I actually wanted do respond to the article itself first, but this particular sentence made me cringe so much that it will get top priority from me:

“As to the Call of Duty airport massacre, at least the game makers did give the player the choice to not do it and it not effect the game’s story line.They recognized the ugly nature of the task at hand.”

So, you are actually saying that it’s okay to include such a playable scene just because it’s skippable? You do know that it only was made skippable after massive complaints about the scene, do you? It’s also still part of the game’s plot.
The game makers could also have easily opted not to make this kind of scene at all. But hey, if you want to make sure your game gets lots of attention, you gotta need some controversy, right?

Anyway, after that short rant, now to the article itself.

As I already stated, I never played Grand Theft Auto myself. It’s partly because I usually play on Nintendo systems, and I only bought a PS3 for a few games which aren’t available for the Wii (U), but it’s mostly because “gangster ballade” theme that is common to the series that doesn’t appeal to me. I do like the sandbox genre itself though, since I’m a huge fan of Minecraft (of course, comparing these two games is a huge stretch) and I also like LEGO City Undercover, which is essentially like GTA (except it’s with LEGO figures and thus kid-friendly, it’s also full of pop culture shout outs and parodies).

Your article is very interesting, as it brings the “violence in video games” debate from a more understandable (and genuinely more justified) point of view than the “violent video games are evil!” complaints.

What irks me however is how frequently you disagree on how the setting of GTA is intended to be satirical. I don’t want to get into a deep argument about this since I can hardly judge it by myself, but satire is sometimes rather subtle. You also overlook in your definition of satire that a major aspect of video games is the incorporation of the player, and if the developer keeps that in mind, they can use it for great emotional effect.

A very good example for incorporating the player is Shadow of the Colossus -- the game manages to make you feel sorry for the huge colossi you slay without forcing that guilt on you. And yet, you keep hunting them to reach the initial goal of the plot, no matter the cost.

Granted, SotC is more of a melancholic fantasy tale, but the same concept of incorporating a player (and his feelins) can be used for the intend of satire or parody.

Anoter thing of importance is, that GTA seems to make it (despite all it’s similiarities) very clear that it’s a fictional story. As stated by others, it mocks the society in which it takes place.

And while it might sound lame, there’s also the important fact that there’s still a huge difference between real violence and beating up a random NPC (be it just a civilian or an actual enemy) in a video game… both in the general context and to the player itself. The victim of the latter isn’t much more than a bunch of polygons with a written AI, who simply exists within the game’s setting for a more or less specific purpose, and enemies in particular are not much more than obstacles from that point of view, as they don’t serve any other purpose than that of preventing the player from proceeding further in the game, thus killing is just defeating that obstacle. Going on a rampage through a bunch of NPCs is usually not much more than going crazy und doing stuff that you would never do in real life simply because you can do it in a video game.

That said, I personally don’t like video games who are over the top violent, especially not if it’s a somewhat realistic scenario.

I won’t pretend I don’t like a good ol’ shoot out, and again R* have borrowed the better mechanics from their other games, but just because I can bludgeon a random in the street, would I want to? No, not even in the virtual. And therein I see your argument; the option is there. It also coerces you into doing various things to nudge the story along, like Trevor’s torture scene. Torture is really not my thing, I ended up using the same thing for that whole scene so I could just get past it. Thing is, I really don’t like Trevor anyway. His opening scene involves him killing one of my favorite GTA playable characters, Johnny from The Lost. From that moment, I found him hard to use, in fact I avoided using him for most of the game. Frank n’ Mike I can relate to, but Trevor is basically just a head-case.

Anyway my point is, with my Online GTA guy I can play MY way rather than the other 3, and that mostly involves rollin’ around in cool cars laughing at shops called Touching Cloth (carpet store) or Crucial Fix (Jamaican Coffee house) while soaking up the radio -- GTA’s concentrated source of satire. Once the heists get released I’ll be uhh, helping to relieve their burdens but again, these are meticulously planned flights of fancy, not just senseless murdering.

While I play it mostly as myself (quite peacefully), it’s games like GTA that allow us to step over the lines we’ve drawn for ourselves in the sand. They afford us a deeper look into ourselves, or even just the ways and means to safely practice things we know are terribly wrong in an environment without consequence. Where you may see an influence to horrific behaviour, I see countless fictitious possibilities in a reflection of our western world. You may see 20 innocents being run over in a police chase for fun but I see the hilarious iFruit, ProLaps, Hinterland, Life Invader, Bleeter, Mimes on fire and power ballads in a helicopter as I skim the baby-pink bleached clouds of the tumbling horizon.

As Olivia has already said, I think this is a perspective discussion.

So maybe I’m not entitled to comment here, but I’m going to anyway about one point you made, Ollie. You know I love you, but my parents taught me better than to use “everybody’s doing it” as an excuse to misbehave.

I love the Battlefield series of games and eagerly await the next one. I enjoyed the midnight club series of games. Modern warfare, Assassins Creed, Halo, Street fighter, frogger, Pac-Man… If held under a magnifying glass there are so many video games that contain questionable moral foundation. Rockstar games also made Red Dead Redemption. Basically grand theft horse. RDR is not that much different from GTA. But because it was set in the early West instead of modern times it gets less scrutiny. There is still killing of innocent people and animals. There are still collateral damage from high-speed chases. There is fatal brushes with the law. But they do not use the N bomb. The most rampant use of the N bomb in grand theft auto comes from the soundtrack created by rappers. I do not condone the use of the N bomb. But to make it taboo for some races to use while some in other races use it like punctuation yet are offended when a person of a different color uses it is reverse discrimination. And when it all comes down to it it is a sound that is made by our mouth and we choose to be offended by the meaning we give to that. Don’t get me wrong, those of you who know me will know that I would never condone words of hate. But words are only as powerful as the power we give them.

