I always felt coarsened; dirtier and dumber after playing some of the earlier incarnations of GTA.
While I agree with you simply because it is base trash, I would be interested in your view of playing “Thief: The Dark Engine”.
If you’re a believer,
read Ephisians 5 and 6 and get back to us with the answer to whether you should play GTA.
I played it several years ago and felt like I’d been engaging in some sort of violent pornographic venture.
Carolyn
I think you are WAY over-analyzing this.
If you’re uncomfortable playing the game, don’t play it.
It’s not exactly one of the great philosophical questions of this Age.
All those ghosts I ate playing Pac Man...I’m so ashamed!!!
That's exactly where the freedom of choosing meets the burden of self-responsibility.
I enjoy playing computer games once in a while. Unfortunately the best games all seem to have been written in the past, and the new ones don’t seem to be worth getting.
It’s too bad that a game with good graphics and competent story line should be pornographic and morally ugly.
For what its worth I played one of the earlier GTA vehicles (so to speak). I enjoyed the missions as a driving challenge, and really enjoyed driving around to the sounds of “Speed Demon” and “Take it to the Limit”. I didn’t notice any dark side to the game, though its possible I wasn’t paying attention.
Maybe the later GTAs are worse, but games just don’t get made over a certain rating as WalMart won’t sell them. I would guess that the game is going to be ‘cleaner’ than you might expect from the advertising and the hype.
Your due diligence does you credit BTW.
It's true, as the apologists say, that playing violent games or watching violent movies won't cause someone to go out and commit violence. It's also true that to look at today's youth and the violence that they seem to embrace is to look into the abyss. The abyss of morality, of ethics, of self-reflection, of the post-modern.
While I can't in good faith call for the censorship of games like GTA, I can morn the loss of the traditions and morality that once would have made its existence unthinkable. And to those who think I'm being melodramatic, I hear in the background of their smug assurances of worldliness, the sound of fiddling, and Rome burning.
I’d play it, but I’m Nintendo-only.
I have shot down over 10,000 aircraft in various air combat simulations. Some went down with no parachute so we gotta assune they died. Does all that killing mean I am a bad person?
No, I don’t think you should.
Not because I think it is necessarily inherently bad, but because if you are unsure, the best answer is a simple “no”.
The game is getting incredible reviews.
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/grandtheftauto4
Supposed to be one of the most impressive games ever created.
Do the bad guys win more or the cops in the latest versions? I played the very first version and being the bad guy and bad at games, I was always killed.
Personally — I don’t buy it. I am an occasional video-game player, and though I have not played GTA ... I have played some violent games with definite adult content (God of War, for instance — a game that I cannot recommend highly enough). I am a conservative, a Christian, etc., and I just don’t buy that this particular video game (due to crudity, lust, whatever) is much of a concern for an adult mind. Children are a different situation entirely.
The analogous situation, to me, would be movies. I watch relatively violent movies, where foul language is fairly common, and occasional nudity/lust is certainly not unheard of. Among my favorite movies of late is The Departed — the language is consistently objectionable, and the movie is a general bloodbath ... but, like GTA, it is a genuinely good movie. Gladiator, Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, 300 and The Patriot were all bloodbaths. All are still entirely worth seeing. Despite my movie preferences, I remain the strong Christian conservative I was before viewing them.
I simply don’t buy that people of otherwise strong morality can be unwantingly corrupted by movies, video games, or even the occasional adult feature (which my wife and I have been known to very occasionally partake).
Weak moral conviction or weak marriages might be succeptible — truly strong values are likely not. Like money, “corrupting influences” do not destroy morality in men — they may simply expose deficiencies that were always there.
H
I learned a long time ago that if I have to question whether I should do something......
I probably shouldn’t do it.....
That stated, I don’t always listen to my own advice......
I scrolled about half way down and read all the negativity about games and such, but I’ll comment anyway...
GTA is a riot... All of them... I play them now that I have won them all, just to see the extreme depths of the games program.
Coming from the era of pac man and space invaders, and then picking up a game where you can steal cars, do drive by’s, hit jumps and do barrel rolls in cars and trucks, is cool. Am I now a mind full of mush because of it? No. I ain’t no different than before I picked up a PS2 controller.
For all the naysayers around here that say this is “Bad for someone” is down right silly...
You don’t wanna play video games, don’t play. Although this author set him self up as first person, he is still sending a message. A message that I for one think is a waste of time...
Excellent and insightful essay.
These are works of fiction. Yes they do desensitize people, but that's not a bad thing. Too many people today are wimps and do not deal with adversity. That is one reason why Iraq is such a struggle. The American people as a whole, and especially the politicians, are not tough enough to handle long wars.
I've never murdered anybody. I've never run over a person. I've never slept with a prostitute. I've never stolen a car. These things happen in GTA games. I've played those games, but did not do the things afterward.