regarding GTA IV and the morality patrol

With GTA IV coming out tomorrow, the usual gang of idiots are up in arms about how this game will lead to the end of civilization as we know it, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, etc. As I said in my PAX keynote, this sort of moralistic chest-thumping makes me a little stabby:

Whenever I hear [Hillary Clinton, Jack Thompson, etc.] pontificate about how dangerous and antisocial and devoid of redeeming qualities video games are, I get a little stabby, because these games we love to play are much, much more than the simplistic bloodbaths Mass Media likes to portray them as during May sweeps.

Just as the multiplayer games are social activities, so are the single-player games narrative works of art, and they should be treated that way.

The hysteria surrounding the release of GTA IV has officially crossed into the realm of the absurd as moralizing groups of busybodies lead (shockingly) by Fox News successfully forced the transit authorities in Chicago to pull GTA IV ads from their buses. In Miami, professional attention whore Jack Thompson forced the Miami-Dade transit authority to yank GTA IV ads from bus shelters.

Can I just take a moment and point out how insane this is? This type of hysterical overreaction to a video game is completely out of proportion to any alleged harm it could inflict on anyone, but is accepted because it is done, as it always is, in the name of protecting The Children.

Yeah, it's always about protecting The Children, which leads me to wonder where The Parents are, and if these people are so serious about making the world better for The Children, why they don't invest the same amount of energy and resources into securing quality healthcare and world-class education for them as they spend wringing their hands over video games that aren't even supposed to be played by The Children in the first place.

As numerous others have pointed out, there was nothing offensive or suggestive in the ads that were pulled, but the spineless cowards responsible for running them instantly caved to the slightest pressure from the self-appointed morality patrol. I wonder how much revenue these cities lost because of this? GTA IV is rated M, the equivalent of R, so does that mean that all these cities will start removing advertising for movies that aren't appropriate for children? What about advertising for fast food and junk food and alcohol? Surely those are all things which could cause harm to children, right? If they don't instantly remove all the advertising from city buses that may offend anyone, what will we tell The Children?!

Surely, I'm not the only guy in the room who sees how absurd this whole thing is, right? Please tell me that I'm not, and I'll stop calling you Shirley.

I've said that this behavior can be equated to the Satanic Panic of the 80s. Leslie Benzies, the president of Rockstar North, took it even further back and said that all this hysteria is just like the Elvis Panic of the 50s:

[GTA IV critics are] the same kind of people who complained about Elvis… There is a big fear factor here. It’s [like] the coming of the railways, it’s Elvis shaking his hips. It’s cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode.

We’ve had such a beating over the past three years, by the US government, the British government, the Daily Mail. ‘You kill prostitutes’ – that’s usually the objection. I ask if they’ve ever played the game. Invariably they haven’t.

In my PAX Keynote, I said:

Speaking of parents and children and video games and opportunistic, pandering politicians: it’s none of their fucking business what I choose to play with my kids, and I wish they’d stop trying to tell me – and everyone else by extension – what my kids can and can’t play. I didn’t let my kids play violent or graphic games when they were too young to understand what the game was about because I’m a good parent who is involved in his kids’ lives, not because some idiot politician tried to score easy political points with the authoritarian 20 percenters who think censorship is totally awesome.

Let me point you to a great bit of satire, Celebrating 30 years of video games killing children. It starts with Space Invaders ("This will clearly make children think they can get another life after they die, thereby causing kids to start killing themselves in droves thinking that they can instantly come back to life!") and ends with GTA IV:

Studies now show that the average video game player is not a child at all and that their average age is actually 34. Considering this alarming data -- along with our history of pandering for votes by portraying gamers as evil, psychopathic, nut jobs for more than a quarter of a century now -- we have determined the obvious course of action: To protect our political careers, it is imperative that we raise the voting age to 35!

That's what this usually comes down to: people who genuinely don't understand what's going on having their fears exploited by people with an authoritarian agenda, who really aren't as interested in protecting The Children as they are in expanding and strengthening their power. That offends me even more than the spineless cowards who are letting people like Jack Thompson set the agenda for the rest of us.

