Develop has a terrific interview with Rockstar Games' co-founder Sam Houser who dishes about the direction of the company and offers his reaction to critics:

I think we probably read most of [the criticism] – if you turn on a computer this stuff reaches you, usually forwarded by an old friend laughing at you. 

 

No [I don't pay attention to critics] – I think [he and brother Dan] are both depressed at how boring we really are and how unexciting even the worse fabrications and exaggerations are when you read about them. None of it seems very rock and roll...

 

Most of the people who hate us are people it is truly an honor to be hated by – reactionary creeps with strange agendas – and the Daily Mail.  Most people who know about modern pop culture know about GTA and like or dislike it on its own merits.
 

GameDaily reports on data released by Nielsen which holds that 17% of Grand Theft Auto IV buyers were under 17.

But in 39% of those cases someone else - typically a parent - actually purchased the game, which means that the actual number of unassisted underage buyers was about 10%.

While GameDaily and other outlets are finding alarm in these numbers, the 10% figure is actually twice as good as might have been expected.

Why?

In April the FTC released data showing that 20% of its underage secret shoppers successfully purchased M-rated content, the game industry's best result ever. The Nielsen data effectively doubles the game industry's ratings enforcement effectiveness. From the Nielsen report:

61% of these younger gamers indicated that they purchased the M-rated game themselves, with 39% of the young gamers responding that someone else bought the game for them," Nielsen said. "Interestingly enough, parents/guardians were pegged as the biggest facilitators for getting the controversial game into the hands of these young respondents, garnering 80% of the response. Friends, siblings and other relatives rounded out the other 20% of the response.

The GTA IV numbers also look pretty good when stacked up against a new Dartmouth study which says that 48% of minors have been exposed to R-rated movies.

GP: Obviously, you'd like to see zero sales to underage buyers, but we don't live in a perfect world. These results are a significant improvement over the 2008 FTC numbers, which were deemed extremely impressive when released.

It is great to see Nielsen providing this kind of data, as it gives context to the ratings enforcement issue. It's the kind of the data the industry ought to be providing on its own, however.

Could executves of Take-Two and Rockstar Games be prosecuted for an alleged copycat killing in Thailand?

Following local police assertions that the murder of a Bangkok cab driver was prompted by the killer's play of Grand Theft Auto, a Thai government official has called for prosecution of game publishers for instances of copycat violence.

AsiaOne Digtal quotes Somchai Jaroen-amnuaysuk of the Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups Office:

When a player copycats a crime he or she sees in the game, the game maker should be prosecuted. Prosecutions will automatically force game makers to act more responsibly.

Why should console gamers be the only ones with the opportunity to be corrupted by Grand Theft Auto IV?

According to a just-issued press release, PC gamers will get their own version of the hugely popular - and hugely controversial - game in November. The PC version of GTA IV will be released in North America on November 18th and in Europe on November 21st.

Rockstar Games founder Sam Houser is quoted in the press release:

We are very excited to be releasing the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV. The whole team is dedicated to bringing an amazing gaming experience to the PC. The game looks and plays beautifully on PC and we can't wait for people to play it.
 

Absent speculation that Grand Theft Auto somehow played a role, the murder of a Bangkok cab driver by a 19-year-old-man in some ways appears similar to the typical murder of a cab driver in the United States.

In the U.S., cabbie killings appear to have very little to do with violent video games, given that they peaked in 1990-1993, when crude first-person shooters like Doom were the bloodiest games available and the first Grand Theft Auto was years away.

Statistics on cab driver killings are maintained by Taxi-Library, which also profiles the typical cabbie murder.

• Two-thirds of such crimes are committed by men under 20. Accused Thai killer Polwat Chinno is 19.
• 82% of the assaults take place at night. News accounts describe the Bangkok killing as taking place "late on Saturday".
• nearly half of cabbie killers act alone, as Chinno is alleged to have done

Frustrated by sketchy and somewhat conflicting English language news accounts of Bangkok's GTA Cabbie murder, GP went looking for local Thai sources and found Asian Sweetheart. The site is mostly pictures of "gorgeous Thai ladies," but the cabbie murder apparently got the owner's attention away from posting glam shots:

The English language news stories left out much of the detail about the victim and the accused murderer. The Thai news had interviews of the families and other people involved.

