techie people out there now, these "geeks" you went to school with, who wore all the black clothes and mascara....who think nothing of 4 or 5 hour gaming sessions, going to lan parties etc

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOW THE "SUITS" COMMANDING THE BIG WAGES AND HAVE VERY BALANCED, HAPPY LIVES, PURSUING THINGS THAT INTEREST AND CHALLENGE THEM.

Agreed. I can't help but remember the whole FoxNews/MassEffect diabolical.

Agreed too. People still judge games as kids media and cannot except that the fact that it is something that has been enjoyed by adults over the years.

i bet in 20 years time when the next generation rule the world there will be more sense in arguing the content of a certain entertainment piece because of the way the whole generation is brought up.

now we just need to stand up hard on these crappy politicians that want to divert people from the real problem, themselves, their bad judgment on far more important issues, and their stupidity :)

I may be missing the point, however my understanding of GTA is that it tends to glorify violence, crime, etc. I am not sure that in today's society where persons are regularly victimized by crime that this is entirely appropriate.

I also believe that a large problem with these type of games is that they tend to get played by kids who shouldn't - age restrictions mean very little in the average home due to parental ignorance or lack of interest.

Should the state be involved with this - not sure, but someone needs to take responsibility, and if not the state then whom? Remember, a lot of stuff goes under the banner of 'Freedom of Speech/Expression!' - with that freedom, responsibility must come, otherwise anarchy and chaos are not far off!!

Something to think about maybe!

Regards,

Michael (from RSA)

I may be missing the point, however my understanding of GTA is that it tends to glorify violence, crime, etc. I am not sure that in today's society where persons are regularly victimized by crime that this is entirely appropriate.

I also believe that a large problem with these type of games is that they tend to get played by kids who shouldn't - age restrictions mean very little in the average home due to parental ignorance or lack of interest.

Should the state be involved with this - not sure, but someone needs to take responsibility, and if not the state then whom? Remember, a lot of stuff goes under the banner of 'Freedom of Speech/Expression!' - with that freedom, responsibility must come, otherwise anarchy and chaos are not far off!!

Something to think about maybe!

Regards,

Michael (from RSA)

People still judge games like this as kid's media because kids do play them! Several of my co-workers are incredibly proud of how adept their little kids - as young as 5 or 6 - are at violent first-person shooters on the PC and consoles. These are IT professionals who savor the idea of their sons joining them in brutally killing on-screen opponents.

(By the way, there's even some hypocrisy in this situation, because none of the aforementioned guys who proudly proclaim their son's first-person shooter prowess have, to the best of my knowledge, allowed their daughters to engage in similar gameplay. If blowing Nazis away with a sniper rifle is okay for little boys, why not girls?)

I don't know that you can draw a line directly from videogame violence to real world violence, but at a minimum, you must admit that kids today are far more desensitized to violence than any generation preceding - and I think videogames do laregly factor into that.

Given that we can't seem to trust many (most?) parents to be good technology stewards, then yes, we do have cause to villainize videogames. There needs to be something done to keep this stuff out of the hands of children & teens.

By the way, I'm not sure I'd altogether agree that "The Departed" glorifies violence & sexual content in the same way as the GTA series. But again, how many 6 year old kis were in the theater watching that movie?

I grew up playing cowboy and indians, watching Roy Rogers and Gene Autry movies. I also played with trucks. Somehow I never managed to strap on a six shooter nor become a trucker. My son who is now 20 and grew up with all the "bad" games is a responsible well adjusted man. Horror movies are just that. Movies. Violent games are just that. Games. And by the way fellow I used to live with 3 prostitutes. And I must say I enjoyed their company. They are mostly very genuine people with good hearts, filling a niche. And unlike the frat girls gone wild type black out drinkers that are normal, at least they always use condoms. As to the people who bad mouth anything without first hand knowledge, well let me quote the last line of the article. Or say what the author probably meant to say. If you don't know what you're talking about, then STFU! Now if you would excuse me, I've got to go load my H&K 9mm and find some heathen red skins to kill...

