Rockstar is the name of the company that is rolling wheelbarrows of money to the bank this week, projected to rack up something on the order of $400 million in revenue from the sale of six million copies of its newest video game sensation, Grand Theft Auto IV.
Between a rock and a hard place is more like how I feel, as the mother of a gamer. So far, they only have a few dollars of my money (or Blockbuster does, anyway), since my deal with my son was to rent not buy. But there's no question that our reviews of the latest in this infamous series are not in sync.
He thinks it's a great new game.
I write for a living and still have difficulty finding the words to describe it. Awful doesn't begin. From what I've heard about the ending (and this is one ending I really would love to spoil), you win by becoming the No. 1 mobster, even if your whole family dies in the process. In one version, so I'm told, your cousin and his bride die in a drive-by shooting at their wedding. In another, your girlfriend gets killed. At least this one doesn't declare war on all Haitians (which an earlier installment in the series did, until the Haitian community complained), but it's all about killing, including killing police officers.
Imagine gratuitous violence. Then imagine people with more imagination than you or I making it more graphic and awful than we could ever dream, and you're on your way to this new blockbuster entertainment.
A mother I know and respect told me some years ago that if you want your kids to follow your rules, don't make too many of them, make clear that the "noes" really are "noes," and as for the rest, go for honesty and communication. I remember asking her what her noes were and she listed three: heroin, cigarettes and motorcycles without helmets. I have a few more than that, but having seen the way kids get around their parents' bans on video games, Internet content, etc., I've settled for full disclosure rather than absolute bans in those departments.
Trying to prove that video games cause violence is a bit like trying to prove that pornography causes crime against women or even that the death penalty deters crime.
Figures don't lie, but people do — and they manipulate, as well. Most people who look at porn or play violent video games live normal, healthy lives, but that doesn't mean they're good for you. You can find states that have the death penalty and high murder rates, and states that don't and have much lower murder rates.
I'm old-fashioned enough to believe in personal responsibility. So when someone commits an act of violence, I blame the person and believe they should be punished, regardless of deterrence; I do not blame the game they played or the website they visited. I also believe in the First Amendment, for adults anyway, which means that it's not the business of government to tell people what has artistic value and what doesn't. Kids, on the other hand, are another matter. We're all responsible for them.
It's not my son I'm really worried about. He does well in school, follows the important rules and generally gets bored with most video games before they get in the way of life. It's his generation, the generation that he is going to grow up in and live with, full of kids who take this stuff for granted and spend more time with it than with real life, that worries me. It's the genius that is being distorted into creating more and worse violence. There's no question that great minds are behind these games, in terms of creative and technological skill. But think of what else they could be doing. And aren't.
It's a shame and a waste, and it portends a generation going down the tubes. "Rockstar" my you-know-what. Shame on you. You owe the kids who worship you — and line your coffers — better than this garbage.
To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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3 Comments | Post Comment
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Susan, reading your article gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, as I realized that both conservatives and liberals can still come together to join in the practice of ill-informed righteous indignation.
Your description of the new Grand Theft Auto IV reminded me of another violent, blood-filled video game of recent years. In it, the lead character is an innocent young man who is slowly corrupted by the influence of his criminal family until, eventually, he takes over the family and orders mass murders of all their criminal opponents.
Oh, hang on, that wasn't a video game, that was The Godfather.
But, as usual, it is left to the “adults” (meaning, generally, people old enough to be shocked and confounded by a new medium) in society to tell us exactly why the deviant violent or sexual content in the things that teenagers and twenty-somethings enjoy is so much more dangerous and damaging than the good old fashioned sex and violence of yester-year. The depravity of cinema isn't so serious, of course, as the depravity of video games, just as the depravity of literature is far less worrisome than the depravity of cinema, while the depravity of The Good Book is beyond reproach, especially compared to that seedy trash other people call literature.
But, of course, when one reads Lolita or watches Apocalypse Now or plays Grand Theft Auto IV, one can easily see that in each case that sexual or violent content is part of a larger scheme of thematic and artistic goals. Perhaps it's difficult to see that at work in a video game if one is ignorant of the medium, because, like cinema and comic books, video games have a language, both verbal and visual, that must be learned to one degree or another before the final product is understood. But it can hardly be coincidence that video game players, reviewers, and creators have almost universally hailed Grand Theft Auto IV as a stunning achievement, earning a 99/100 composite review on metacritic.com based on 53 reviews.