According to Richard Bartle, though, the age of pandering politicians attacking video games and video gamers to score points with those 20 percenters isn't just coming to an end, it's already over :

We've Won. Get Over It.
I'm talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you've already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you're gone.

[...]

Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks games are fun and cool, and you don't. Those born in 1990 get the vote this year.

[...]

This anxiety you sense, this fear of what you don't comprehend: hey, it's OK. Parents who didn't play computer games do feel alienated, do feel isolated from their children; they do feel frightened, and naturally so, because they can't keep their children safe if they don't understand what they're keeping them safe from.

GTA IV will be officially available in about 7 hours here in Los Angeles, but is just 4 terrifying hours away in New York. How will our nation survive this great terror? Will we be able to Keep Calm and Carry On?

Rockstar's Dan Houser:

The ‘controversy’ story gets a bit frustrating… if this was a movie, a book, or a TV show, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’re an easy enemy to divert everyone’s attention from the stuff that really matters.

There’s an argument that video games have caused this massive upsurge in youth violence–they haven’t, it’s actually gone down. So it’s got nothing to do with the content; it’s to do with the medium.

So the self-proclaimed morality police can just calm down. Relax. The Children are going to be just fine, no thanks to them . . .  especially the ones whose parents have responsibly taken an active role in their lives.

Comments

[esmerel]

A freakin men. I admit, my husband is kinda sad. We have a kid about to have her first birthday and he really doesn't feel comfortable playing a game like GTA IV in front of her. He loves the series, but being a good parent? Yeah, it means more than just changing diapers. So we may, or we may not get GTA IV soon. And he'll take a lot longer to play it because hey, she's too little to be exposed to that kind of thing. We don't need any morality police to tell us that.

[Starr01]

preach on Wil! I agree video games are not the problem at all.

[Incredible EDBeale]

Right on!

[Alan]

As numerous others have pointed out, there was nothing offensive or suggestive in the ads that were pulled

I think they might be against immigrants.

(You know, because the main character is a new immigrant.)

[Terry O]

GTA is coming to Australia censored. Apparently our idiotic film board (who banned Ken Park all so long ago) think we can't handle the game in its uncut glory. You Americans are lucky. Things pass so much easier over there. If something doesn't sit right with these group of conservative morons, it's banned outright. Games included. You know all those "unrated" films that get released after the film is finished in the movie cinemas? Not so here. Each one needs to pass review. I'm curious to find out how much is taken out of the new GTA. It's pathetic.

[Steeljack]

"This has all happened before, and will all happen again."

This week's of WNYC's On The Media featured a piece on similar hysteria revolving around comic books in the 1950s:

Comics on the Stand

Come to that, I remember adults harshing my Saturday-morning cartoon-watching mellow by theatrically fretting that my little six-year-old mind might lack the sophistication to understand that falling of a cliff, being flattened by a truck, or holding a detonating stick of dynamite were fatal events in the real world.

Sadly, there was a sophistication I did lack at the time: that necessary to say, "Hey, if you're all done grandstanding while I'm trying to watch freakin' cartoons, I'd like to enjoy the Road Runner in peace now, Mmmkay?" More's the pity.

[zizban]

I wouldn't let my daughter play this game but that's what these nutjobs don't get. Responsibility for what your child plays, or watches or listens to falls on you. If you are an active and interested parent, like I am, like most of us are, what your kid does isn't a great mystery.

It's parents who neglect doing their jobs is what the issue is here.

We don't need right wingers all up in arms; we just need parents who do their jobs. Problem solved.

[Magic_Al]

I share the view that demographics will gradually cure this disease. In the United States we're lucky the First Amendment is interpreted broadly enough that there can be no actual censorship (as in, legally banning a game from publication, period). In Australia, the censorship system simply denies the existence of grown-up video games. Although movies can be rated for 18-year-olds, a video game too intense for 15-year-olds can't be rated and thus can't be sold. And thanks for logistics and region locking, poor New Zealand is unwillingly stuck with censored-for-Australia games. I'm so very happy Jack Thompson and friends are merely a nuisance to Americans. Other countries are actually ruled by his ilk.

