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

[meepodeekin.livejournal.com]

I don't think you are overreacting. The GTA games are supposed to be really fun, but I have refused to even look at playing any of them.

I am reminded of an argument I got into on the Neverwinter Nights online fora a few years back--some people were discussing playing as an evil pc. (There are actions, quests, items, etc that only an evil character can get.) Another player said that she could never see herself playing an evil character because she couldn't, for example, kill innocent bystanders to keep her alignment rating. (In the game alignment is measured on a 0-100 scale and if you go above 30 you "lose" your evilness and all its benefits.) A large number of people on the thread attacked this woman, saying that she was an idiot and a prude and a neurotic and that game actions aren't real etc etc. I tried to stand up for her. I don't think it's ok to kill an innocent child, even if that child is 2d. I don't necessarily have a problem with another adult doing it in their own home, but I never would. It makes me sick to think about it. And the idea that kids are playing this game with an evil alignment encouraged (or, in the case of GTA, required) really bugs me.

Long diversion, sorry. What I meant to say was, I agree with you.

[contrariety.livejournal.com]

I think the responsibility of the reviewer is to give the target audience a sense of how much they will like the game. What bothers me here is that apparently the reviewer didn't feel the gender issues were relevant to his enjoyment of the game, nor does he think that it's relevant to the target audience's enjoyment.

Though there's probably also a fundamental issue of "it's GTA, everyone already knows it's gross and misogynist, why waste my column issues on the obvious?" going on.

[viking-cat.livejournal.com]

I disagree with you. It's rated M for mature, which means you can't buy it if you're less than 17. My co-worker tells me that there were 300 people in line to buy it at Best Buy last night, and they were carding everybody. Your concern seems misplaced to me a little bit because 10 year olds can't (and certainly shouldn't) buy it.

I won't condemn an R rated movie for swearing, since it's certainly not intended to appeal to the same audience as a G rated movie. I wouldn't expect a reviewer to spell that out for me.

- K

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have now vicariously played a little of GTA: San Andreas (as in I held the walkthrough of the list of graffiti tags to paint over while sstrickl found them all, I do not have the reflexes for the game), and they _can_ be played in a relatively clean fashion, though there will still be killin' in them. And the radio stations are marvelous. I am not sure whether you actually have to play them in an evil alignment to complete all of the in-game goals, in fact, though there are plenty of people who do so. We certainly had a blast doing what we were doing, and were pleased to be able to do so without compromising what we felt comfortable with. I know K had the same impression of Vice City (at least I think it was Vice City)-- he just avoided that stuff and enjoyed the sandbox aspects and the amusing cultural references.

Rockstar Games has perfected the inclusion of this material in order to drive sales with controversy. They're kinda like performance art for profit in that way-- it's very much part of their business model. I _do_ want the treatment of women to be mentioned in the review of this sort of game. I _do_ think it's relevant even if the reviewer is writing to the potential audience-- and when the hell has the NYTimes written solely to the potential audience? I've read a lot of really dumbass reviews of action movies by reviewers who didn't get the material, didn't understand the comic book predecessor, etc. So they _should_ be just as critical of GTA games in their reviews.

[siercia]

I think a simple statement reminding readers that this game is for mature players might be in order, in case you've been living under a rock and did not know that already. To use your example, I would not necessarily expect a review of the second season of Deadwood to remind me of the foul language - it's already pretty much out there as cultural knowledge.

I also think that within the context of a game review, a discussing its morality would not be out of place, but it's also not required. Again, partly because that has been discussed to death already, and partly because the purpose of a review IS to discuss whether it's fun to play, not whether a player should be doing so.

[ellinor.livejournal.com]

I'm with viking_cat on this one. I understand why there's a lot of controversy over the game, and I question its gender politics on a personal level, but even as a heartfelt pacifist, I enjoy fantasy violence under some circumstances and respect the rights of others to do so even when I might not. This game has an age restriction for purchase, and individuals under that age should not be purchasing it. Stores who sell the game are going to enforce that because of the controversy surrounding the game. And just because I don't like an expressive work doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. Frankly, there is a good opportunity for a "teaching moment" in this game, and in many war games, if people are paying attention. Although I don't know if enough people are.