The story is very sad for many reasons. On the victim's side, they are a poor family and the man was the only person making any income, and not much because driving a taxi does not pay very well. He became the chosen victim because he was older and smaller than the first taxi driver the killer approached.

GP: Based on the fact that the victim was selected by the killer in the belief that he would be an easy mark, this looks like just another premeditated robbery, not some random violent act. Taxi cab robberies have been going on as long as there have been taxi cabs (more on that later).

The killer's family is also poor but the teen had always been known as polite and very nice, even getting the dek dee (good child) award at school. The mother was a house maid and the father a security guard. The kid was alone a lot and the parents never really knew what he was doing all that time he was playing violent video games.

The 18 year old confessed to the killing, which means he won't face the death penalty as some western media incorrectly reported. He gave a detailed account of how he planned for the robbery and chose the victim, although he said the killing was not originally part of the plan but he did it when the victim fought back.
 

You knew it was only a matter of time.

In the wake of reports that a 19-year-old Thai man murdered a cab driver after playing Grand Theft Auto, embattled Miami attorney Jack Thompson has written a menacing e-mail to the top executives of Take-Two Interactive, publisher of the controversial series.

In the e-mail to T2 chairman Strauss Zelnick and CEO Ben Feder (and copied to dozens of other people, including GamePolitics), Thompson writes:

I warned you both that copycat killings by teens would occur upon the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. Now my prediction has come true...

In addition to multiple written warnings, I told you of this coming mayhem in a face-to-face meeting with you, Mr. Zelnick, on Central Park West on May 15, 2007... I am working with authorities now...  as well as other remedies against Take-Two for its reckless worldwide distribution of its murder simulation training products...

 

This is just the latest killing incident prompted by your murder simulators. I aim to make it the last...

PS: The above latest copycat killing will help fuel federal legislation in the United States because of your company’s chronic marketing and sale of its mature-rated video games to minors. You are selling GTA IV, for example, to anyone of any age via the Internet.

A story receiving widespread media play this morning details the arrest of a 19-year-old Thai man who allegedly robbed and murdered a Bangkok cab driver. According to police sources, Polwat Chino told investigators he was re-enacting a scene from Grand Theft Auto IV.

Reuters reports that GTA IV has been removed from retail shelves and arcades (we're assuming that in Thailand players can play console games for a fee). From the article:

Police in Bangkok said that the youth "had wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game."

 

...Chino, described by his parents as polite and diligent... had paid to play the game at a local shop in Bangkok, and said he had needed more cash to continue playing it and that the taxi driver looked like an easy target.

GP: So, was he re-enacting a scene from the game or just looking for someone to rob? Reuters continues:

A senior official at Thailand's Culture Ministry, which has been pursuing tougher regulation of violent games such as Grand Theft Auto, said the murder was a wake-up call for authorities, and urged parents to take note of what their children were playing.

 

"This time-bomb has already exploded and the situation could get worse," the official was quoted as saying. "Today it is a cab driver but tomorrow it could be a video game shop owner." Thai authorities have been pushing for a rating system on video games, as well as restrictions on how long youths can spend playing games in video arcades.

GP: Given the Thai government's history of censorship, this case will likely not receive the type of media scrutiny and follow-up that it deserves. Not to rush to judgment, but the situation as described in the news report (including the very convenient photo at left of the suspect re-enacting his crime for police) couldn't be more perfect for a government seeking a justification for a video game crackdown.

We also note that the suspect, who reportedly stabbed the victim 10 times, is wearing what appears to be a very clean white shirt (i.e., no blood). Stab someone ten times from arm's length and closer and you're going to get blood on your clothing. And yes, he could have changed clothes, but we don't really know.

So you handled all the killing and thuggery in GTA San Andreas but found yourself traumatized by the hidden, pixelated sex?

Don't spend your Hot Coffee lawsuit settlement money just yet.

The New York Times reports that the Hot Coffee class-action lawsuit, which was nearing settlement, has been tossed by a federal judge:

...Judge Shirley Wohl Kram wrote that purchasers of the game could not be lumped together in a class action. The claims of members of the proposed class would be affected by the law in each purchaser’s home state, Judge Kram wrote, and therefore could not be resolved in a single proceeding in federal court in New York.

