Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Steven Johnson wrote an excellent piece entitled "Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game Over" that was run in the LA Times two days ago. I believe that he has conveyed my sentiments in almost every way regarding this issue.

Should "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" be re-rated? Sure. If what is contained within the game makes it fall under another category, then it should be rated accordingly.

Here's something that has bugged me since I first heard about this hidden code in the game: In order to see the actual explicit scenes that are undeniably coded into the game, you must download a modification program that can read the code. It's not like little Jimmy is simply playing the game and suddenly he is seeing a sexually explicit scene. I find the outrage about this that is being portrayed by politicians to be completely ridiculous.

Here's a game that already contains an ESRB rating of Mature that "may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language" and may be suitable for people 17 years or older. With the new scene having been discovered, the game now contains an ESRB rating of Adults Only which means that it "may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity" and should only be played by people 18 years or older.

Evidently, that one years makes a huge difference in a person's life. I guess I didn't realize that the pivotal year in the establishment of my morality occurred when I was 17. I guess that when I had just turned 17 I was too young and naive to understand the difference between right and wrong and actions taken in a video game and those performed in the real world. Looking back, I suppose that the day I turned 18 I finally had reached the point where I could finally handle scenes of prolonged intense violence, graphic sexual nudity content and nudity. I'm told that when I was 17 I wasn't able to handle such things in the same manner.

Am I making my point clear?
Somewhere, some group of adults sat in a room and had long meetings over exactly what content was going to be allowed in a video game before it would be given a certain rating. Now I am assuming that at least some of these adults are people that played Pong, Atari, Commodore64, Intellivision and Nintendo while growing up. (Perhaps that is a big assumption.) Did these people suffer greatly from playing video games that [*GASP*] didn't have any rating on them whatsoever? I don't think so. Their parents probably helped pick out video games for them or at least knew what their kids were playing and maybe even talked to them about what the game was about and how to play it. And somehow, without a rating system, these kids turned out alright.

I think the key point of all of this is that parents need to be aware of what their children are watching and playing. Would a parent who actually knew what went on in the "Grand Theft Auto" games actually find such a "hidden" scene to be all that surprising? Are you kidding me? These games have always been about committing crimes and running from the cops. In fact, would these people even know that in the actual game itself, without any downloaded modification, you can kill a policeman and celebrate it? I doubt it. The entire game is built around the premise that there are no sacred laws and that anything you can get away with is fine. For goodness sakes, even the title implies that the game is focussed on breaking the law.

Yet, suddenly there is a big fuss being made over the "hidden" content of this game. Let's be real clear about this: there is no magic age at which children suddenly realize the difference between reality and a video game world. They learn it through experience, common sense and time. It's a natural progression.

Are violent video games to blame for teenagers committing crimes? No.
Do they help the issue by glorifying such acts and making them the end goal in a virtual world? Probably not.

But I don't think it is right to place any behavior exhibited by a teenager on a video game.

In order to see these scenes, a person must own the game and use the modification. If the person owns the game, then there are three possible ways in which they obtained the game. 1 - They were 17 or older and bought the game. 2 - Their parents bought them the game. 3 - They stole the game.

If they were 17 or older, then why should it matter what surprises are found in the game. Let's be real here, it's not exactly like they bought Mario Party and suddenly the Princess is giving Mario a blowjob. They bought Grand Theft Auto and planned on stealing cars, shooting people, blowing things up, seeing racy scenes and hearing profanity-laced dialogue. Now, if they do a little extra work, they just have an extra scene which is nothing that they can't see on MTV or in a rated R movie.

If their parents bought them the game because they weren't 17 yet, then the parents are responsible for exposing their children to anything and everything that is contained in the game. Sure the parents maybe didn't realize how violent the game is or maybe they didn't know what the storyline is, but that is their own faulty and not the manufacturer's. Anyone who would buy this game for their child obviosly doesn't give a rip about the ESRB rating system anyway, so why does it matter. To complain about the content of the game in such a situation is like buying a ticket for your child to get into a Rated R film, only to discover that for 30 seconds of the show they are exposed to a little more than you were thinking they might see and hear.

If the person stole the video game, well... It seems like they might be well on their way to mastering the game itself. I don't think they have decided to steal it in order to hopefully live out what is portrayed in the hidden scene. No, they stole it for the rush. They stole it because they couldn't afford it. They stole it because they are a thief and that is what they do. They didn't steal it because that is what they did in another video game.

A lot of teenagers are doing more sexually in real life than anything that can be found hidden in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas". While I don't condone the placement of such a scene within the programming of a game that is geared towards young people, I find it hard to believe the outrage that is being manufactured by the politicians and such.

Any problem with society doesn't stem from what a child has seen in a video game.
It's not about what they have played on a computer, XBox or PS2.

I believe it is grounded in the fact that parents are farther removed from their children today and take little if any interest in what their children are watching and playing. You can't blame that on the folks at RockStar Games who made the game and you can't blame it on the ESRB for placing an appropriate rating on the game with the information it had at hand.

Place the blame where it belongs - on parents who aren't doing enough to teach their children right and wrong. That's not what video games are made for...