[Macros]

@Terry O: Here in NZ, we're getting the cut-down Aussie version... and it's STILL rated R18!!

[ChrisW]

And, anyway, aren't kids going to need this kind of early indoctrination into urban warfare? I mean, by the time this generation's crop of The Children turn 18, they'll all be drafted anyway.

Unless maybe the powers that be want them to come to the real violence "pure". Untainted by the fake kind.

[zizban]

By the way, The newest Time gave this game a good review, praising among other things, its artistic merit. There is hope.

[The Domestic Goddess]

Amen, brother Wil. You've said EXACTLY what I've been trying to say.
Don't like it? DOn't let your kids play it. WTF is wrong with those people anyways?

[gleek]

it has always been my opinion that the more you tell a kid that they can't have something, the more that kid wants it. barring letting a 1-year old play with knives (or other such imminently dangerous instruments) i say, let them play, but only when the parent can be around to head off bad behavior before it can happen.

[Rick Gregory]

What always amuses me about these crusades is that The Parents this time WERE The Children previously. And they turned out fine.... so....

[Robert Aitchison]

I let even my 10 year old play rated M games such as Bioshock or Call of Duty or even the hardcore sex-fest known as Mass Effect ;) , but other games, such a GTA or Crackdown we don't even allow in the house.

Of course far be it from me to decide for other parents what is or isn't appropriate for their kids.

As always, Jack Thompson can suck my balls.

[Celtic Mama]

Right on Wil! There are kids in my son's 6th grade class who have played GTA. That just means either their parents didn't know or didn't care. I won't let my son play it. When the price on the PS2's dropped and they got skinny a few years back my hubby bought one specifically so he could play GTA in the privacy of the basement where the kids wouldn't know or see it. If you don't want your kid to see it or be exposed to it, don't expose them to it! Don't buy it. Make sure if they go to someone's house that parent is told that he can't play it. But don't deprive the adult population who are old enough and responsible enough to know reality from a video game. The kids who go nuts and shoot people didn't do it because they played video games. They did it because they had some screws loose. Rock Star must have some great mind control device implanted in these games with all the power the politicians think the GTA franchise has. You guys should consider wearing a tin foil hat when you play! :-)

[Stickmann]

I would like to call everyone's attention to THE scene that made me a fan of the TV show "Action" starring Jay Mohr. It's from the pre-credits sequence of the fourth episode, I believe, and perfectly crystalizes the arguments and vitriol when media violence gets politicized. These particular scene really gets rolling about halfway through when Peter is asked about his daughter, and then just accelerates from there.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NL0SILzGs4g

Keep in mind: this clip is from *1999*.

[Blinkie]

I swear, I don't understand the mentality of the person who looks at a game like GTA, dislikes the content, and then IMMEDIATELY decides that the proper response is to try to get it banned and to vilify those who play it.

Instead of, you know ... not buying it. And discussing with their kids that they are not allowed to play it because of specific elements of the content. And offering to help them find a more suitable game instead.

But then, I also noticed that the earlier GTA games got only mild complaints until the nudity mod came out. Up until then, the fact that its very title is a felony that you repeatedly perform for points in the game wasn't an issue. But as soon as there's pixilated bewbs, ZOMG TEH CHILDRENS!

Anyone who lacks the testicular fortitude to tell their kids "No, you can't play that game" should not have reproduced.

[billsimmon]

I think the current video game scare is most reminiscent of the comic book scare of the 1950s -- Frederick Wertham and EC Comics and the Comics Code Authority and all that. Just as with the comics scare, video games are perceived as being primarily "for kids," which fuels the "protect The Children" flames you so rightly criticize. The adults who rail against GTA would roll their eyes at your suggestion that the games in question are "art" or anything other than prurient trash. The more things change...

