Millions of kids are killing scores of cops a day - how far should censorship go?

Several parent groups and public figures have been complaining about the latest installment of the video game series "Grand Theft Auto". The series is a highly violent, highly mature crime-simulation. Each game in the series gives the player incredible freedom, from being able to knock over innocent pedestrians in a stolen car to having shoot outs with cops. The latest game, Vice City, is the most realistic GTA game to date. The weapons the player can use to murder range from chainsaws and samurai swords to sniper rifles, gattiling guns, and rocket launchers. From being able to literally pop someone's head off with the sniper rifle, to being able to pick up, have sex with, and then kill prostitutes, the point of the game is to rise up through the ranks of the criminal underworld. And... there are swear words!

Aswell as all of this, the radio stations in the game have a huge amount of what could be seen as "anti-american" sentiment and comedy. This is displayed in advertisments, such as "Excercise your second amendment rights! Buy a gun!" The game also pokes alot of fun at right-wing politicians. This isn't the only title to recieve complaints for glamorizing cop-killing either. The highly popular movie The Matrix and it's infamous lobby scene has recieved alot of flak from certain individuals. Some people say that action video games have become too realistic, many games feature the ability to pick people off through the scope of a sniper rifle, snapping people's necks, etc etc.

What are your opinions on this? Should movies and video games be censored alot more? Should the government be aloud to censor something just for it's political sentiment? Why is it acceptable to have the hero glamorized killing drug dealers, but not killing cops?

In this man's opinion, censorship in most if not all cases is a bad idea. Everyone who is mentally healthy knows the difference between reality and fantasy.

 

Until the imaginary families of those imaginary cops file a grievance with the Bureau of America's Fictional Citizens, I don't see any basis for legal action of any kind.

"If someone's getting kill messages from their TV, taking away their TV isn't going to help. Their cat, their toaster or their talking sweater can help plan a murder just as well." -Sean Riley

 

i would like to start off by saying that im a big time gamer. look at what im playing now, Fallout Tactics, one of the goriest and most vulger games ever. yet it does not make me want to go out with 5 friends and blast people for no reason. i have always been a fan of the Fallout series for its no holds gritty post apocolyptic world, while although fantisy it is rather down to earth in its realizm factor. Where as GTA3 is extreamly stylized and for the most part very unreal in its play mechanics. GTA3 is one of the games i will pry never play, becuase for me it steps to far over the line, and sets a bad president for future ganes to follow and copy.

But the truth is in America you really cant censor media. its unfortunent but true. They have tried many times with the music industry to ban peoepl and edit music, while at the same time making it more popular. becasue the truth is if we start censoring then what is going to keep us from going further? sooner or later its going to be Fahrenhiet 451 in America.

but all in all i think it is commen scense. a parent should review what their children are playing, watching, and listening too. and the parents should chose weather or not their child should have access too. no sane and intelligent person is going to be influenced by the influenced by media that it causes them to commit homicide.

After Columbine there was alot of scapegoating pointed twords games such as DooM. now plese someone here tell me that you think that simply because they kids played DooM they where inticed to go on a killinf spree. one stroy does come to mind however of a person, i believe in singapor, who shot up a movie theater. he even shot out the mirrors in the bathroom looking for powerups, like in a level of Duke Nukem 3D. this was true, but also if i remember correctly the man had some sort of mental illness or retardation so that he could not tell the difference between what is real and what is not. if anyone else knows the facts better then i do plz correct me.

 

I'd like a site for "millions" of kids are "killing scores" every day.

Hmmm, I play the Sims and I often torture my Sims. But I don't go out and do that in real life.

Personally, if you can't see the difference between fantasy and reality, it isn't the video game's fault-and if it's not one thing, it's another.

 

Its a real pity you won't play GTA3. It's one of my favourite games, as is Vice City. They're just extremely fun! Unfortunately, some people choose to not look past all of the contraversy. Lancelot, what line is it in your opinion that GTA crosses??

