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In the latest media whinge about GTA IV, syndicated columnist Susan Estrich (left), who ran Michael Dukakis’ ill-fated 1988 presidential campaign, criticizes some of the game’s non-interactive plot elements:

From what I’ve heard about the ending… In one version, so I’m told, your cousin and his bride die in a drive-by shooting at their wedding. In another, your girlfriend gets killed…

GP: In the celebrated film The Godfather, Sonny Corleone is gunned down at a toll booth. Michael Corleone’s first wife Appollonia, is blown up by a car bomb. The Godfather himself is badly wounded in an assassination attempt. And yet Michael carries on.

These are dramatic devices which advance the story. Why shouldn’t a game feature such plot turns? Does Ms. Estrich understand that the player doesn’t control these non-interactive cut scenes? Or would Estrich chastise the video game medium for employing the same dramatic license extended to cinema?

It’s also interesting to note that, while Estrich’s son (age unspecified) apparently enjoys GTA IV, she’s worried about everyone else’s kid:

There’s no question that our reviews of the latest in this infamous series are not in sync. [My son] thinks it’s a great new game…

It’s not my son I’m really worried about. He does well in school, follows the important rules and generally gets bored with most video games before they get in the way of life. It’s his generation, the generation that he is going to grow up in and live with, full of kids who take this stuff for granted and spend more time with it than with real life, that worries me.

GP: Estrich comes off as both out of touch and two-faced here. And, while we had previously noted Estrich’s column, our old pal Jack Thompson informed us that she was Dukasis’ campaign manager.

Writing for Slate, Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor of sociology and African-American studies at Columbia University and the author of Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, discusses the portrayal of underworld relationships in Grand Theft Auto IV:

I found that Grand Theft Auto actually offered a less sensational portrait of gangland and ghetto streets than the one put out by most cops, politicians, policymakers, and even academics. There is nuance in the game that exceeds most of the conventional portraits of American cities…

Not that I’m suggesting that we turn to GTA IV to solve the gang problem…  The game is a carnival of violence, deceit, and cruelty that makes you slightly nauseated after playing for only a few hours… But I have to admit that I was surprised a video game had such a well-developed, fine-grained understanding of human nature.

The game’s success can be traced to a simple principle: Niko Bellic, the protagonist who roams around Liberty City, making his way in the world by building relationships… the point is that a lone wolf can’t survive. Niko has to take a risk and trust somebody…

Taking  the Parents Television Council up on an interview offer, Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star spoke with Dan Isett (left), PTC Director of Public Policy about Grand Theft Auto IV.

Along with a number of other watchdog groups, the PTC has been highly critical of GTA IV in recent days. Villarreal, however, reports that Isett’s knowledge of what is actually in the game is a bit lacking:

Isett: I’ve actually played ‘Grand Theft Auto IV,’ and it’s right in keeping with previous versions. The series continues to lower the bar and this is the first game that has an alcohol content warning. You get points for driving drunk in this game.

Villarreal: You know that’s not true, right? The game doesn’t have points.

Isett: If nothing else, it’s a rewarded activity. Necessary for advancement.

Villarreal: I don’t think so.

Isett: But there’s an alcohol content warning and a scene of drunk driving, correct?

Villarreal: Yes. Did you play that part?

Isett: No, no. I didn’t get that far…

Barack Obama may have dissed Grand Theft Auto IV a bit last week, but, on the streets of L.A. at least, the candidate and the controversial game have become one.

G4TV’s Attack of the Show producer Luke Wahl spotted some Barack Obama / GTA IV mashups around town:

The Daily Mail serves up a rather bizarre video game bash piece this morning. Journalist and English mum Rosie Millard (left) writes that the Nintendo DS, of all things, turned her family dysfunctional:

The ‘toy’ caused endless rows, sessions of screaming and increasingly regular parental punishments… What is constructive about playing football on a tiny screen, or washing a virtual dog, or watching a hideous pink pony trot around a pink palace decorated with shells?

