185: Here’s kind of what I’m thinking. Kids who grew up with video games don’t always give them up as they mature. This has resulted in a very large market for more mature gamers. This is a fact, and I have no idea how you can say that Rockstar is specifically targeting 12-16 year olds.

Your point that they have surreptitious ad methods is a good one, and I really don’t know much about these stealth marketing methods. I’m not being facetious here, and there’s obviously more to the GTA ad campaign than I knew about if what you say is true, but can you explain what they’re doing to market this to kids? (Other than making a product that inherently and unfortunately seems to attract kids like flies to honey).

Also it is a mystery to me why #20 got disemvowelled, but I suppose that is why I’m not a moderator.

its not encouraging, it’s enabling.
you can play the whole game through and not do that.
you can do what you want inside the game and, yes, there are consequences. if you choose to kill randomly you get thrown in jail.

now explain to me how is that a bad thing?

… that people are upset over a video game that provides escapist violent entertainment and skewers the society that I just described.

*cliche* Of All The Things To Worry About… */cliche*

I’m so buying that game when it comes out. Actually never mind, it’s a bit too close to home.

oh give me strength…
You clearly have no idea what you’re even talking about.
Feminsts are some of the most hardcore activists I know.
They’re staffing the women’s shelters and the domestic violence and sexual assault hotlines.
They’re working tirelessly to ensure that women everywhere have control over their bodies, futures, and reproductive functions.
They’re trying desperately to call attention to women’s plights in Darfur, the Congo, Iraq, and many, many other places where women are living with horrific violence everyday.
I could go on, but, hey, open a book sometime. Or if that’s too hard, take a look around the internet. You won’t have to look very hard. You can start with Feministing.
And yes, they’re calling out sexism in media and pop culture, NOT to censor it, but in the hopes that by talking about it we’ll start to question the images we consume and think about what they mean.
And yeah, words like “patriarchy” are gonna come up now and again. Sorry that’s making you so uncomfortable and “ruining your fun”.

So what do you have to say about the cause? Or was that just a way of silencing critics. Because, when you say that people should talk about the cause rather than the symptoms, and then you don’t talk about the cause…

I doubt you can summarize all the evils in the world in a blog post.

But fine, let’s concentrate about the violence against hookers. If the profession itself wouldn’t be so marginalized the violence against them would probably be less of an issue.

How often do crooks go to the cops if another crook takes them out?

As long as there is a perception in society that what these women (and man) are doing is wrong (legally) they are automatically marginalized.

But here’s the thing: I cannot see the writers at feministing go out and say: Legalize Prostitiution, because the sense I got over the extend of the ensuing discussion is that they are considering prostitution in and on itself being wrong.

I wonder if in their ideal world a woman shouldn’t really do anything that “serves” a man, being a waitress in a restaurant (clearly, the man is just doing this to put the woman in her place) or being a secretary (oh, another round of the male dominance over the women).

And hey, criticize the game all you must, but criticize it as a game, not as the ill of all that is wrong in the world, and at least PLAY it. I know I know, it is in vogue these days to hook into one little piece and then blog about it, but I really wish that would be less of an ongoing theme. *sigh*

Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t bother me, but Susannah Breslin moronic perspective is offensive. Moreover, this is not an honest investigation, it’s a sophomoric attempt to draw attention, to draw ire (not unlike the Grand Theft Auto promo). The attempt is working, too, as evidenced by this post, which is my first. Here’s the rub: Breslin can write whatever she likes, but I’m disappointed with BoingBoing for propagating this thoughtless, sensationalistic nonsense.

Sorry but you know there is something amiss when people can’t call crud for crud. And what is AMAZING about the current GTA release is how much they are couching what they do as being “satirical”. How many new blurbs and reports repeat that “This is a satire…” mantra?

This isn’t satire. This is a mass-marketed misogynist game that is specifically targeted towards teens no matter what Rockstar’s company line is. They know their market. They know how to push the right buttons. And it’s amazing how many people are drinking the proverbial Kool Aid.

Anyone remember when video games weren’t all based on sociopathic murder fantasies?

(Other than making a product that inherently and unfortunately seems to attract kids like flies to honey.)
The “unfortunate” you’re claiming is your spin on this. The reality is they are in full control of what they create and how it looks/acts/behave. If they wanted to create a game where there were male hookers as well as female hookers, they could have created it. If they wanted to allow comedians in their comedy club to be shot, they could.

Maybe instead of studying deep marketing, you should step back and not look at outward ad efforts, but more the look/shape/feel of what they create.

If I setup a bakesale stand and decide to sell cupcakes that are pink, that act in itself is making my product be targeted towards girls. And if I made it blue, it would be inherently marketed towards boys. But I don’t have to put up a sign or sticker or even say anything to do that.

THAT is at the most basic level how marketing works.

Homer Simpson learned this when shooting shotguns outside of the Bowlarama.