 

“Accordingly, the court decertifies the settlement class on the grounds that common issues do not predominate over individualized issues,” the judge wrote.

 

The judge’s latest decision undermines a settlement agreement reached between lawyers for purchasers of the game who contended they were offended by the hidden scenes, on the one hand, and lawyers for the game’s makers, Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games.

The NY Times notes that less than 3,000 GTA San Andreas buyers had applied to join the lawsuit. The paper had previously questioned the size of the plaintiffs' legal fees in the case. Meanwhile, attorney Ted Frank of Overlawyered writes:

Take Two spent millions negotiating and administering a settlement because the court refused to rule on its decertification motion last year; that wasted effort demonstrates why it is important for courts to resolve certification questions early in the case. But with no certified class, there can be no class settlement...

Frank, who joined the class and filed objections to the proposed settlement, wonders whether there will be an appeal.

The judge's ruling may be found here...

When last we visited the conservative-themed Townhall.com, blogger Kevin McCullough was claiming that Mass Effect featured customizable sodomy. McCullough's comments (since deleted) were apparently noticed by Fox News, which led to the even more memorable Cooper Lawrence debacle.

Townhall.com has jumped back into the game-bashing business with a post by blogger-author-movie critic Michael Medved who asserts that Grand Theft Auto IV is making war on middle-class values. Whatever they are...

From Medved:

Despite demagogic and alarmist claims that a relentless “War on the Middle Class” has left ordinary Americans pummeled and powerless, middle income people still manage to find enough money to secure most of life’s true necessities – like the grotesquely violent and anti-authoritarian video game Grand Theft Auto IV, which shattered all sales records in its first week of release...

 

The stunning success of a game that glorifies guerilla warfare, murder, irresponsible driving, prostitution, cop-killing, international conspiracies and, of course, car theft highlights the real threat to the American Way of Life: it’s not the war on the middle class; it’s the war on middle class values... the decision by so many consumers of every age and income group to invest countless hours of time in the dark world of Grand Theft Auto IV nonetheless demonstrates a threat to American values.

As Nate Ralph notes at Wired Game|Life, since when did "anti-authoritarian" become a bad thing? Ultimately, Medved relates GTA IV as a threat to, well, just about everything:

The vibrant economy gives working Americans more choices than ever before. The decline of middle class values – saving, deferred gratification, reliability, self-control, family loyalty, respectability – makes it somewhat less likely that they will make the right choices to promote their health, happiness and long-term prosperity.

A TV commerical for Grand Theft Auto 4 has dodged the censorship bullet in the U.K.

As reported by gamesindustry.biz, the Advertising Standards Authority declined to act on complaints about the spot, seen at left:

17 viewers took exception of the ad... Ten viewers complained about the violence, while seven took exception to the time of the broadcast...

 

"Although some viewers may object to the nature of the game, the ad itself did not feature sequences that were likely to have a direct harmful influence on children or young people," said the ASA.

GamePolitics readers may recall that the ASA similarly cleared a TV spot for Bully: Scholarship Edition in a ruling earlier this month.

Last September game-hatin' attorney Jack Thompson claimed in a federal court filing that a corrupt attorney marked for assassination in Grand Theft Auto IV was him. But then, Thompson says a lot of things...

What seems more clear is that a hybrid car (left) available for jacking in GTA IV is named after a well-known game violence researcher, Dr. Karen Dill of North Carolina's Lenoir-Rhyne College.

As reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The "Karin Dilettante" is a sporty hybrid sedan that appears in Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest installment in the famously violent and sexualized series of video games. "Chicks love electronic gadgets" is the slogan in fake ads for the car.

 

Ms. Dill says she couldn't believe that Rockstar Games, the maker of Grand Theft Auto, had taken the trouble to name a car for her: "I was kind of like, whoa, they actually do care about video-game research."

Dill, who has testified on game violence issues before Congress, apparently took the parody good-naturedly. Reportedly, she was simply relieved to find that she was not portrayed as one of the game's hookers.

In a rare interview, Rockstar Games co-founder Sam Houser told MCVUK that unnamed political forces have tried to bring the Grand Theft Auto publisher down:

[My biggest challenge has been] surviving in an environment in which powerful people want to put you out of business for their own political or economic capital.

