How and why do games like 'GTA V' negatively impact youth audiences?
“Yeah, whatever, dog. It's either this or dealing dimebags. The bullets come crackin' at yo ass either way. “
Grand Theft Auto 5 is one of the fastest selling pieces of entertainment ever. Within just 24 hours of its release on September 17th 2013, it made up to $800,000,000 in sales revenue, within three days it reached the $1,000,000,000 mark, breaking records worldwide. So what makes this video game so successful? Why is GTA one of the bestselling entertainment franchise to date? Well, GTA is known for its violence, sex, crime and drug style of narrative in its games. Its one of the first video games to have such adult themes in such realistic measures. Its a role playing game which isn't set in medieval times or in a galaxy far far away, it’s a game that is set in today’s world, which makes it unique and much more open and easier for players to escape into this graphical version of their world. Author, Jonathan Boulter said this about RPG games: “It is an event that may in fact be creating an entirely new kind of experience of the self.” It allows players to do what they please with what is given to them in the game, whether that may be mass murdering a bunch of civilians, killing a bunch of cops and gaining a five star wanted level, stealing millions from banks, breaking into and hot wiring supercars, purchasing properties and even taking your dog for a walk (or even being able to let him rip up civilians faces apart). The decision is endless. Although GTA games are certified as a 18+ (M) video game by PEGI (Pan European Games Information) there is still a very high number of children below that age consuming the negative entertainment that GTA V has to offer. During the week of release, a cashier at American video game store GameStop said that “Last week my store sold over a thousand copies of GTA V, at least a hundred of which were sold to parents for children who could barely even see over my counter.” With more and more youth gamers being able to play video games like GTA V, it can cause a growing threat to the minds of these children. Although, “sixty eight percent of gamers are above the age of 18.” Jonathan Boulter also said that “Game invites the player to create a self, a version of the self, a version that carries with it an extended version of the self in the real world.” Claiming that players that have virtual beings in a game may carry out these personas or characteristics into the real world, which is something that the youth are very venerable to. For example, a section from violent video game book; Grand Theft Childhood states: Darren had a tough time in school earlier that week. On Monday, a teacher had said something that embarrassed him in front of his classmates. When he went home that afternoon, he plugged in his video game console, loaded Grand Theft Auto 3, blew up a few cars and shot a half-dozen people, including a young blonde woman. When asked, Darren admits that the woman he killed in the game looked a lot like his teacher."
The GTA franchise has always been very controversial in the media. In the news, its always been represented to be negative and a serious threat to children, during the release of the video game many debates and interviews were produced by broadcast TV news. A lot of them were discussions whether the game should be banned due to the amount of violence and pornography the game has. Although movie director Quentin Tarintino once said "Violence is one of the most fun things to watch” and he isn't alone in that statement. Video games is a big industry, there are millions of games out there for people to play, violent video games are known to be the most popular but GTA is always caught in the controversy as it takes adult gaming to a whole new level, in the latest upgrade GTA V, players are now able to pick up prostitutes and perform various sex acts in game. Although what makes this worse is that players are then able to murder the prostitute after in order to collect their cash back. Reporter Mary Poust said that: ""The icing on this controversial cake is the ability players have to then gruesomely murder their prostitute and take back their money. Still not convinced that this game is not only bad for children but bad for adults and bad for women and bad for society?” In her article, Mary discusses how games like this can damage peoples mental health, she believes that if someone plays a game that is filled with killing, swearing, sex and drugs it will start to question what they believe is okay with real life. Although, for others what Mary is suggesting may just be a moral panic, this is because the age rating for this game is 18 plus, meaning that only adults should be playing the game, why children play the game is solely down to the parents of that child for buying them this video game, the more parents that buy this game for their child, the more it can affect society as children may change their perspective on the world due to the ideologies the game has.
Also, GTA may be known for its outrageous violence and sexual themes but one thing that is a common culture by Rockstar Games is the sense of misogyny and hatred to the female race within its games. Once again, GTA takes this one step higher just like its violence and profanity, GTA V has an incredible amount of sexism throughout playing the game. One of the first things that you will notice is that Rockstar games have produced over 15 Grand Theft Auto titles, within these titles there isn't a single female playable character. When the game was released, a feminist blog site reviewed the game, they're overall conclusion was that “Yes, Grand Theft Auto V is a good game. But it is impossible to deny it also appears to be a game that hates women. It shows it in it’s characters, in it’s missions, in the game universe these all occur in, and in its advertising.” She also went on to describe the type of females that the game as: “The trouble is, all of the female characters in this game are little more than sexist stereotypes of womanhood, or just figures of derision. We have the career obsessed, emotionally stunted woman, we have the harridan oppressing her poor hen pecked boyfriend, and we have the whores. And boy do we have a lot of whores in this game.” Also, it wasn't just feminist bloggers that covered this game and felt uncomfortable with how it represents women. A female gamer named Carolyn Petit from web gaming company Gamespot opened up to her feelings about the game, she made her own review and discussed strongly on how the representations and stereotypes that GTA V offer are highly negative and threatening to the female society. Her review caused a lot of controversy online, her review was published September 16th 2013, one day before the game was initially released, during this time period loads of other web gaming companies were publishing reviews too, but they were all positive about the game and didn't discuss any negatives. With Carolyn’s review, it was different; it was the first to discuss how sexist the game is and how negative the female stereotypes were. She stated that: "characters constantly spout lines that glorify male sexuality while demeaning women, and the billboards and radio stations of the world reinforce this misogyny, with ads that equate manhood with sleek sports cars while encouraging women to purchase a fragrance that will make them “smell like a bitch.” As GTA is played by millions of people worldwide, its stereotypes and ideologies are very dominant, they have a mass audience and are able to manipulate the consumers mind, this links to the hypodermic theory needle as GTA’s sexist views can be injected into the players’ minds, therefore they will begin to laugh and joke the same way that the game does. This can have a major effect on society and within the youth. "For younger children especially, games are a topic of conversation that allows them to build relationships with peers" As more and more kids begin to know what GTA is and start to play, they are much more vulnerable in listening to the negative views that GTA V offers. This can damage society as kids are able to take these views to the real world and can value females much more differently, they may see them as annoying, dumb, spoilt and sex objects, as these are the representations that Rockstar Games have produced.
