It’s Like Reading an Opera Review By A Deaf Person

One thing that’s just incredibly frustrating is seeing well-meaning, smart people write about GTA IV, despite never having played the game, or even being video game fans themselves. It’s very hard to give an honest review of a product or even to write about it intelligently, if you can’t at least be sympathetic with those that enjoy it. A good example of this tendency for everyone to opine on a massive, complex and highly original series like GTA is Samhita at feministing:

I think it is really problematic to lump all criticisms of GTA4 together. I believe at some point, I was written about along with a conservative writer (shudder to think) and that is not giving the full range of view points space to air their concerns. I am pretty sure if a movie had prostitute killing in it, I would write about it, but that is besides the point. GTA4 is not a movie, it is bigger than a movie. In fact, movies switched around their release dates for the release of GTA4. In the first week out it has grossed 500 million dollars. Furthermore, it is played, repeatedly and it is a role playing game, where you are the person engaging in violent acts. It is a fantasy, your fantasy. Perhaps there is a moment of identification like this with movies, but it is different then actually acting something out yourself.

“Perhaps there is a moment of identification like this with movies, but it is different then actually acting something out yourself.” Ok, let’s break this down. In the course of my lifetime playing GTA III, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas and GTA IV, I’ve “killed” thousands of people. Yes, some of them were sex workers that I ran over with a motorcycle, and others were construction workers I gunned down with an automatic weapon. Did I have a “moment of identification” at any of these points, do I now look at people differently in the real world and have an itch to run them over with my Subaru? Not just no, but heeeeeeel no.

One would think that as video games got not only more realistic in the strict graphical sense, but also more realistic in the psychological and sociological sense, that people would “identify” with their characters more, but that is not the case in GTA. Unlike a truly free virtual space like Second Life, or an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, in GTA, you still only have the choice of one character and one general storyline (with one important exception) to follow. Of course, you have a ton of options about how you go about following this story, but every one who plays GTA IV knows that they are playing as Niko Bellic, and you’re still in “Liberty City.” At not point does the line between Bellic and Matt Zeitlin or Liberty City and Piedmont become particularly vague.

What’s especially distressing about Samhita’s uninformed opining on GTA IV is that it could have very easily been avoided by talking to those who play, and actually like, the game. They would have gladly said that they don’t have new desires to beat prostitutes in the street. Or by actually playing the game itself. But for some reason, GTA has become the one piece of mass entertainment/art that people think they can opine about without actually experiencing it. If Samhita is worried about her feminist criticisms of the game getting lumped in with no-nothing cultural conservative criticisms, then perhaps she should wonder why GTA apologizers lump the two together. And that’s because both criticisms come from a pre-determined view that is uninformed by an actual sympathetic look at the game.

And on the very specific issue of violence in the entire Grand Theft Auto Series, it’s worth pointing out, once again, that as video games got more and more graphically sophisticated and the violence became more realistic, violent crime rates have been at historic lows. The connection between digital and behavioral violence just isn’t real. If anything, the connection could well be the other way.