Houser addresses several more topics in the interview. It's definitely worth a read.

GP: We wish Houser would have named names. Jack Thompson, of course, has boasted many times that he is out to destroy Rockstar. But we're not sure we'd classify him as "powerful".

The list of elected officials who have criticized GTA is far too numerous to mention and contains some folks with some legitimate juice such as Hillary Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But we can't recall any of them wanting to lay waste to Rockstar...

As reported by vnunet, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has declined to take action against a commercial for Rockstar's Bully: Scholarship Edition.

The ASA received 31 complaints about the ad:

The game's main character is seen in the ad destroying property, firing a catapult and shielding himself from a burning substance in a science classroom. Two other characters are shown lifting another student by his underpants...

 

Several viewers, some of whom had experienced bullying, described it as 'offensive and distasteful'.

 

Others said that it 'glorified, trivialised and encouraged bullying and violence', and that it was scheduled inappropriately because it could be seen by children.

Take Two argued that the ad was comedic in nature and that sensationalized media coverage of Bully: Scholarship Edition probably led to some of the complaints. 

Forever pushing the envelope, Rockstar's P.R. department has apparently shipped out a Grand Theft Auto IV bat to selected media types. The bat features a GTA IV logo smeared with faux blood.

It's apparently by way of kicking off their holiday season sales push. Glenn Derene of Popular Mechanics writes:

Because they couldn’t legally send us an Uzi thorough the mail, [Rockstar] sent us the 14th most deadly weapon in the blockbuster game’s new arsenal: a metal bat... It just arrived with a press release informing us “‘Tis the Season To Swing Big and Go GRAND,” promoting GTA IV as a perfect stocking-stuffer for the Christmas season.

 

But who needs the game when you’ve got the bat? In the spirit of giving, we can now give a GTA-style beat-down to random strangers on the street, just like our favorite Eastern European criminal thug, Niko Bellic. And when the cops catch us, we can say that we never would have done it were it not for the influence of violent video games. And for the first time, we’d be right!

It's kind of ironic when one considers the Nassau Six, a dirty half-dozen juvenile delinquents busted last week for going on what police claim is a GTA IV-inspired crime spree armed with a crowbar and a baseball bat. While the cops haven't said exactly why they're pointing the long arm of the law at Rockstar's controversial game, wouldn't the mainstream media go bonkers if it turned out that the bat used by the Nassau Six was this bat? 

Last week, GamePolitics was the first game-oriented site to report on a New Haven Advocate story detailing Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg's controversial remarks about Grand Theft Auto IV.

The newspaper reported that Sen. Slossberg, a Democrat, was concerned about a possible rape scene in the game and was considering introducing game-oriented legislation in the upcoming session.

The following day, however, Slossberg issued a statement to the effect that her comments were "misrepresented" by the Advocate. 

Despite the Senator's protestations, the paper is standing by its story. Following an inquiry by GamePolitics, we received the Advocate's statement a short time ago:

The Advocate defends its reporting on this story. Sen. Slossberg was clearly speaking about stricter video game labeling in her capacity as a lawmaker, rather than as a mother or a private citizen. Also, our story said nothing about the senator wanting to restrict video game content, only video game labeling.

 

While we are sympathetic to the senator's concerns, there is no privacy protection for public speech. It is misguided to assume a conversation between an influential state senator and a reporter, or reporters, occurring in a public place, is off-the-record. The Advocate is happy to talk on background, if it's requested. In this case, it was not.

There's a fascinating piece on Develop today.

Writer Owain Bennallack speculates whether Rockstar founders and Sam and Dan Houser might someday be knighted.

While the Housers are pariahs to some for the GTA series' edgy content, their cultural and economic impact is undeniable. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the passing of the years transformed British bad boys into royal honorees.

Here's Bennallack:

They’ve fought the law, Jack Thompson, and the British tabloids. With their comrades at Edinburgh’s Rockstar North they’ve upped the ante with each successive GTA, creating landmark games with ever more wit, élan, action and emotion...

 

...the establishment eventually co-opts any superstar bad boys who haven’t died in their own vomit, overdosed on narcotics, outlived their legends or crashed a light aircraft into some Caribbean outcrop.
I mean the inevitable coming of Sir Sam Houser, or Dan Houser OBE..