…Our Nintendo had taken the guise of a small but toxic drug which, little by little, was poisoning my children…

I have first-hand evidence that using a Nintendo turns my delightful, curious and funny children into argumentative demons full of aggression, wholly uninterested in anything apart from playing, and then playing some more.

GP: Although it doesn’t necessarily read that way, we’re thinking Ms. Millard’s article may be a bit tongue-in-cheek. By the way, did she buy her kids a chipped DS? Call the piracy police!:

When the pale blue, £150 Nintendo finally arrived last November, fresh from Hong Kong (I had bought it on the net), crammed with a ‘bundle’ of 20 games including Brain Trainer, Fifa 08, and Nintendogs, my children hugged me tightly.

Via: MCVUK

And you thought the GTA IV bashing was over?

Silly you…

The Catholic Exchange has jumped into the fray, terming the hit game a “dangerous cultural low.” Here’s more:

I don’t know the answer to this, but out of curiosity, I have a question: What percentage of car-jacking murdering gang members were committed to this life as children?

…There’s something odd about our culture when we try to prevent children under 17 from seeing violent or sexually overt material in a two-hour R-rated movie, but we’re cavalier about selling the same experience - actually, a more offensive experience since it’s entirely non-judgmental - in an M-rated video game that will be played every night for months.

GP: The unnamed writer apparently fails to grasp that the movie and game rating systems are both voluntarily enforced by their respective industries.

There’s only one word to describe parents who would buy this game for their children: Disgraceful.

But retailers, too, must be pressed to check ID before selling the game to children who most assuredly will seek to purchase it. Legally, stores cannot sell children pornographic magazines or handguns - but they can legally sell video games to children that contain pornographic content or that teach children how to gun down cops.

It will be a long time until we again see the like of last week’s Grand Theft Auto IV media feeding frenzy. Perhaps it will take the release of GTA V.

The highly-anticipated launch was fraught with cultural and political significance which elevated the level of interest in GTA IV far beyond that of any previous video game. Last year’s Halo 3 launch may have held the pre-GTA IV sales record, but didn’t come close in terms of cultural impact.

Love it or hate it, every blogger, watchdog group, TV news station, special interest, politician, columnist and talking head seemed to have something to say about GTA IV. Here at GamePolitics we basically turned the entire week’s coverage over to tracking the GTA IV controversy. And why not? The hurly-burly surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV was on everyone’s mind.

Game scribe Kyle Orland has penned a nice summary piece on the media frenzy for GameSpot, tracking the major coverage received by the game:

As much as Grand Theft Auto IV is being hailed as a revolution in gaming, its release also seems to herald a revolution in mainstream coverage of gaming itself…

For all the moral scolds getting column inches, many mainstream outlets seem to be offering a genuine counterpoint this time around… Overall, the mainstream media seems to be at least considering the idea that this game is no more of a threat than comic books or rock and roll were back in their most controversial days…

Judging by the media coverage, it’s a Grand Theft Auto world, and the rest of us are just playing in it.

It took a few days, but GamePolitics has tracked down some background on the process which led Miami-Dade Transit (MDT) officials to pull ads for Grand Theft Auto IV.

As we reported late last month, the South Florida transit agency yanked GTA IV ads from bus shelters following pressure by anti-game attorney Jack Thompson.

While following up on this story GP communicated with MDT Deputy Director Hugh Chen and Marketing Director Michael DeCossio. It was media relations official Manuel Palmiero, however, who ultimately supplied the information below. What follows are GP’s question, MDT’s verbatim answers and a few bits of commentary:

GP: The GTA IV ads themselves are inoffensive. Is Miami-Dade Transit making a value judgment as to the underlying product? If so, this judgment is based on…?

MDT: The Miami-Dade County Commission has adopted three resolutions in the last five years dealing with violent video games — R-1447-03, R-248-04 and R-573-06. You may look up all three at www.miamidade.gov/govaction/searchleg.asp?Action=searchleg.