TO Michael and Rob O. I totally agree that kids shouldn't play any of the GTA games. And I don't think kids should see violent films like the Departed. And I don't think they should read books like American Psycho. There's also some explicit cutting edge art that very young kids shouldn't see.
All that said, all of these art forms should exist without restrictions on the ability of adults to see them and the same is true for games.
Now if you think all of these art forms should be severely restricted with the type of "crime to provide to kids" laws that have been proposed for games, well, I disagree with you but at least I respect the purity of your argument.
But most people won't make that argument. They'll treat games as different from movies and books and that is wrong and hypocritical.

Equating playing games with real world violence is a simplistic cop-out that assumes game players have moronic intellects and cannot distinguish between imaginary and real. I really feel games should be extended the same protection given to literary works. Games are a type of media that deserves protection as a form of expression. The marketplace will reward quality and dump trash more effectively than any attempt to censor gaming. Censorship may in fact glamorize the worst games: it certainly does not keep people--even underage kids--from obtaining them. If parents are really concerned about their children, they will teach them to look for quality, values, etc. when choosing their entertainment. That's what I tried to teach my son, and I'm confident he will be able to decide for himself what sort of games or entertainment is appropriate.

What remarkable arrogance and ignorance Mr Rapoza displays. He has no way of judging the technological background of those who feel that GTA is culture degenerating piece of work.

Whether people who like I do, feel that this is a piece of mind and moral subverting crap may have a greater of lesser or greater facility with technology than Mr Rapoza is quite beside the point. First it might behoove Mr Rapozato to study logic before putting forth all sorts of fallacious arguments. He'll never be worth beans as a programmer other wise.

Now Mr Rapoza can wrap himself in any piece of degenerate garbage as his passion that he wishes, this is after all a nation of liberty where people can choose their own salvation and their own hell. But I have no idea how many children Mr Rapoza has, but I have several of various ages, who were encouraged to read books, rather than spend their time uselessly practicing immoral mayhem.

For that matter I don't have a great opinion of "Pulp Fiction" or The Departed either, Mr Rapoza trying to set up a straw man argument here is ludicrous, rather than debating the issue.

Col. Dave Grossman's work on the amount of conditioning required to enable people to becomre reliable killers of other people in war, has led to the use of video games, as a desensitizing mechanism and practice to lower the natural inhibitions most people have at dealing violence to others. In other words Games as GTA are becoming the way we are training our people in the armed forces to deal death, without compassion or compunction intervening. Mr Rapoza doubtlessly has as little experience of war as he does of logic, but he might do 30 seconds of research before he defends his obsessions.

GTA nor other games like it have no clean bill of health, in terms of their ability to callous their users to the suffering and humanity of those about them. They don't elevate intellect, morals or spirit. They do nothing to repair the world. They are the refuge of those who engage in a peculiar kind of addictive mental masturbation, rather than being something positive of the tapestry of creation.

Frankly the whole genre sucks and I have no time for it's fervent fanatics. You can all mind rot in this garbage. Just do it in the privacy of your own closed up rooms.

Banning? We can't ban garbage, for the simple reason that we need the principle of liberty to protect that which is of value from being banned. But don't pretend that material like GTA is anything but waste and garbage. In 3000 years there will be no universities giving it a moment, while Gilgamesh will still still stir minds and hearts and senibility.

As is so often the case, people cry hypocrisy when criticized. The simple truth is that I don't have to watch my son or grandson play the game, much less to play the game myself, to observe their behavior is crude, crass, and out of character with everything in the household. We have found a new way to 'tune in, turn on -- and tune out' our families neighbors and friends. When a production company folds, because the film they were supposed to be working on languishes in post-production, because the employees are too busy playing video games, it is a problem, not just for the production company, but for the actors and crew that were depending on the film to succeed for payment and exposure.