 

Grand Theft Auto IV caps a body of work that is culturally and commercially significant enough to warrant official recognition... The playful nature of GTA IV is also why today’s rote moral outrage will eventually be no impediment to the Housers getting their high society dues. It’s hard to appreciate now that rock music once shook society, but it did, and decades later Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney picked up their knighthoods regardless...

 

Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg (D) is eager to do something about the rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV, she told the New Haven Advocate.

But she faces a major hurdle: There is no rape scene in the controversial game.

From the newspaper story:

[Sen. Slossberg] wants confirmation of the rumored rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV—but she can't reach that level of the game. The Milford state senator's never played GTA, but she fears it's corrupting the youth and thinks a law requiring better warning labels might be the fix. She told the Nose as much at a Capitol press conference last week...

 

Slossberg hints she'll... introduce legislation next session calling for clearer labeling of depraved video games like Grand Theft Auto...  Slossberg's a bit unsure of how the warning labels might read: "I mean what would it say? 'This game will make you a sociopath'?"

The New York Times takes a look at the controversy surrounding legal fees sought by attorneys in the Hot Coffee class-action suit.

Seth Lesser, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, told the NYT he was disappointed that only 2,676 buyers of GTA San Andreas filed claims:

Am I disappointed? Sure. We can’t guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don’t care. The merits of the case were clear... The game was sold as something that it wasn’t.

As previously reported by GamePolitics (see: Did Lawyers Inflate Fees in Hot Coffee Class-action Suit?), Lesser and his legal colleagues are seeking $1.3 in fees. Meanwhile, defense attorneys for GTA publisher Take-Two say it only cost them $30,000 to defend the case.

University of Kentucky law prof Mary Davis told the Times:

It doesn’t typically go that way. [To have legal fees far exceed what plaintiffs receive] is sort of backwards.

Ted Frank, an attorney who also writes for the Overlawyered blog, commented:

There are two possibilities. Possibility one is they have a meritorious lawsuit and they’re selling out the class for attorneys’ fees. The other possibility is that, and frankly I think this is the more likely possibility, they brought a meritless lawsuit that had no business being brought to court at all.

The Times also ponders why GTA's non-stop violence is seemingly more acceptable than the Hot Coffee sex animations. Here the newspaper turns to Craig Anderson, an Iowa State prof whose research on game violence and aggression is accepted in some quarters, disputed in others:

For some reason sex is seen as more harmful to kids than violence. The irony is that in terms of the research literature on harmful effects of various forms of media, television, movies, video games, the research is very, very clear. There are significant short-term and long-term effects of violent content.

A hearing on the proposed settlement is scheduled in U.S. District Court in Manhattan today.

UPDATE: Overlawyered's Ted Frank posts his impressions of the June 25th hearing...

In addition to heaps of criticism, the recently released Grand Theft Auto IV has received its fair share of kudos. Game critics across the board have lauded the controversial title for everything from its impressive graphics and entertaining gameplay to the dramatic depth of its large cast and its cinema-quality story. 

With such high accolades, not to mention record-breaking sales, a movie based on the game seems like a forgone conclusion, no?

Well, no.

You see, back in ’77, Roger Corman produced a little flick called Grand Theft Auto.  The film (written, directed by, and starring Ron Howard) involves a rich girl stealing her dad’s car and running off to Vegas with her boyfriend to get married.  A $25,000 reward is offered for her safe return and suddenly everyone from the cops to the daughter's ex-boyfriend is after them.

According to LA Weekly blogger Nikki Finke, Fox Atomic currently owns the rights to the movie title Grand Theft Auto. By agreement between the parties, Take-Two can’t make a film called Grand Theft Auto and Fox can’t make a game called Grand Theft Auto.

For now, the best we can hope for is a remake or sequel to the 30-year-old, PG-rated chase film but even that’s looking unlikely.  As an insider revealed to Finke:

Yes, Fox owns the Corman movie. Yes, it has been one of 400 development projects for several years. But they are nowhere on the script. It has certainly not been a front-burner project.

Via: GameDaily

-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen is still waiting for a film version of Chibi Robo