So, maybe you (or maybe even I) think less of the reviewer on a personal level because he is someone who finds this particular brand of fantasy violence enjoyable. But people know what the game is about. What they want to know is whether it does that thing well. What the reviewer is telling them is that it does. So it's a useful review. Frankly, it would be a less useful review if it condemned the game for its subject matter rather than discussing its play characteristics, since people already know about one and not the other.

[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.

[lisa-bee.livejournal.com]

For me, there are two different aspects of GTA that make me never want to play it -- the violence, and the pervasive misogyny.

I don't have much of a problem with GTA's violence going unmentioned in a review, because it is rated, and because it's so well known at this point that very few people would be surprised to see its violence. (And in theory you can't buy it unless you're over 17 years old.)

But the fact that there was no reference whatsoever to the fact that women are objects -- objects designed to pander to stereotypical male desires? I think that deserves mention. This may be partially because I think misogyny is more insidious than violence: it is less visible and more likely to go uncommented on.

And now that I think about it, it's not the violence of GTA that makes me not play it: it's the fact that women are so completely non-people in GTA that bothers me so much. And GTA isn't alone: there are so incredibly few video games in which women are actually treated like people rather than sex objects that might potentially be playable characters or eye candy.

[zfarcher.livejournal.com]

Ditto to the above.

I could never play GTA as I find the entire premise abhorrent, but most especially the way women are allegedly treated in game. I have no major problem in general with sex and violence, but do have a problem with the glorification of antisocial behavior and the flouting of the law.

I think any review should mention some of the less-savory aspects of the game. There are a segment of folks who will find this sort of thing enjoyable. But to praise some of the positive aspects of the game while ignoring its seamier side is (IMHO) utterly inappropriate.

[julianyap.livejournal.com]

Having not yet unwrapped the game, I'm given to understand from reviews I've read that GTA IV is actually much less appalling than GTA III. The Slate review indicates that there is a much greater moral dimension to your actions, and other reviews I've read have highlighted the "dating sim" aspects of the game as something far different from GTA III.

Not to say, of course, that some teenager won't go on a killing spree or the GTA III classic hire prostitute/kill prostitute and take her money. But there does seem to be a whole different level of morality and (based again purely on reviews) less misogyny than GTA III.

Also, to follow up on the carding thing, I bought the game at a Best Buy, where they were IDing everyone who wanted to buy it.

[cerridwynn.livejournal.com]

We heard a great review on NPR last night. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90041944

One of the really interesting things about the NPR story is that they talked about the fact that young kids will, inevitably, play this game... but the conclusion was that maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing -- that kids can tell right from wrong -- and that they really enjoyed the fact that the game series lets you be a good guy (and drive an ambulance or catch other bad guys) as well as bad. There was more to it than that -- you'll have to listen.

Anyway, I haven't read the NYT review but i'm not sure a reviewer has any responsibility to comment on the relative morality of their subject -- that's just such a huge problem to tackle, and probably outside the scope of a review! (The age thing is a more valid complaint though). And while i don't intend to play the game myself, someday (when we have a sufficiently advanced game system) i expect i'll watch mentalapse play. He's a fan of the games and i've watched him play GTA III. I wasn't really all that bothered by the violence or the misogeny -- sure, it's there, but even in GTA III (and i expect even more so in GTA IV) the violence and misogeny were both amusingly satirical but also had enough realism as to feel really tragic. Dark humor makes for great social criticism. Plus, there wasn't the same purely gleeful destruction that i get from bloody, un-nuanced shooter games -- those bother me a lot more.

(Sorry to ramble... I just think this is a really interesting topic!)

[kid-cthulhu.livejournal.com]

My feeling is that any reviewer, movie, book, game, whatever, should give some form of plot synopsis or at least a feel for what the piece is about. I hate reviews that give away the ending and secrets, but I do like to know "this is a game where you play fluffy bunnies", versus "this is a game where you play skateboarding teens".

That said, I may be the only female in existence who finds GTA just fine and actually kind of amusing. Perhaps because it's so amazingly over the top and tongue in cheek that I find it very hard to believe that anyone could take it seriously.

Would I let my child play it? No. Do I think it deserves an M rating if only because the sarcasm and sillyness of it require maturity to detect? Hell yes. But I guess I've never understood the fuss.

The attention people play to GTA and other violent games, is a little like a game of telephone. With each person who repeats the violent aspects, you get further removed from the sarcasm, and closer to taking the damn thing seriously, which I think was never the creators' intent.