Cross-Cultural Blog

You've tapped into an interesting topic here, and one that you clearly feel passionately about. Reading your post has raised several questions for me:

• What is the rating of GTA? You say that it is marketed for 15 year old boys, but who is allowed to purchase it? That might make your comparison to the R rating stronger.
• Is the hooker scene representative of all the gameplay in GTA, or just a segment? It would be interesting to have a bit more of an overview of what the overall gaming design is to understand how much the violence against women is featured, and how much it is a subset of the "plot".
• Is what is at issue in GTA violence against women (and I think you can be violent) or vulgarity? You seem to be mostly addressing explicit sexuality (and you should search Hot Coffee online for more GTA-discussion of explicit sexuality) and not violence per se ...

I guess my final thought is that there is in fact a difference between GTA and a game called Rapelay, which by it's name seems to be centered around violence against women in a way that GTA is not.

Anyway, I look forward to learning more about this topic from you!

Hello, Mary!
My name is Dmitry, I'm from Russia, Khabarovsk. While reading the ccr blog I found your topic and it really interested me.
I want to defend GTA game. I agree that it containes lots of violence, but it also has many other interesting features. The freedom it gives in a gameplay was revolutionary when GTA vas developed. It provides a player with a huge number of things to do in a game.
You can play it just to experience another life or to drive cool cars, use helicopters and other interesting vehicles. You can work as a polic officer, ambulance, or taxi driver, or do some of the other jobs. You can play at virtual casinos. You can just walk the steets and take pictures of the world with a camera. And all that just in one game! You do not need to do violence there. In fact, I like GTA games for these features.
And some people like it for violence, that makes the game interesting for them. You can't take violence away from GTA, it will not be GTA anymore. Of course, the game should not be sold to young children, and it should not be adopted for them. It's a game for adult, and it should exist. I think people need it. You can live another life, be another person there, even violent one.
Many people in Russia play GTA. I like GTA 3, I also used to play GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas.
So, GTA is an interesting game, and it should be restricted for young children. I thing the topic is really interesting.

Dmitry

Hey Mary Beth,
Overall I think that the topic you have chosen to research is very interesting and you seem very passionate about it, which is great. I don't know much about Rapelay, but if you are going to focus on the differences between the two games, I think you look into both sides of GTA. There is a lot of sex and violence in GTA, but it isn't really the main focus of the game. You could also talk about how the rating ties into the target audience of the game. Besides that, it all sounds pretty good. Keep it up.

For some context, you should look on Searchworks using the search terms "sex violence and video games".

There are also some good articles on the digiplay initiative site listed under Gaming Resources on your Research Guide.

That’s a very intriguing topic. I lived in Kuwait for most of my life and the children that go to public schools don’t know English, yet they all play video games. And what that has done is it has taught them words such as kill, die, bomb and vulgar sexual words. Also it’s given these kids a horrible view of what the West is like, a place where illegal actions occur frequently and is acceptable.
I hope your essay turns out great!

Hey Mary,
My name is Khaled Sakr. I attend the American University in Cairo. Well I found your topic to be the most interesting of all those posted. I own four of the released GTA games, and I’ve completed them all. Well here are the points that I think you should consider before writing your essay.
1) The game is not directly addressing 15 year olds, but 18 year olds. When I came to buy my first couple of GTA CDs I was unable to do so as I was 16 years old and at HMV it was not allowed to sell the game to those who are under 18. However, I managed to let my older sister buy it for me. Also, the CD case had the “not to be sold for under 18” sign on it. Therefore I think that that frees the manufacturing company (Rockstar Games) from any obligations when it comes to age restrictions.
2) As Dmitri noted in his post, the game does not solely depend on sex and violence, but on many other aspects. Games are usually manufactured in order for the customer to enjoy the adventures that he/she lacks in his/her life. For example, in GTA, you are given the opportunity to drive a fast sports car or motorcycle through the city without having to bear the consequences of receiving a ticket; therefore, GTA represents an opportunity to escape reality and do things the way you would if punishment did not exist. But not just that, it also gives the player the opportunity to experience the rush of being chased by several squad vehicles, dodging barricades, and hot-wiring cars without being convicted in real life.
3) Answering one of the questions posted earlier by Dr. Christine Alfano, that hooker scene is definitely not a representative of GTA; it is in fact a segment. And there is no direct prejudice against females in the game, but just a visual representation of what San Andreas, for instance, would be like at night (hookers in dark allies and so forth). The only segment of vice city that involves sex is the scene where the player picks up a hooker. Other than that, there is none. The game revolves around one man who is assigned to carry out missions in order to get richer. Missions vary from assassinating characters, to stealing cars, to street racing. Therefore, only a minor part of the game actually involves violence against women.
I hope you find my post useful and I will be adding on more if I am able to.
Good luck on your assignment.