The first resolution specifically condemned the “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City” video game for its “hate-filled messages” and for appearing “to encourage or condone violence against ethnic minorities” and called on retailers to remove the game from their shelves. The other two condemned violent video games in general and urged retailers not to make such games available to minors. 

Miami-Dade Transit is a department of Miami-Dade County and as such follows the policies set by the Miami-Dade County Commission and Mayor.

(GP comment: This seems a rather bureaucratic justification. None of the three resolutions address public transit. Nor do they direct county agencies to take a hands-off posture with regard to video games. Nor does MDT answer the question as to whether they made a value judgment concerning GTA IV, although it seems obvious that they did.)

GP: Which official made the final decision to remove the ads?
 
MDT: After receiving and evaluating the request for removal of the ads, MDT staff made the recommendation to remove them.  [Ad company] Cemusa was instructed to remove the ads last Friday, April 25.

(GP: we received this info from MDT on Friday, May 2nd)
 
GP: Is MDT familiar with Change the Climate vs MBTA, in which the US First Circuit Court ruled that a quasi-governmental transit agency could not restrict ads based on viewpoint?
 
MDT: Miami-Dade Transit is a department of Miami-Dade County and as such is a unit of County government, not a quasi-governmental transit agency.

(GP comment: This answer is puzzling. The First Circuit Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for a quasi-governmental agency to restrict free speech. Since MDT is organized as a full-fledged unit of government, it has at least as much - and probably more - of an obligation not to restrict free speech. Nor does the answer acknowledge the Change the Climate case.)

GP: Is MDT aware of [complainant] Mr. [Jack] Thompson’s longstanding contentious history with the publisher of this game [Take Two Interactive], including his involvement on the plaintiff side in a pair of wrongful death lawsuits seeking $1.2 billion?
 
MDT: We were not aware of this information but it is not relevant to the matter at hand and would not have affected our decision to remove the ads.
 
GP: Other than Thompson’s, were any other complaints received about the ads?
 
MDT: We are not aware of any others to date.

GP:  Would you characterize MDT as a unit of government, as opposed to quasi-governmental? (I note the .gov website address)
 
MDT: As stated above, MDT is a department of Miami-Dade County government and therefore is a unit of government, not a quasi-governmental agency.

GP: What other types of ads are restricted? Alcohol? R-rated movies? How about a cable show along the lines of The Sopranos or Sex in the City? 

MDT: MDT’s contract with CEMUSA lists several types of ads that are restricted, including:

-Advertising that contains traffic-related symbols or words like “Stop,” Drive In” or “Danger” that are designed to distract vehicular traffic

-Ads containing immoral, lascivious or obscene material as well as ads promoting businesses engaged in any activity that requires that exclusion of minors

-Ads for alcoholic beverages
 
In addition, the contract states that MDT may “at its sole, absolute discretion” disallow any questionable ads, such as those that may violate community standards as we understand them based on our knowledge of the community and the feedback generated by certain types of ads in the past.

(GP comment: Now that Take Two has sued the Chicago Transit Authority over that agency’s removal of GTA IV ads, a similar suit against MDT seems highly likely…)

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle… Morons!

N’Gai Croal, Brian Crecente, Stephen Totilo… Losers!

So sayeth Glenn Beck, anyway.

Beck exploited the popularity of the Grand Theft Auto IV phenomenon again this evening. It was Beck’s second GTA IV-themed segment in the last few days.

GamePolitics readers will recall that Beck allowed Jack Thompson to smear the ESRB and several major retailers last week without once advising his CNN Headline News audience that they were listening to a lawyer facing possible disbarrment.

Dr. Cheryl Olson, co-author of Grand Theft Childhood was Beck’s guest this time. She was quite reasonable, but Beck made faces during certain parts of her commentary.

