How do games like 'GTA V' negatively impact
youth audiences?
Michael De Santa: "You forget a
thousand things every day, pal. Make sure this is one of 'em."
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. [1] Created by game developers “Rockstar
Games”[2]
which have shipped over 250 million copies to date.[3] So what makes this
video game so successful? Why is GTA one of the bestselling entertainment
franchises to date? Well, GTA is known for its violence, sex, and crime drug
style of narrative in its games. It’s one of the first video games to have such
adult themes in such realistic measures. It’s 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 virtual 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.”[4] 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 cops and gaining a five star wanted level, stealing
millions of dollars from banks, hot wiring supercars, purchasing luxurious
properties and even taking your dog for a walk (or being able to let him rip up
civilians faces apart). The decisions are endless. Although GTA games are
certified as an 18+ (M) video game by PEGI (Pan European Games Information)
there is still a very high number of children below that age consuming the
horrifying entertainment that GTA V has to offer. Also “The amazingly realistic
graphics that some of the newer games have seemed to fuel such worries about
their impact on young people" [5].
During the week of release, a cashier at American video game retail 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.”[6] 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. 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.”[7] 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.
The GTA franchise has always been very
controversial in the media. In the news, it’s 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”[8]
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?”[9]
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 its
characters, in its
missions, in the game universe these all occur in, and in its advertising.” [10] 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.”[11] 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 hardly discussed 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.”[12] 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. 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, and spoilt sex
objects, as these are the representations that Rockstar Games have produced.
Also, its seems to be that
Rockstar Games enjoy the controversy around them, this is because in almost
every successful GTA game they add in one scene / mission that manages to
breaks limits within video game development. For example, in 2004. Rockstar
released GTA: San Andreas. The reason why this was the bestselling game after
GTA V is because of the amount of negative media coverage published during
release, this is because Rockstar Games added a full playable sex scene called
“Hot Coffee”. This was one of the first games to ever include such playable
content and questioned whether it was legal to include this in a video game.
Now, 9 years later, Rockstar Games has
created another mission that now questions violence in video games. This
playable scene in GTA V was able to start another debate in media, something
GTA is very likely to do when releasing a fresh update to their franchise. It
seems to indicate how games are evolving to become much more violent than ever
before. As violent video games are the most highest selling piece of
entertainment. “Blood splattered horror films constantly draw massive crowds,
and action packed violent video games are among the best sellers.” [13] Although kids shouldn't be playing GTA V,
there’s still a vast amount of fewer than 18s
that consume the poison like entertainment that this game offers.
GTA V 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.” [14] It came down to players decisions on how
brutal they want to act, but now for this scene, it required every player to
direct a very realistic and gruesome torture interrogation. When video games
were first under development and technology allowed for 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.” [15]
Firstly, the main
character behind this interrogation is Trevor Phillips. The Daily Mirror
described him as: “Trevor Phillips, the torturer, is a psychopathic career
criminal who savagely stamps a man to death within minutes of being introduced
earlier on in the game”[16]
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 the GTA
series that allows players to go murder crazy and not feel guilty for it,
because it’s something Trevor would do. But the fact that things like Trevor
casually stamping someone to death is something us as players of this game
wouldn't react to, is worrying. It’s normal for us to see this in a GTA game.
In the mission "By The Book" Trevor and the other playable protagonists
(Michael & Franklin) are called out by the FIB (GTA’s version of the FBI)
to extract information from an 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 it’s been a place that’s been used to torture people before.
Next to this tied up innocent man is a table with a lot of violent weapons such
as Pliers, a Car battery with clamps, a massive wrench bar and a gallon of
water. As you're forced to play 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 controllers 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. What questions this mission is that there was no
need for it, it doesn’t’t
affect the in game story or mean anything to the game, Rockstar may have just
created it to make controversy, therefore meaning that it may have been a
marketing technique.
The reason for why the Grand Theft Auto
franchise is able to easily impact the youth is due to the game being one of a
kind, there is no other game like it and their will not be any other video game
franchise that can top how popular and successful the series is. This may be
because of the type of content the game has and how realistic it is, GTA has
taken adult gaming onto a whole new level and it is a video game that should
never be consumed by children but, parents still continue to purchase the
updated, more realistic versions of the franchise for it to brainwash their
kids.
Common Sense Media is an online platform
which reviews and comments and many different types of media for parents, it
lets them know what is safe and what is not and gives parents a good sense of
mind when purchasing a game, cd or movie. CSM also lets parents write down
their own reviews for others to have a look at, here’s what some of them had to
say. “I just bought this game for my 12 year old son after a lot of convincing,
and I don't find it as bad as CS said it was. There is not a lot of blood and
you can stay away from sexual content. My only problem with the game is the
swearing...A masterpiece though.”[17]
Also: “Bad places can easily be avoided and the violence is no worse than what
is seen on the news and the language isn't as bad as what can be heard in
school!”[18]
These trends of comments lead to be almost the same. 272 parents rated the game
4 stars out of 5 for safety, which can be quite worrying.
