![]() ![]() But there is something else about these games, especially morally suspect ones like Grand Theft Auto, that demands our attention. If video games were just unredeemably violent it would be easy for progressives to condemn or ignore them. ![]() An earlier version of GTA called Vice City included a “cheat”-a programming quirk ostensibly not anticipated by the creators of the game-which allowed the player to have sex with a prostitute and thus increase his life credits before killing her to get his money back, thus retaining his virtual bankroll. The antisociality not programmed into the game is quickly provided by the adept player. Many homes can be broken into, and goods You can perform burglaries at night when not on a mission. The bulk of your playing time is spent making money and earning respect through crime, learning to make your way in the world with helpful hints like these: Yet most of the “missions” which make up the narrative play have little to do with this dubious revenge morality. It is Sigmund Freud’s nightmare of unsublimated eros and thanatos, with a heavy emphasis on the latter: the return of the repressed expressed onscreen.Īs Tim Winter, executive director of the Parents’ Television Council, puts it, Grand Theft Auto is “lacking any redeeming social values.” The carnage in the game is justified by the thinnest of story lines: the main character returns to his home city after a long absence to find his mother murdered and his gang in disarray, and thus must avenge her death and get his gang back together. Interaction with other characters in the game is, for the most part, limited to killing or setting up a killing and, to a lesser extent, having sex. Some of these people probably deserve it: gang bangers and killer cops, but firemen and medics and prostitutes are also fair targets, as is anyone who happens to be out on the street. In order to “win” the game a player has to shoot, beat, and run over literally thousands of individuals. The first is that all the hand-wringing, wet-blanket, moralistic critics of video games are right: Grand Theft Auto is apocalyptically violent. But two things need to be recognized at the start of any discussion about its political possibilities. And then you reach for a can of Red Bull as you flex your thumbs, creaky and sore from hours of tapping console buttons while playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.Īs unlikely as it seems, progressives can learn a lot from a video game like this. Jumping in front of a passing sedan, you punch the driver in the head and pull her out, leaving her bleeding on the ground as you jack her ride. You hop out of your car, machine gun in hand, shooting the medics and wasting the cops as your vehicle explodes behind you. An ambulance arrives, followed by a couple of police cruisers. You’ve got sex appeal and street respect and the points to prove it. ![]() You remember your date last night, starting with an innocent invitation to hot coffee and ending in bed with an impossibly proportioned woman who tells you, “You’re the man.” You are the man. You look down at your muscular brown forearm, tattoos peeking out from under your shirt. Stopping at a store, you buy new clothes in a casino you lay down a bet you go dancing at a club and then you’re back on the street, cruising. This is your world, you know it inside out, and everything and every place can be open to you. You’ve got a job to do, but that can wait. Slouched down in a vintage low-rider, you cruise the city. ![]()
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