The Aftermath

I saw the 60 minutes report last night on the GTA murder. Overall I'd say they did a good job of presenting a global perspective on the issue. There's one thing in the report that really bugged me. It's OBVIOUS that the people debating the issues never touched a videogame before. I'll agree that you kill ALOT of cops in the GTA series, but it's unfair to describe it as a cop-killing game. They were using terms like "specifically targets cops" and whatnot. And the problem is that it's EASY to convince some old guy who doesn't play videogames that this is the truth. All you need are the right screenshots and it's over.

Cops are NOT the primary target of violence in GTA. You play a criminal, so it's obvious that cops will tend to get in the way. The report made direct reference to the "No Escape?" mission in Vice City where you break a safecracker out of jail. This mission is the perfect example of how perception can influence you. Yes, to break someone out of jail in a GTA game, you're going to kill ALOT of policemen, but they are never the mission objective. I don't think I've ever seen a mission briefing with the words "kill as many cops as possible". Also, within the grand scheme of GTA, cops will make a rather small percentage of your body count. The person in this screenshot is NOT a cop, and there are PLENTY of missions where your target is another criminal, or a civilian.



Of course, everything I'm saying is already obvious to someone who's PLAYED THE GAME. This brings up another point: alot of today's parents aren't gamers, and have never been gamers. I'll agree that keeping violent videogames out of children's hands will always be important, but I think the problem will diminish greatly once the kids who are toddlers today grow up. It's hard to be level-headed about a new medium that you've never familiarized yourself with. You're either going to ignore it (ie. parents using their kids' PS2 as a babysitter), or fear it (ie. parents believing everything they hear on the news about videogames).

Videogames started flourishing when I was still a kid. I've seen the evolution from 4-color CGA graphics all the way to 3D polygonal meshes with self-shadowing and realistic textures. I guess it was pretty safe to just let me play games without any supervision when I was a kid, but such is not the case today. Once we start seeing more parents who spent endless hours playing the games available today, the problem should diminish. I wouldn't even play GTA in front of my nieces and nephews when they were younger. And I was amazed when some of them said they'd already played.

I KNOW you have something on your mind. Say so!