Hey Mary,
I'm Lilian Hani Mina from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. I really liked your topic as I believe that GTA is the most popular game among young people in Egypt. Just want to make a suggestion you should consider before writing your essay... Well, as I used to play this game 2 years ago, I was actually able to think about some of the critical topics that are apparent in this game... However, as Khaled Sakr mentioned earlier in his post, I think "women violence" is not a major topic in this game that one should criticize. I believe that if you concentrated on this games' impacts on 15-years old children, it would be much better... But, that's just my opinion. The women issue is only apparent when the player picks hookers up in his car and drives them to certain places... That's it. And I think that is a very small part of the whole game. The violence, stealing, killing and speeding in this game are considered major problems that need to be discussed in details.
Moreover, I want to make another suggestion that might be interesting in your essay: You might want to consider this games' impact on children from different countries. Because here in Egypt, for example, an illegal copy of the game can be purchased by anyone... I myself know many 8 and 10 years-old children that actually spend hours playing this game. So, that's a major problem that could be discussed... Surprisingly, my brother is 6 years old and he used to play this game until my parents realized its negative impact on him and forbid him playing it. I used to watch my brother playing this game and realized that his most interest was performing illegal missions; for example, stealing a car, speeding in it through the streets of San Andreas, hitting people by the car and stealing their money were the major kinds of entertainment that my brother enjoyed.
I hope I made useful suggestions...
Good luck!

Of course I'm with your point of view but what can you do about it? These people are concerned with making money; they won't care about ethics if they'll make money out of it.

Dear Mary
I am Youssef Elshafei from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. I really like your topic and I would like to add some points to it:
There is something that happens here in Egypt that I thought might be interesting to you. As you may know, GTA series is very successful in Egypt, it is played everywhere and not only on Play Station, in fact, there are certain versions of GTA that are modified in Arabic, these versions use bad language in Arabic!! In a way or another GTA series is also invading our society and trying to mingle among our culture.

Another point is the 18 sign that is found on the cover of GTA, I think this is quite similar to the sentence found on cigarettes: "smoking kills", and though it's there and clear, people continue to buy cigarettes. this is exactly the same as the 18 sign

I hope I helped.

Hey Mary,
First of all let me say that I haven’t played rapelay, but I have played GTA quite a few times. You kind of have a point; it does encourage sexual behavior and violence in a semi-realistic world. On the other hand, designers have made it very clear that things in the game do not apply to real life. Examples of such are how a player reloads the game whenever he/she dies, or how the police let the player out almost as soon as he/she is arrested. As for the part with the hooker, I believe that if a teenager was looking for “explicit sexual content”, he wouldn’t wait for a 3 minute session of “noises and vulgar language” in a game.

All has been said and done, i think what we can do is to join or support these media organizations and groups whose aim is to fight against online violence and sexual abuse. Let our voice heard out!

Hey Mary

Actually I am not a big fan of video games, but I noticed that most of successful video games today, are games that encourage violence like Medal of Honor, Red Alert and G.T.A. About two years ago, I remember that my two cousins, both of them were about 14 years old, were playing the game “Smack down” on my (PS). After they finished playing, they started calling each other with wrestlers’ names and started fighting till one of them was injured. I don’t know why such a game is released in the first place, but I believe that it is the responsibility of parents to keep their eyes on their children, not only in their manners, but in the movies they watch and the games they play because these games may teach them violence and vulgar language as you say.

Karim Ayyad, The American University in Cairo

Hey Mary

Actually I am not a big fan of video games, but I noticed that most of successful video games today, are games that encourage violence like Medal of Honor, Red Alert and G.T.A. About two years ago, I remember that my two cousins, both of them were about 14 years old, were playing the game “Smack down” on my (PS). After they finished playing, they started calling each other with wrestlers’ names and started fighting till one of them was injured. I don’t know why such a game is released in the first place, but I believe that it is the responsibility of parents to keep their eyes on their children, not only in their manners, but in the movies they watch and the games they play because these games may teach them violence and vulgar language as you say.

Karim Ayyad, The American University in Cairo

Hi Mary,
I think the debate about violence, and other "bad behaviours" in video games is going to get a lot more interesting in the near future. As the games get more and more realistic the line between the virtual world and the real world may become fuzzier, Especially for young children.

I'm not familiar with the japanese game you mentioned (it sounds a lot worse than GTA because it seems to encourage the behavior rather than just include it) but I think that as it stands there probably is not a causal link between violent video games and real world violence.

EKfDAV comment3 ,

EKfDAV comment3 ,

I'ts terrible games, This country must protect young generation from "bad behaviour"

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My game Favorites is GTA i like it :P

I always thought that video or computer games that depicted violence should be banned especially for young kids. They instill violence in their young minds.

Gerry of 1800PetMeds Blog

There must be certain rules which define the extent of violence that can be depicted in a game. Also there must be warning in each games, which specifies the age of children that can play a particular game.