As you stated at the beginning of your article you anticipated getting hate mail for your views on this game. I too share that concern for my views. This is not the first time I have defended this game, not that it needs my defense. And, anyone that knows me knows I have high moral values. And please don’t misunderstand my point of view as being argumentative or discounting your valid opinion of this game. The perceived negative aspects of this game have been controversial and understandably so. But as I stated before so many other games share the offensive aspects.

I don’t think Rockstar presents this game as a life model, maybe more as a cautionary tale. In James Bond movies many evil extras get killed without knowing their back stories or their motivation for why they are there. Out of convenience we assume they are lacking innocence. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the whole story centers around… Spoiler alert… Teen suicide which we can all agree is also a hideous part of society. Grand theft auto to me is kind of like spicy food, you don’t want it for every meal. How it affects you often depends on how you ingest it and what you do afterwards. Some people don’t like spicy food, some love spicy food but not what it does to them. Now I’m hungry and lost my focus on where I was going with that. I respect your opinion and I know that it comes from a kind and gentle man, which is all the more reason to respect your opinion. I hope my opinion has not come off as anything but my opinion and never intended to be confrontational. I also hope that people that play this game have been ingrained with the tools needed during their upbringing to differentiate between right and wrong, good and evil, moral and depraved and have a good handle on common sense. Common sense to me is becoming an oxymoron.

I enjoyed the article, I respect your perspective, but I also love this game. But I don’t love this game so much that I would shoot you in the face and steal your car while screaming profanities…

Does anybody else see the irony that such a goody two shoes as myself has been such a vocal supporter for such a controversial game? Don’t ask me why I invest my time in doing so. I am all for promoting morals and bettering society and leading by example. But I also believe that games such as grand theft auto allow us to explore a darker side while causing little to no tangible harm to others. Not like trolling in Home…that does have real consequences.

There, I’ve said my piece. Let’s see how it’s received. And before anyone replies to this, please understand that this opinion of mine is not set in the stone of my soul. I’m keeping an open mind. I see very valid points on either side of the issue and am almost straddling the fence. This opinion was mostly presented to add to the discussion and maybe broaden the focus.

Much of what you wrote would be a fair criticism of GTA: San Andreas, but Rockstar has taken a very different approach here. Franklin’s story is one of continual betrayal and danger, unlike Michael and Trevor, who choose a life of crime, Franklin was born into it. He’s a smart, hardworking, likable character who’s trying to get away from the danger that surrounds him while at the same time trying to be loyal to the people who’ve kept him alive.

I came into this game expecting to be turned off by Franklin and his story, but I wound up liking it a lot. Yes, the dialogue is straight from the ‘hood and you’re going to hear a certain ethnic slur more times in one dialogue exchange than you did in all of Django Unchained, but it doesn’t stop these characters from eliciting sympathy.

The enemies, from the Lost Motorcycle Club to the Merryweather mercenaries, are cartoon representations of reality, far less genuine than the troops that get gunned down in a Call of Duty game. Most of the shootouts take place with these types of enemies. Random killing isn’t required, and it usually ends up with a visit from the police.

If you actually play the game, you’ll see that there’s a very clear and intelligent organization to its approach. It doesn’t glorify violence, it makes fun of those who glorify it. There’s nothing here that’s anywhere near as morally challenging as the airport massacre in Call of Duty, because there’s nothing in this game that’s an approximation of real life.

It’s fair to say you don’t understand it, and it’s fair to say you deplore violence as entertainment. Those are both reasonable points of view. What’s not fair is to judge a game based on a few snippets of video that you’ve seen online, or the reports from people you’ve talked to. Without the broader context, it’s easy to paint the game as a murder simulator. With the context, you’ll discover that it’s anything but that.

GTA also happens to be one of my favorite game series though. Why?

I see the satire. I see the irony. I can see that what Rockstar do with the GTA games is basically hold up a fun-house mirror to society -- gennerally American society at that. The problem it seems to me is HOW one plays the game. I play in such a way that I can easily entertain myself for hours without hurting/maiming/killing anyone. But to me, that’s part of its beauty; the freedom of it.

Possibly though, since I can easily determine the difference between a game that’s a parody of US culture and not a guide to life, I can sit back an enjoy the humour. It’s dark humour for sure, but no mistake, this is Rockstar laughing at the madness of the world we really have created for ourselves.

As for the N word; I think it’s rather clever. Being totally white bread I can’t (or wouldn’t ) ever use the word myself in a casual or insulting way. Yet the African American’s that had been subjected with the word took that, and turned it around to be used as an exclusive endearment. It’s irony again, and it makes me smile sometimes.

I think the world Rockstar have made in GTA5 is a fantastic place; it’s majestic, it’s beautiful and it’s deep -- literally. Instead of watching “I killz Da hookaz LOLZ” vids on YouTube, come check out the (hopefully) inspiring photography I’ve been doing in Los Santos. <-- This right here is why it's such a great game; instead of using this created world for murder and mayhem, I use it for discovery, wonderment and the creative. Just like the world we all live in in real life, it's up to the individual to treat it however they think is best.

It’s all about perceptive I think.