It is illegal for anyone under the age of
18 to purchase the game; therefore the only people responsible are the parents
for buying and allowing their children to consume the bad ideologies that the
game injects into their brains. It’s come to a point where there is a huge
misconception with video games, people like to believe that all video games are
for kids, despite the age ratings given. Mr. Baglow, a senior writer that has
written for Rockstar North since the first GTA video game has had many
arguments with parents that are buying the new releases of GTA for their very
young kids, he stated that: “I’ve had toe-curling arguments in shops with
parents who were buying GTA 5 for their kids. When I see it happening I feel
compelled to say something and I do.”[19]
He added: “I remember seeing a woman arguing with one of the shop workers who
knew she was buying the game for her seven- or eight-year-old kid who was
standing next to her. But she just wouldn’t listen. It was sold to her and then
she turned around, handed it to the kid and said, ‘there you go son’.” [20]
This shows how parents may be uneducated about the adult gaming industry and
can potentially be harming their child's mental health.
So how do games like GTA V affect youth
audiences? Professor of Communication and Psychology, Brad J. Bushman from Ohio
State University undertook a series of experiments with Teenagers. It reviewed
the behavior of Teenagers after playing a violent game, (Grand Theft Auto III or
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) against a nonviolent game (Pinball 3D or
MiniGolf 3D) for 35 minutes. During the experiment, a bowl full of candy was
placed next to the participants, they were told that eating to many quickly is
unhealthy and bad for your health. Those playing GTA ate more than three times
more candy compared to others playing pinball and mini golf. After playing
video games for 35 minutes, the participants then had to take part in a quiz,
every time a teen answered a question correctly they can reach into a bowl full
of raffle tickets in which they could win an iPad. Although, they wouldn't be
watched when taking their earned amount of tickets. Results showed that teens
that played GTA beforehand cheated and took 8 times more raffle tickets then
they should of. Therefore showing that they didn't obey rules and cheated.
After, the participating teens played a game with an unseen “partner”. The
winner of the game got to play very loud noises through the partner’s
headphones. (There was really no partner). The results showed that Teens who
played GTA beforehand chose to blast these loud sounds with the loudest options
available and played them for much longer than the teens that didn't play any
violent games. Professor Bushman said that “I’m more convinced now than I ever
was that playing violent video games is not healthy for teens. As a parent of
three teens, I know it is not easy to keep your kids from violent games when at
least some of their friends have access to them. But it is worth the effort. I
have no problem if adults want to play games like Grand Theft Auto. But please,
keep them away from our teens. Instead, give them something like MiniGolf 3D.”[21]
“The Pew Research Center reported in 2008 that 97% of youths ages 12 to 17
played some type of video game, and that two-thirds of them played action and
adventure games that tend to contain violent content. “ [22]
A published letter from Harvard Medical
School on mental health was published in October, 2010. It was based on the
debate whether violent video games can affect the mental health of a teen.
Their research suggested that “boys are more likely to use violent video games,
and play them more frequently, than girls” [23]
Also that they're analysis found that “more than half of all video games rated
by the ESRB contained violence, including more than 90% of those rated as
appropriate for children 10 years or older.” [24]
which can be very concerning for parents as the Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and
the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) “cites
studies that link exposure to violence in the media with aggression and violent
behavior in youths.” [25]
“These organizations express concern that exposure to aggressive behavior or
violence in video games and other media may, over time, desensitize youths by
numbing them emotionally, cause nightmares and sleep problems, impair school
performance, and lead to aggressive behavior and bullying.” [26]
Overall, the main reason why youth
audiences are being affected is due to the fact that their parents are allowing
and purchasing their children these adult rated games. Evidence from several
online forums and discussions such as Common Sense Media even shows evidence
that a lot of parents simply don’t mind their under age kids to play GTA games.
Evidence also shows how games like GTA can damage teens mental health and
studies from psychological experiments from J.B Bushman show these negative
results. History also shows how violence and profanity is a ongoing problem
with video games and that it has been getting worse and worse over time with a
high percentage of videogames containing violence. Games like GTA V aren’t
going to be banned anytime soon as this genre of video games is proven to be
the most highest selling piece of entertainment in the world.
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[5] MediaMagazine
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[7] Boulter, J. (n.d.). Parables of the posthuman: Digital
realities, gaming, and the player experience.
[8] 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.
[9] Poust, M. D. (2014,
November 19). It’s never okay to play
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[11] Grand Theft Auto V - A Feminist's Review. (2013, October
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[13] 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.
[14]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.
[15] Censorship - The Debate. (n.d.). Media Magazine.
[16] Why GTA 5's most controversial mission
may be unpleasant and repulsive but there is a message behind the degradation.
(2013, September 17). Retrieved from
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[17] Parent
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[18] Parent
reviews for Grand Theft Auto V | Common Sense Media. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/grand-theft-auto-v/user-reviews/adult
[19] GTA V chief begs parents not to buy game for kids. (n.d.).
Retrieved from http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/gta-v-chief-begs-parents-not-to-buy-game-for-kids-1-3626474
[20] GTA V chief begs parents not to buy game for kids. (n.d.).
Retrieved from http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/gta-v-chief-begs-parents-not-to-buy-game-for-kids-1-3626474
[21] Bushman, B. J. (12, February 12). Don't Buy Your Kid Grand
Theft Auto V for Christmas. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-j-bushman/dont-buy-your-kid-grand-theft-auto-v-for-christmas_b_4440477.html
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(10, October 10). Retrieved from http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people
[23] Violent video games and young people - Harvard Health.
(10, October 10). Retrieved from http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people
[24]Violent video games and young people - Harvard Health. (10,
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[25] Violent video games and young people - Harvard Health.
(10, October 10). Retrieved from http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people
[26] Violent video games and young people - Harvard Health.
(10, October 10). Retrieved from http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people