The highlight of the segment came when Beck played the role of the martyr:

I will tell you that all these video gamers… they’re bloggers, as well as video gamers - they’re writing all kinds of stuff about me [that] I’m the enemy now of video gamers. I could care less about video games. Video game bloggers? They’re losers…

UPDATE: Mark Methenitis, an attorney who pens the excellent Law of the Game blog, has written an open letter to Glenn Beck regarding Jack Thompson’s appearance.

According to a report on The Impudent Obersver, police in one Indonesian municipality will be enforcing a ban on videos games and TV during a two-hour evening period designated for children to do their homework:

The municipality of Bekasi… [is] ordering all students within its jurisdiction to study and do their homework or face legal consequences…  The new regulations require students, from elementary school to high school, to study between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. either at home alone or with classmates from the same neighborhood. During study time, no TV or video game will be alowed and students will be banned from going to the mall or entertainment centers.

[Eductaion chief] Kodrato said his adminsitration would empower neighborhood heads and police personnel to enforce the regulations. Bekasi was inspired to institute the new policy after hearing it has been in operation in the municipality of Yogyakanta since 2003.

In the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune, columnist Katherine Kersten has a lengthy whine about Grand Theft Auto IV:

Games like GTA IV stimulate and glamorize our dark impulses. They create a taste for the psychological thrill that can come from dominating and degrading others. They encourage us to strip our fellow human beings of their dignity, and view them merely as objects of violence or sexual desire.

The hazards of violent games will only increase as new, more advanced technologies like the Wii system take hold… you can act out a game physically.

The average 32-year-old man who plays violent video games — and spends his free hours fantasizing about murdering passersby and roughing up strippers — is likely to be someone’s husband and father. What qualities of character will his wife find when she looks to him for love, steadiness and fidelity?

And when his young son looks to Dad as a role model — well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?

It is the nature of the U.S. video game market that parents make the final decision about what constitutes appropriate content for their child.

Not so in New Zealand, where the government’s chief censor has ruled that parents may not purchase Grand Theft Auto IV for their children.

As reported by the New Zealand Herald, Bill Hastings (left) of New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature Classification issued an opinion that store clerks may not sell the game to parents who are buying it for their teen. Said Hastings:

If it’s perfectly obvious the parent is buying the game for the child, don’t sell it to the parent. If a game is R18 it’s R18 for a reason and it’s illegal to make it available to anyone under that age.

In New Zealand, adults buying the game for a minor - even for their own child - could be jailed for 90 days or made to pay a $10,000 fine. The Herald notes, however, that the law has never been enforced.

And while Hastings seems to take his censorship duties seriously, he had some quite reasonable comments about GTA IV’s more redeeming qualities:

With the games we ban you have to kill everyone you meet and you’re generally rewarded for making the killing more gruesome. In Grand Theft Auto, you don’t have to kill everybody you meet - you could drive around and just look at the architecture…

All games in the Grand Theft Auto series have a kind of black satire - an overstatement of machismo. It takes the piss out of Soprano-type things.

By the way, we’ve heard America’s self-appointed censor, Jack Thompson, claiming that the sex scenes were taken out of the Australia/New Zealand version of GTA IV. Not entirely so, according to the Herald:

In the version submitted for classification [in New Zealand], the sex scenes include going to a strip club and getting lap dances. There’s also another point where the player can have sex with a prostitute - but in the version sold here, there is no visual depiction, just audio.

Thompson is trying to claim that the game is pornography, making its sale to 17-year-olds (as permitted by its M rating) a crime. If so, it would likely be the world’s first-ever sans genitalia porn.

The United Arab Emirates has banned Grand Theft Auto IV, according to a report in The National.

Some gamers, however, have found a way around the loophole by purchasing the game from the duty-free shop at Dubai Airport. The Abu Dhabi airport, however was not stocking the game.

The ban is not surprising, given that past GTA games have been banned in the UAE. And, as GamePolitics recently reported, Sony’s popular God of War has been banned as well.

Grand Theft Auto IV developer Rockstar North may be one of the most successful high tech firms in Scotland, but company president Leslie Benzies laments a perceived lack of respect by government officials.