But, of course, you would rather compare video games, as an art-form, to pornography, rather than to cinema. Just as you would rather take the inaccurate position that Rockstar owes its success purely to teenagers, rather than recognize the vast numbers of adults who play their games. You'd rather blame a company, who made a video game intended for mature audiences, or an industry, whose self-regulatory body labeled the game “Mature” (the video game equivalent of an R), rather than blame parents who indulge their children by allowing them to play games intended for adults without understanding the game, the genre, or the medium enough to know what is or isn't appropriate for those children.
I'm afraid I have news for you: Rockstar is not beholden to some idea of what is best “for the children” when they make games for adults. The average age of a video game player is 29. The average age of a video game purchaser is 36. Like comic books, video games have long suffered the foolish presumption that they, as a medium, are aimed at children. That is simply no longer the case. Like books, movies, and every other artform in the world, parents who don't want their children exposed to a specific work will simply have to prevent them from being exposed to it.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Steve
Thu May 8, 2008 7:39 AM
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Susan, I just read your column in the May 8, 2008 Florida Today reflecting on your views of McCain's health plan. You state how he wants to work with individual states to guarantee coverage for thier citizens. Hummm, sounds like he is staying true to his ideology. In your diatribe of how hard it was to get insurance for "the woman who has helped me raise my children" aka your nanny, you lament that she "settled" with the unthinkable, horrific, HMO! Do you not get the fact that an HMO is Hillary's health plan?! You obviously never had to worry about being insured as you are able to afford to buy insurance due to your income status, which you have earned through your hard work. You are lucky to have never had to wait in a long line in tremendous pain for a doctor to finally see you, THAT would be a goverment health plan to the "T", I would know first hand as I served in the military and have lived under a "goverment health plan". Yet you subscribe this type of system as being the panacea that this counrty needs! What a hypocrite! Save your wailing and nashing of teeth for your comrades, don't go out and egregiously misinform the public at large. I wish your nanny well, thank God she has you!
Comment: #2
Posted by: Suzanne Haughwout
Thu May 8, 2008 8:36 AM
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I was dumbfounded over your pontificating on the subject considering your complicity in children being exposed to these games. From the tone of the article your son is under 17 and as a responsible adult you of course considered the Mature rating (not intended for children under 17) and chose to rent it for the boy anyway only to be horrified and indignant at its content. You failed to mention whether or not you picked the lad up a six pack of malt liquor only to be outraged that it made him drunk. I would have been too embarrassed to submit the article but like most columnists you have the ability to launch into a rant and be impervious to your own hypocrisy.
When people state you're "all for" something or that they "believe in the 1st Amendment..." it's immediately followed by some limiter which to me is out of the side of your face talk. Like most knee jerker parents I think you WOULD rather something be banned or not be allowed to be manufactured at all than have to police your own kid and take responsibility for how they turn out. Worse yet is that you'd be tickled pink to deny other adults access to the games because Susie's little scamp is the most important person ever and should be so to everybody. Everyone wants to believe kids are so easily swayed to the point they follow through. Ask any head of a mob or crime syndicate what motivated him to aspire to that position. If any of them answer "a video game" I'll eat the hat of your choosing. In their child's play our grandfathers emulated the Duke killing hordes of Indians . To my knowledge not too many of them went on to pursue the real thing as teens or young adults.
Another parental failing on your part is to assume video gaming is singly a child's pursuit and are shocked at the content. Many adults assume the same of animated shows and plop junior down in front of the Simpsons or, worse yet, the Family Guy and then are shocked when their kid quotes something randy from Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin. Please get off the pulpit, lay off the keyboard for a minute and do some parenting. Observe the things your runt is exposed to, gauge whether it's appropriate for him or if he can handle it, and act accordingly. A game is too violent-take it away. A movie too bawdy -block it. A bicycle too dangerous-don't get it for him. In short be responsible for him. I don't buy this "it takes a village" tripe. That you felt the overwhelming need to propagate your blue-ribbon DNA is on you alone. I choose not to have children and retain the right to surround myself with whatever debauchery, hedonism or licentiousness I want and shouldn't be denied because you look down your nose at it. This planet is not only for breeders.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Bobby
Thu May 8, 2008 7:17 PM
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