On a different note - Morality and Video games

[orichalcum]

The New York Times just gave an incredibly favorable review to the new Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City (aka NYC) game. It praises the game's graphics, its sandbox design, its music, its variability, etc...

Nowhere in the review does the reviewer (Seth Schiesel) comment on the relative morality of the game or what age group it might be suitable for.

Keep in mind that, aside from the robbery, assault, carjacking, etc.. plots....this is a game in which you (_can_ - Edited for accuracy, thanks redhound) hire prostitutes, have sex with them, and _then kill them._ That's what women are for in the game context. Not one of the numerous characters mentioned in the review is female. In the preview, female strippers at a strip club talk about how stripping arouses them. The online dating club is called "The Twat."

So...my question is - should reviews in this case query the moral and age-appropriate content of a game? Admittedly, I don't necessarily expect reviews of, say, Sex and the City to condemn it for questionable relationships, or Deadwood to be slammed because of all the obscenity. But I'd kinda like to know about it in both cases.

GTA crosses the line for me where I wish, I really wish, that someone was devoting all that effort to making a game with content that I'd feel comfortable playing. But while it may have great gameplay, the thought of selling it to 10-year-olds upsets me.

Am I overreacting? Should this game just be evaluated on the basis of whether it's fun to play?

Comments

[redhound.livejournal.com]

To begin by blandly answering your question, I think game review should mention a game's rating, as a matter of consumer information if nothing else. I think it would be reasonable for a reviewer to comment on whether she thought the rating was accurate, but I don't think it's obligatory.

To wrestle with the more troubling issues, though, GTA has always squicked me a bit, for much the same reasons you discuss. However, I feel like the phrase "hire prostitutes, have sex with them, and then kill them" really ought to be prefaced with the word "can". No one tells you to go kill prostitutes (or at least they didn't in GTA3; I haven't seen 4), and I think the implication that this is what one is supposed to do in the game obscures a situation that has enough sketchy stuff going on already.

It's sort of implicit in sandbox design that if you're going to make a sandbox game about sleazy dirtbag criminals in a sleazy dirtbag city, you're not really doing your job if you don't allow players to hire prostitutes, and you're not really doing your job if you don't allow players to kill people and take their money. The fact that this readily facilitates doing horrifying serial-killer shit is very creepy to me, but that's the price of interactivity. Back in the day, there was a disturbing amount of rape in D&D campaigns run by lonely teenage boys with rage issues. To some extent, these possibilities are indeed what an M rating is for. (It's also worth noting that you can, if you want, make GTA a game about driving around listening to the radio, or about ludicrous stunt driving, or about hiring prostitutes and then not killing them.)

The general absence of females other than in a sex worker context is less defensible to me, and the M rating doesn't help with that in my mind. One could, I suppose, appeal to the genre conventions, but I'm not terribly impressed by that.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Duly edited - you're right. While there doesn't seem to be anything to do with women other than for the male protagonists to have sex with them (and, if they like, rob and kill them), it's an option, not a requirement. Apparently, there is more gameplay in 4 devoted to seriously sketchy online dating?

Regarding the genre issues, I see your point, but why not have a kickass prostitute/female gangleader character, at the least, who would not be particularly out of genre?

[redhound.livejournal.com]

As I say, I'm not all that persuaded by the genre convention argument; GTA is, in fact, kind of gross in that way.

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with your comments about the nature of sandbox design. There is a serious problem with various people assuming that games will be played in the most morally dubious way possible. That said, my understanding is that the core plot also requires a fairly high level of violence.

[redhound.livejournal.com]

True, but a) I know a lot of people who have generally found the core plot of GTA's various incarnations kind of lame and not the point, and b) in that respect, GTA is hardly unusual. It's the "hire prostitutes and then kill them" stuff that gets called out as unique. (I guess there's a layer of cop-killing we could talk about if the serial-killer aspect gets stripped away.)

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

One of the most amusing features of a 10-year-old space exploration/conquest game that I liked (Master of Orion II) was one of those sandbox features. In the mid-game, you can develop the technology to convert asteroid belts (and gas giants) into habitable planets. In the end-game, you can develop the technology to create your very own Death Star - which in effect converts a planet into an asteroid belt.

And there were some planets out there that were just annoying - they were too small, or were un-terraformable, or had sub-optimal gravity.

And because the game wasn't a perfect sandbox, you could only destroy planets that were inhabited by other civilizations...

I'm not sure GTA is much different, aside from being more relevant to some people's day to day lives.