I tried to reply in the comments section on that article, but it doesn't seem to work.
"Why is it so good? 'It never makes concessions in the name of being politically correct, living up to its M-rating with gusto - there’s tons of swearing, violence, and sexual innuendo.'"
That's incredibly deceptive. Aren't Christians supposed to value honesty?
Every GTA title has has "lived up to it's M-rating". The reason this latest installment is so critically acclaimed is it's narrative; the writing, and story telling in general, has been greatly improved. All the reviews are clear about this. The reviews have also reported that the violence is tamed down, the consequences made more realistic, and our protagonist has been given a conscience. He doesn't like killing for killing's sake, he sometimes saves those he's been ordered to kill; he doesn't use drugs or approve of drug use; he's got a girlfriend who he takes out to dinner, bowling, night clubs, etc.; he can help little old ladies cross the street -- there's a wide range of activities outside the narrow band you are using to characterize the game. It's a cheap and deceptive tactic.
"But that argument isn’t helped by the news report that a San Diego man doused video-game store employees with mace to steal the game."
If the same thing happens at a football game, does that mean football causes violence? School shootings are a lot more common than videogame-line shootings, does that mean school turns you into a murderer? What about the millions of other people waiting for the game who *didn't* stab each other?
Confounding correlation with causation is, at best, stupid. At worst, it's dishonest.
"In 2004, Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, co-founders of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media, undertook a $1.5 million study funded by the Department of Justice on the effects of video games on young teenagers."
You mention that the study found kids play GTA, but you *don't* mention that the same study found gameplay was a marker for social competence, and that kids who *don't* play games are more likely to do poorly in school and to get in fights. As violent videogames have been on the rise, youth violence has been declining. That doesn't mean the former causes the later, but it certainly doesn't support your "violent games are ruining our children" theory.
"stores cannot sell children pornographic magazines or handguns - but they can legally sell video games to children that contain pornographic content"
Pornographic content? The best you can get in GTA is a 'lap dance': a woman in a *bikini* dances in front of you. No nudity anywhere in the game. No touching allowed. If you try, the bouncers kick you out of the club. It's incredibly tame. Network TV has far more sexual content.
"that teach children how to gun down cops."
That's absurd.
First, GTA players don't "gun down cops": they wiggle their fingers on a controller, causing pixels on a screen to change color. That's it. There's a massive distinction between doing something in a game and doing it in real life. I can throw a football 80 yards Madden, yet I can't throw a real football to save my life. If you were running a cop-killing boot camp, 'finger wiggling' would not be one of your training activities.
Second, does playing with army men 'teach your children to gun down soldiers'?! I played with toy guns as a kid, I have toy guns in the house today, yet would *never* own a real gun. I've 'killed' tens of thousands of 'people' in videogames over the course of my life, yet I'm no more prepared to take a *real* human life, or even witness such a thing, that you are.
It's a pitty that you unable to distinguish between fiction and reality, because your kids can. Yes, you need to be careful with very young children (toddlers), but a 10 year old who watches Superman doesn't think he can fly.
Little boys have been playing their generation's equivalent of 'cowboys and Indians' or 'cops and robbers' for as long as their have been little boys. It doesn't turn them into sociopaths, it's a normal part of development. GTA is digital Hot Wheels and action figures.
Of course, there's nothing new about parents reacting hysterically to the unfamiliar. As a GTA producer said, "It's the coming of the railways, it's Elvis shaking his hips. It's cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode." You can add bathing suits that don't cover the ankle, movies, comic books, rock and roll, and much more. Apparently the invention of the girdle caused quite the uproar. It just goes to show, people don't learn from history.