That is not hypocrisy, it is observation of the real world. It would appear gamers are recycling the same argument that druggies of the '60s and '70s used -- 'don't knock it 'til you've tried it.' The argument is no more sound for one that it was for the other. I don't need to try either 'drug' to observe its effect on those who do. When their behavior is degraded after using the 'drug', there is a correlation. Repeated correlations in a number of subjects constitute a trend and make it forgivable for us to conclude that there may be a cause and effect relationship.

Great post man,

People need to take responsiblity for their actions and stop blaming games,movies, and comic books for their bad behavior

It is just me, or does it seem inane to assume that in a household where kids' videogame habits aren't supervised that their movie habits would be? How much of an effect could exposure to movies depicting truly life-like mutilations, executions, shootings, and physical violence have on a person young or old? That's a parenting issue, not a freedoms issue.

The truth is that a person with mental problems, who lacks the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality can be influenced by almost any media. They have nearly unfettered access to music that glorifies and advocates violence, drug use and promiscuity. Sick people need help, and to assume that they won't have any issues or commit any heinous crimes becuase they aren't exposed to violent vidoegames is akin to making the argument that Hilter would have been a nice guy if only he hadn't been bullied as a kid.

As a parent I'm well aware of the effects of some movies/games/music/books on my young children. In some cases I am personally apalled at the content distributed in the name of 'art', but my kids are going to be exposed to those things at one time or another and in increasing amounts. I have decided to take these opportunities to explain to my kids my own worldview, and hopefully steer them toward a happy middleground.

So your whole argument in favor of GTA4 is that since someone else glorifies violence and debauchery that you should be able to as well without criticism? Get real. I would also point out that the Academy Awards are hardly a thermometer of what is societally acceptable.

Jim,

Either you are joking, or you emitted a bogon (quantum of bogusity). Surely you thought of a comparison along the lines of "If you don't rob old ladies to buy meth, crack, and junk each day, don't gripe about those of us who do".

I can't find anywhere in this article where I say that since movies like the Departed have violence then it is OK for GTA to have violence. The point is that they need to be treated in the same way. Some states have proposed laws that would make it a felony for a retailer to sell what is essentially a rated R game to a minor. Now if you support this law and also think that if a movie theater owner lets minors into a rated R movie they should also be charged with a felony, then I at least respect your position (though I don't agree with it). However, if you think that video games should be treated differently, then I think its hypocritical.

@ Ty Enright :

When the military train cadets they don't put them on a computer game for a certain amount of time then ship them off to war. There is a lot of psychology and physical training of weapons involved. Does every cadet get trained on computer games? I don't think so. Pushing the X button does not teach me how to fire a weapon. Pushing the Triangle button does not teach me to reload an assault rifle.

You blab about fallacy and lack of logic yet you are so willing to believe affirmative categorical propositions as truth based on them being universal within your social network.

When I play GTA I don't kill people, I communicate with algorithms. It's people like you that see the danger of games crossing over into the real world that worries me. 100% of gamers that I know (over one hundred people) do not even consider this a reality yet people like yourself do not only consider it but state it as fact. It's your way of viewing the world that worries me more than a kid that got his/her hands on a violent computer game.

There are two dangerous ways of thinking floating around our society at the moment; one is making the Government surrogate parents because we are too career focused to parent properly and the second one is people banning or removing other's rights because they think their views of reality are the only correct ones in existence.

The military has used violent video games in the past to experiment on desensitizing soldiers therefor violent video games train children to kill like soldiers? This is what you say in the guise of intellect and at the same time preach about other people arguing with fallacy O.o

Games don't cause violence. The selfish way we are taught to look at the world from an early age and the competitive nature of our culture (must get money and be respected at all costs is winning at life) are the root of most acts of anti-social and criminal behavior.

Stop blaming things you don't like, understand or enjoy as the cause for societies problems.

I am all for new laws restricting the sale of mature content to minors across all mediums of entertainment. I however am not keen on having my right to view such material taken away from me by some self-righteous person that refuses to think for himself and judge the reality of the situation in a logical way.