 

for me the game is far to much of a glamerazation of hardcore criminal life. stuff that you read about in scetchy reprts in the papers, and for good reason!

i have played games that have prostitutes and the like, but it never actually showed anything, and it encouraged you to actually kill them. you could if you wanted to but there really was no bonus.

you look at something like FT and most of the vulgarity and gore is integrated into the game, and not glorified. and thats a big thing for me. once it starts really glorifying the gorey side of things, thats when i start saying enough is enough

 

The GTA games don't show any actual sex when you pick up a prostitute. All you see is a car rocking back and forth. Not very hardcore, is it? It's completely up to the player if you pick up a prostitute, and if you kill that prostitute once your done.

 

I played GTA 3 once, and it got boring after a while, esspecially sense I got the tank cheat and just drove around having the FBI throw dozens of cars at me with no effect.

However, today was a funeral for a local cop that was shot in the head by a 17 year old. He was fighting with his dad, the cop came, chased him through a park and the kid shot the cop, then the kid hijacks a car, the goes to another one, which is a unmarked cop car responding to the scene, and the cop shoots at the kid and then the kid shoots himself in the head. It is very strange to think all this was happening less than 10 miles from me.

 

i have played games that have prostitutes and the like, but it never actually showed anything, and it encouraged you to actually kill them.

Oh, THERE's a moral! [/sarcasm]

Way to go, Jack (as in the Ripper).



- Scarlet.

 

<Chuckles>

I bet they'll ban books on Communism and homosexuality next. Censor all the bad stuff, baby!

Ok, being serious, I have to say that censorship of things like this is dumb. It goes back to whether or not the government can ban things that don't directly harm people but may be harmful indirectly. I support only some of these bans, like a ban on speeding or a ban on running a red light. But I wouldn't support laws that would trample on our liberties.

And to be frank, there are way too many things out there that would inspire violence, most of which aren't bannable (or, at any rate, or not banned). This isn't the strongest argument, but I can't see video games as something more "bannable" than many other things that may cause violence, like drugs, work, school, relationships, etc.

 

Censorship isn't the answer.

Responsible parenting is the answer. If you're under 18 you shouldn't be playing games with 'adult' themes and images. Parents need to know what their children are playing.

I resent the idea that my leisure time should be infringed on by pressure groups because they're too lazy to check on what games their children are playing.

Games aren't cheap. The majority of children get games (or at least the money for games) from their parents. Parents have the power to regulate their children.

May fave is the anti-gaming woman who claimed the FPS games had taught young spree killers to aim for the head. OMG, who doesn't know that if you hit someone in the head it hurts them more than hitting them in the foot.

 

I'm a mother and would never let my child play GTA, but my husband and I own the game and love it. Its the parents responsibilty to decide what a child can play.

I don't believe that the target audience for this game is children or teenagers. Video games are not for children anymore and more adults are buying games for themselves. I think games have to become more mature for us.

Time magazine has a good review
Article

 

I should have commented on that prostitute thing. You think it's better if a game encourages you to kill a prostitute rather than pick her up??

Games have become art. The last two installments of the GTA series are part of that art. As well as being incredibly fun to play, the cities are the biggest and most realistic live cities in all of gaming, as well as the most beautiful.

 

and it encouraged you to actually kill them

oops, shows how one word can really throw off the meaining of a sentance it should read more like:

and it never encouraged you to actually kill them

 

Like i said before, the player CAN kill the prostitutes if he wishes, but the game doesn't actually encourage it.

 

But don't blame me when lil' Eric jumps off of the terrace
You should've been watchin him' - apparently you ain't parents

if you woulda been, in my shoes, who would've thought
Slim Shady [-Vice City?-] would be somethin' that you would've bought
that would've made you get a gun and shoot at a cop
I just said it - I ain't know if you'd do it or not.

- Eminem

Hey, that could apply to this thread too. How neat.