Also, its seems to be that Rockstar enjoy the controversy that is made up about them, this is because in almost every successful GTA game they add in one scene or mission that breaks the limits of adult video gaming. For example, in 2004. There was the release of GTA: San Andreas , the reason why it was the bestselling game after GTA V is because of the amount of negative media coverage that was created during release, the reason for this was because Rockstar added a full on playable sex scene called “Hot Coffee”. This was one of the first games to ever include this and questioned whether it was allowed in gaming. Now, GTA V has created another mission that questions violence in video games. Players that are familiar to violent video games have commented on this mission by saying: “The torture scene in GTA V is pretty gruesome, even for a game.” and “Usually I'm not affected by the stuff in video games, but that torture scene in GTA V is really over the top. Hurts me to the breast!!“ This scene in the game was able to start another debate in media, something GTA is very likely to do when releasing another game. It seems to indicate how games are evolving more and more and that video games may actually be becoming even more violent than ever before. Also, "The dramatic increase in speed and graphic capability has allowed video game violence to be as realistic as ever before.” Although: “Blood splattered horror films constantly draw massive crowds, and action packed violent video games are among the best sellers.” Also, "Fourth graders reported that they're favourite video games were violent, (59% girls, 73% boys.)” Although kids shouldn't be playing GTA V, there’s still a vast amount of under 18s that consume the poison like entertainment that this game offers. The game requires that you torture this innocent man for no reason, that’s what made it so controversial. GTA has always been an open world game, meaning that the player can act how they want to, evil or bad. “Unlike movies, in which audiences bear passive witness to violent actions, video games require audience members to actively engage in and perpetrate violent actions.” It came down to players decisions on how brutal they want to act, but now for the first time, every player must direct this torture which is constructed to be very realistic and gruesome. When video games were first developing to be able to produce open world games, a scene like this wouldn't be regulated, but it goes to show how censorship and regulation in the gaming industry has evolved for this to be acceptable, although: “Most forms of media, from video games to DVDs, both rated by the British Board of Film Classification, give a specific age rating if their content is deemed unsuitable for everyone.” Firstly, the main character behind this interrogation is Trevor Phillips. When first being introduced to this character within the game, he kills someone with the bottom of his foot for no reason. He's the first character in GTA that allows players to go murder crazy and not feel guilty for it, because its something Trevor would do. But things like Trevor casually stamping someone to death is something us as players of this game wouldn't react to, its normal for us to see this in a GTA game. In the mission "By The Book" Trevor and the other protagonists (Michael & Franklin) are called out by the FIB (GTA version of the FBI) to extract information from a alleged captive MR K, who is entirely innocent. Mr K is tied up to a chair in a dark, abandoned, rusty garage. The room already looks like its been a place thats been used to torture people before. Next to this tied up innocent man is a table with enough instruments to create an orchestra of pain. Pliers, Car battery with clamps, a massive wrench and a gallon of water. As you're playing as Trevor, you already know what’s about to happen. When choosing the clamps, you clip them to Mr K's nipples and taze the man to unconsciousness. You could also kick his chair to the floor, cover his face with a cloth and suffocate him with a gallon of water. You can also fix a plier to his molars and wiggle the analogue stick until he has no teeth. Also, if you torture him too much for him to pass out or almost die, you can just stab him with a syringe of adrenaline to wake him up and continue the brutality. As you can see the amount of interaction the mission requires from its audience is more than the usual. "Video games are becoming more interactive, therefore becoming more physiologically impacting on youth.” What questions this mission is that there was no need for it, it doesn’t affect the in game story or mean anything to the game, Rockstar just created it to make this controversy and it may have been a marketing technique.
Work Cited:
Academic Books / Journals:
Kutner, L., & Olson, C. (2008). Grand theft childhood: The surprising truth about violent video games and what parents can do. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Shaw, A. (2015). Gaming at the edge: Sexuality and gender at the margins of gamer culture.
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World Wide Web:
Documentaries:
Wood, J. (Writer), & Harris, O. (Director). (2015, September 15). The Gamechangers [Television broadcast]. In The Gamechangers. United Kingdom: BBC.
Works Consulted:
Rockstar Games, GTA V. (2013, September 17).
Confirmed: Grand Theft Auto 5 breaks 6 sales world records.
Boulter, J. (n.d.). Parables of the posthuman: Digital realities, gaming, and the player experience.
Gimpel, D. (2013). Violence in video games.
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Tamborini, R., Weber, R., Bowman, N. D., Eden, A., Skalski, P., Tamborini, R., . . . Skalski, P.(2013). “Violence Is a Many-Splintered Thing”: The Importance of Realism, Justification, and Graphicness in Understanding Perceptions of and Preferences for Violent Films and Video Games. Projections, 7(1), 100-118.
Anderson, C., & Gentile, D. (2007). Violent video game effects on children and adolescents: Theory, research, and public policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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