As reported by the Times:

Rockstar North is to video games what JK Rowling is to literature but few, particularly in government, are prepared to acknowledge this. It seems odd that politicians committed to “a smart, successful Scotland” haven’t come knocking at Benzies’s door.

Of the apparent official shunning, Benzies says:

We’d love to help if we have time. But there are a number of agencies which actively seem to cut us out. There is this weird thing where people think Scotland is so innovative, but if you do anything truly innovative, you get beaten down… This is our home. I love Scotland. I like the people…

We’ve had such a beating over the past three years - by the American government, the British government, the Daily Mail…

Via: CVG

Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal’s controversial video game exhibit, which culminates in the player attempting to shoot President Bush, has triggered a lawsuit against the city of Troy, New York, according to the Albany Times-Union.

As GamePolitics readers may recall, Bilal, a faculty member at the Art Institute of Chicago, was invited to present his Virtual Jihadi exhibit at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute in March.

RPI’s Republican Club, however, objected to Virtual Jihadi, which Bilal said was designed to show how US policy in Iraq has encouraged terrorism. School officials subsequently ordered the exhibit off campus. A local venue, the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, then offered Bilal the opportunity to display his work.

On opening night local Republican leader Robert Mirch, who also happens to be Troy’s Public Works commissioner, led a protest outside the exhibit. The following day, Troy code enforcement officials (who work for Mirch) shut the Sanctuary down over building code violations involving its doors.

The Sanctuary, assisted by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has notified Troy that it will file a lawsuit against the city as well as Mirch. Said Melanie Trimble executive director of NYCLU’s Capital Region chapter:

City officials cannot selectively enforce building codes to shut down an art exhibition they find distasteful… City officials cannot chill free speech in this city by using their official powers.

Bob Mirch is the head of Public Works which oversees the code enforcement. Code enforcement came the next day and shut the building down even though they had approved the building’s opening the day before. It’s no coincidence.

Sanctuary co-founder Steve Pierce added:

There is a climate of fear in the city.

For his part, Mirch said:

This is nonsense. And a publicity stunt. At no time was the sanctuary closed. The two situations are not connected. Not connected.

Capital News 9 has a video report.

Via: GoneMicrosoft

One of the bloggers at Ladies Lotto has raised the issue of GTA IV’s potential for violence against the game’s female characters.

clothesminded writes:

In GTA 4… not only can you pick up and have sex with prostitutes, but then you can kill them: with you[r] car, a gun, or whatever you have lying around. The sex is graphic… and the killings have great tag phrases.

In general I don’t have a problem with violence in the media, in movies, etc. In this game however… you can make what you want to happen. Meaning you are choosing to pick up the prostitute and kill her, as opposed to driving your car…

After watching… on youtube, i felt sick, sad and angry.

Along with DePaul University game design professor Robin Burke, I’ll be discussing Grand Theft Auto IV on Minnesota Public Radio’s Midmorning with Kerri Miller today. The show airs at 10:00 AM Central.

Meanwhile, Drs. Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner, the authors of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games, will appear on a live chat with the Globe & Mail at 12:00 PM Eastern.

Actor Wil Wheaton, who rather bluntly dissed anti-game attorney Jack Thompson at PAX 2007, has weighed in on the GTA IV controversy via his blog:

The usual gang of idiots are up in arms about how this game will lead to the end of civilization as we know it… The hysteria surrounding the release of GTA IV has officially crossed into the realm of the absurd…

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.

…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.

Wheaton, an ECA member, starred in the 1986 classic Stand By Me, played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: Next Generation and has numerous other acting credits. He has also done video game voice-over work, including on several GTA titles.

Full Disclosure Dept: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics…

Okay, so it wasn’t the funniest bit we’ve ever seen on The Daily Show.

But host Jon Stewart and “Senior Virtual Correspondent” Aasif Madvi take a look at GTA IV in this video.

Via: Whip It Out