Hannah Liddle

GTA IV GAME OVER?

Grand Theft Auto IV is a sandbox-style action-adventure video game and was released worldwide on the 29th April 2008 for PS3 and later was released in 2008 for Xbox 360. It includes special add ons and features such as ‘The Ballad of Gay Tony’ and ‘The Lost and Damned’. The game is set in a redesigned rendition of Liberty City, a fictional city based heavily on modern day New York City. It follows Niko Bellic, a war veteran from Serbia. He comes to the United States in search of the American Dream, but quickly becomes entan-gled in a world of gangs, crime, and corruption. The big question is, is this twisted and cor-rupted game ruining the minds and behaviour of its audience?The certificate of the game is 18, and according to research the average gamer is 28 year old males, this shows that the game is likely to contain strong language, images and per-haps nudity, not intentionally to be seen by young children, but how do we prevent the eyes of young children catching a glimpse of such crime and violence?

There are two sides to every argument. Some people such as parents, teachers and critics believe that violent games such as Grant Theft Auto cause disruption and corrupt the edu-cation of the youngsters involved in the gaming world. Violent video games get a lot of negative press coverage. There are several audience effect theories that help critics back up their view point. The desensitisation theory shows that the more mediated violence we are exposed to, the less shocked we are by it in real life, this could lead to youngsters agreeing that violence is ok and a perfectly fine way to deal with their problems in life, and could lead to an increasing percentage of crime happening in the future, this is also backed up with the copycat theory, this idea of people acting out what they see being acted in the media, this is the mostly recognised theory and gets the most coverage. Violent video games are readily blamed by the media and some experts as the reason why some youth become violent or commit extreme anti-social behavior.

‘Thailand Bans GTA in Wake of Cabbie Killing

August 5, 2008

AFP reports that Thai government officials have now banned the Grand Theft Auto series following the recent arrest of 19-year-old GTA player Polwat Chinno on murder charges.

"The police are empowered to immediately arrest shopkeepers if they find any GTA (Grand Theft Auto) games on sale," Ruangsak Jaritake, a police spokesman, told AFP.

"GTA is banned mainly because of its obscene content -- under the criminal law article 287 that prohibits reproduction, distribution or possession of such material," he said...

“Any game seller found stocking the game could be sentenced to three years in prison and a fine up to 6,000 baht (180 dollars). Stricter penalties are in place for online sellers who could receive five years imprisonment and a 100,000 baht (3,000 dollars) fine.”

Hannah Liddle

It would appear that Chinno was playing an unspecified earlier version of Gran Theft Auto - not GTA IV, given the local Thai distributor's announcement that it will not import the re-cently-released game:

The New Era Interactive Media company, the only legal distributor of the games, said ear-lier Tuesday it would remove the game from sale in Thailand.

"We have stopped selling Grand Theft Auto and inform all legal vendors to withdraw the game from their shelves," the company said in an online statement.

"The company will not import GTA 4 (the next in the series) to distribute in Thailand," it added.’

source taken from http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/08/05/thailand-bans-gta-wake-cabbie-killing

Grand Theft Auto gets negative press due to its ferocious features of third person shooters and features such as ‘open world’ graphics which make these games very realistic and easily to become absorbed in to the realism of the game.

‘Police Dismiss Video Game Link in Portland Shooting Rampage

January 30, 2009

It appears that investigators in Portland, Oregon are not focusing on rampage shooter Erik Ayala's fondness for violent video games.

[Local newspaper] The Oregonian prompted controversy on Monday, January 26, when it reported that "one of the things that bought Ayala joy" was playing violent videogames. Slater said a copy of the videogame Grand Theft Auto was found at Ayala's apartment, but said police were not pursuing a link between videogames and the shooting.

"There were a lot of videogames in the apartment," said Slater. "Of a wide variety of the kind you might find in any 24-year-old's apartment."

In regard to the video game angle, GamePolitics has learned that anti-game violence ac-tivist Jack Thompson unsuccessfully attempted to involve himself in the Ayala case. Thompson forwarded GP a copy of a January 26th e-mail in which the disbarred attorney complained to Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer that detectives weren't acting on his the-ory that video games prompted the rampage:

Dear Chief Sizer:

I have information that would be useful to establish further the apparent causal link be-tween the violent video game play of alleged killer Ayala and the recent incident at the teen club.

Some detective in the Bureau with whom I spoke has been compromised by the video game industry, and he was anticipating my call.

Hannah Liddle

I think your Bureau and you put public safety ahead of the pro-video game bias and gam-ing activities of this detective.

Please have some responsible detective contact me on this, as these incidents tied to games are popping up all over the place.  Thanks.

As GamePolitics has documented over the years, Thompson characteristically makes con-tact with law enforcement personnel in the wake of shooting rampages to suggest that vio-lent video games played a role.

Those contacts between Thompson and law enforcement officials have at times become contentious.

In 2007, for example, Thompson sued the Ohama Police Department for information con-cerning a troubled 18-year-old who opened fire at a local mall. Last year, Thompson threatened to sue the Public Safety Department of Northern Illinois University following a campus shooting spree committed by a 27-year-old man with a history of mental health problems. In both cases, the disbarred attorney sought evidence of video game play on the part of the shooters.’

However the press and critics find it easy to land the blame of crimes like these on the in-fluence of Games such as Grand Theft Auto and other third person shooting, violent games, but do not take in to consideration that the criminals are very likely to have traces of mental health problems in their genes and other problems and these lead to violent ac-tion to be committed.

An other side to this debate could be that computer games are not very educational and can disturb the minds of young children when it comes to their literacy skills. Not only video games are said to have this impact but other uses of technology such as facebook, msn and twitter. The use of short writing such as ‘laughin and u’ when texting and talking over the internet has become apparent in essay writing and other pieces of work written by youngsters. This can be seen as a major problem when it comes to the education of these people. On the other hand many scientists and psychologists find that video games actu-ally have many benefits – the main one being making kids smart.  Video games may actu-ally teach kids high-level thinking skills that they will need in the future.

Apprently video games give your brain a real workout as in many video games, the skills required to win involve abstract and high level thinking such as quick thinking, multitasking, strategy, estimating, mapping and many more. Often video games come with a story line in which you have to follow to complete the mission which also includes a lot of reading and thinking.

Technology in this day and age is constantly improving and becoming more sophisticated, this allows gamers to computer technology and the online world. Finally, and this is a very controversial point, but violent video games may act as a release of built up aggression and frustration in yourself and video games such as GTA allow this diffuse of stress. Games can provide a positive aggression outlet the same way as football and other violent sports.

I personally believe that video games do not have such a large impact on gamers behav-iours, no tests or proper research has been carried out to prove this theory, and I believe that serious crimes committed by gamers are caused by other elements such as mental ill-

Hannah Liddle

nesses or traces of aggression in the family tree. However games can have a slight impact on younger children when it comes to making moral decisions and games can blur their concept of right and wrong, however proper teaching and parenting can easily control the actions carried out by young children that are seen as violent or vicious.