Also, I don’t think anyone is arguing that playing GTA will make people go out and kill hookers (I’ve read some of the responses in this thread more thoroughly than others, so I can’t say for sure). I think people are railing against a strawman there. What I am arguing (and I won’t speak for anyone else) is that glorifying or encouraging or even enabling misogyny affects attitudes, especially those of the young men who are primarily playing this game and whose culture tends toward misogyny in the first place.

I remember being at a party in high school with my boyfriend and a bunch of his friends where they were playing whatever version of GTA was out at the time. They were endlessly amused by the whole fucking hookers and then killing them thing, much more so than just killing random folks on the street, and made a lot of crude comments to that effect. Did I think any of those boys would grow up to murder a hooker? Not for one second. Did I think it was reinforcing a view that they had that prostitutes aren’t actually people and you can treat them like trash because of that? Well, yeah, pretty much. And it’s that view that leads certain, unhinged people to actually commit violence against prostitutes, which is kind of a widespread problem.

Would I let my children play this game? I wouldn’t buy it for them. Up to say age 14, I’d say no. Would I stop them from getting it themselves after 14? No. Would I continually express my disapproval?
Oh yes.

Bottom line; if you haven’t raised your children to KNOW robbery, rape and murder are wrong, no amount of games or no games is going to matter.

I would be curious to hear from people who have been raised on video war games and have actually gone to war. Do they let their children play them?
I also suspect police, front line social workers and emergency room personnel also have views about violence games when it comes to their kids.

As a male in my twenties who plays video games, I can say that everyone I know plays games to some degree. The argument that Rockstar is somehow secretly marketing GTA to teens is incorrect. They aren’t and they don’t need to. Just like the makers of R-rated movies, these guys will make plenty of money off of this new generation of gamers.

And please stop accusing people who play games as being somehow stuck in childhood, or immature. I have a job and a wife. I hit the gym regularly, and participate in triathlons. I only play games when I have free time, and you know what? I’d appreciate you not judging me for what I choose to do when I relax.

The unvarnished, unpopular and un-hip truth.

It’s normal for me to love something, and wish it was better/different at the same time. I can love the game play, and still wish there was some way for it to be fun and crude and rude and stupid… without reinforcing, at some level, some shitty things about our society.

Geek women here/feminists here aren’t saying, “I want to *take away your/my toys*” — just that we wish sometimes that we had better toys. And duh, we want to talk about the problems with these toys, and the possibility of getting better toys *here* because this is where we play.

Better tell the FTC. Games and theaters have the same level of age enforcement. DVDs however, have very pathetic enforcement. So cut with the “everybody knows it” crap, especially when it’s wrong.

Oh good f#$%, we’re invoking the hand that rocks the cradle crap now?

Since when did Boing Boing get taken over by Fox news watching drones?

GTA is just a game. It has clever moments. It has some pretty disgusting moments.

One could, in all fairness, describe it as a sexist and demeaning example of patriarchal media. But nowadays, even here, folks will get all huffy and call you a feminist or an intellectual or an elitist. Because all you are supposed to be is a beer swilling lobotomized slob.

You wouldn’t want to make your neighbor uncomfortable by actually thinking about something, would you? Shut up and drink your Bud Lite.

So let’s not invoke that academic vocabulary. Let’s put it another way.

The sex in the game is designed to appeal to insecure boys who think the world revolves around them, their needs, and their chironomid-sized willies. These lads are so self-involved that they can’t even tolerate hearing criticism of their favored mass-produced (and astonishingly unimaginative) masturbatory fantasy product. The game can be as demeaning and ugly as ever, yet it is too much for the delicate ears and limp micromaggot member of these boys to bear to hear anything.

Some of us are smirking. Some of us think the ones who look absurd and the ones getting all hot and bothered about defending those tacky virtual lap dances.

I’m reminded of that scene in the Stepford Wives.

Oh baby, oh baby, you’re so BIG!

It is no question that GTA is merely reflective of the bigger misogyny embedded in capitalist patriarchy, but the question is why is a game that depicts such violence towards women so popular?

Takuan my brother, is this kind of how you felt when “Aliens versus Predator: Extinction” came out on PS2?

As to your comment, though – I challenge you to rip the video game controller out of the hands of a Marine playing “Medal of Honor.”

It’s an interesting experience to play “Def Jam: Fight for New York” as a female playing a beefy male character, against a male friend who’s playing Li’l Kim, and which male friend is much less skilled than you, to say the least, and watching poor computer-generated Li’l Kim get the crap kicked out of her. By you. I’ve worked with victims of domestic violence and I’m a female professional raised by a feminist mom, but apparently I’m still brainwashed by the patriarchy, ’cause I fail to see a problem with having that experience.

I prefer “The Sims” though – it’s the least homophobic game I’ve ever played, and you can totally make your guy characters make out with other guy characters. Even the aliens.