[Gandalfe]

I recall reading (I believe it was in Atlantic Monthly a few months ago, but I'm probably wrong) about how not new under the sun this is. Besides the examples you cited (Satanic bands in the '80s, Elvis in the 50s, comic books also in the 40s and 50s), NOVELS were the cause of much concern at the turn of the last century. That's right. Novels.

C'mon, what parent of a young child today wouldn't be thrilled if their 8 year old willingly picked up, say, a Wrinkle in Time and read it for pleasure?

Here's an interesting article about obscenity law. A bit self-congratulatory, but interesting nonetheless.
http://www.columbialawreview.org/pdf/Koppelman-Web.pdf

[ALRO]

To think that with all the shit going on in the world that deserves our undivided attention... GTA IV is the one thing people pick on as being "immoral" and "child warping"???
C'Mon folks... gimme a break!!!

When idiots are calling into a Daughtry & Bon Jovi Concert threatening a bomb threat ???? this is not the video game generation threatening concerts and such.. we would never do that!!! We're all about 'community'...

I think some parents are far too quick to push responsibility onto others rather than themselves!!!!

you, of all people wil, have proven that a well-adjusted parent can bridge the age-gap in gaming... Your Kids (and they are YOURS dude) are well adjusted, self-thinking, responsible kids... and good on you for judging appropriately on that.

gah.. i'm just ranting... i don't want to sound like I'm preaching... but cripes - shit like this really bugs me... i fully believe that parents don't give their kids enough credit...

I'm not saying that a 4 year old should be playing GTA -- i'm not an idiot.. but i don't think that a government should have the right to censor a 'game'. More and more, the powers that be simply do not trust that we can raise our own children, all the while, they feel free to send them off over seas at risk of death...

I feel a song coming on....

"I am a hipocrite...
"Feeling free
"Feeling free
"My son holding the M16
"In the face of a stranger
"But i feel free!!"

Oh ya.. Can we feel the irony ?!??

[Queen of the Harpys]

You aren't the only one to notice the hype. I know many people who never look at the games their kids or grandkids ask for. They pay no attention to the rating system at all. (Of course, I think they should have used the movie rating system for games and music as well, if they were going to rate them anyway. KISS) Many stores won't sell the games to the kids, but freely hand it over to grandma. I'm not saying adults shouldn't be able to buy such things for their kids if they want, but sometimes I think they should have to preview it first.

We are picking up GTA IV tomorrow, and we will probably do the same thing we did before. Whenever the kid comes into the room, unless we are driving in the car, the game will be paused. (She's 8.)

I am an adult and having a kid doesn't mean I should stop enjoying stuff containing adult material. However, as an adult and parent, I am responsible for what my child encounters on my tv, computer and game system. Me, not politicians, not their wives.

[GobTheIllusionist]

Curse those Republican Space Rangers!

You my peace-loving alien friend, are completely right on the money with this post.

Go Wil, Go!

[Erin :)]

Is anybody else struck by the fact that the people who want to ban stuff like GTA are the same people who say that they are in favor of smaller government/nobody can tell me what to do in my own home?

But you know, Harry Potter encourages kids to worship the devil and just watching Elvis's hips can get you pregnant...right?

[wandrew]

Reminds me of those moments on *The Simpsons* when, in the midst of a discussion of a crisis, someone--usu. Mrs. Lovejoy--cries: "Won't somebody PLEASE think about the children?" You can see people's brains shutting down all around her. This is the same kind of logic, BTW, that produced the disaster @ Mt. Carmel in 1993. Won't get into a rant, and clearly both sides made mistakes, but one side had more guns than the other and CS gas to use against women and children who did not have gas masks. This fact was known by the FBI *and* Ms Reno, but she authorized its use anyway.
So it doesn't surprise me to hear people up in arms about GTA IV, while saying re the Davidians that "They looked too weird--it served them right."
(20 Altarian dollars to the first person to ID the author of that quote. BTW, 20 Alterian dollars= 1 US nickel.)