Parents should watch their kids, if you don't know your kid well enough to know wether or not he can "handle" playing that game then it's you're fault if he does get's influenced by it. They put ratings on those boxes for some reason.

 

This is just silly.

Firstly, the game has a "mature" rating - hence children cannot buy it. It their parents buy it for them, then its bad parenting.

Secondly, GTA does not encourage you to pick up prostitutes for sex. One mission involves collecting some for a party, but thats it. Neither does it say in the game manual to pick up girls for sex - so if you pick one up, then *you* must have known what to do in the first place. (ie you already knew what kerb crawling was all about).

Does the game encourage killing ? Well yes, but don't about 50% of video games do that ? There are only two game styles - kill everything, or collect everything (oh, and of course arranging falling blocks into lines).

Personally I think they should censor the Super Mario games as they encourage children to eat random mushrooms that they find all over the place. Not a good idea.

malkie

 

Well, I am a huge GTA3 and GTA: VICE CITY fan. I even wrote a paper on video game violence 3 years ago that got published by the LAPD.

I won't deny that criminals can become better criminals by learning what they can from video games. The video tapes by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris of Columbine fame makes that clear, when they brag about how DOOM showed them how to best approach corners, for example (the old strafing technique). Part of my paper found that 60% of criminals who got into high speed chases with the police AND lasted more then an hour played driving video games or GTA1.

Ultimately, though, as much as I play the GTA series games, the only thing that has ever translated over to me in real life, is that when ever I see a cop car in real life, I am more apprehensious and less likely to do anything, but that is about it.

 

LOL on themushrrom-eating, Malkie!

I agree wholeheartedly. This is not a censor issue. This is about parents either caving to their child's wants (by giving them the game whether they know the content or not) or about bad parenting (in that they are not aware that their child owns the game, or that they do not know its content).

I am a huge fan of games like Rogue Spear and and Jedi Knight Outcast (which, by the way, I get a Real morbid kick out of when I enable the graphic dismembering cheat code--and can slice and dice stormtroopers!); however, with a daughter now, I have curbed my game preferences. I only play such games occassionally, and at my friend's place, wll away from young, curious eyes and ears. This is a hypocritical preference for my wife and I, because we don't want our daughter to be around such material, yet I don't want to completely disolve it from my own experience.

It's tough, but it works.

...For now.


EDIT: One more note in defense of games and movies, etc. Examples like the Matrix's lobby scene are often used as moral wrongs by those in favor of censorship. What they do not acknowledge is that these are works of fiction. Those people who cannot tell the difference between reality and not likely have more social issues than just watching a violent movie.

 

OH, I won't deny, that if I had kids, they would never be allowed to play GTA untill I am sure they are mature enough to handle it. The same with RESIDENT EVIL series games as well.

GTA 3 was succesfully banned in Australia and New Zealand, mostly because of the violence against women in the game being the main reason they were banned in those country's. Here in the US, the best that I heard they did was that they would not sell it at ToysRUs or other 'toy stores' but sold it full scale at video game stores.

 

Unfortunately, I think the only way to get legal action taken is for some kid to go blow away a prostitute/cop/pedestrian and then in court claim that the video game did it and THEN have some professional psychoanalyst say that the video game warped his mind and made him numb to violence/the idea for it/etc.

 

What do you mean unfortunately??

 

Forget about video games. Millions of people still play Dungeons and Dragons, which warps people into minions of Satan who try to spread their evil and insidious ways about the world, corrupting more people into the church of Lucifer and sacrificing good Christian souls (are there any other kind?) on their dark altars.

 

Riiiiiiiiight.

Oh, you're serious?!

 

Theoretically, censorship isn't bad. Just depends on who is doing it. I'm all for parents censoring their children, not for government censoring people.

Games should have ratings, and game stores should take care in who they sell it to. There are a few games (which I haven't played) that I doubt the majority of parents would allow their kids to play.