Blog Post 3
Grand Theft Auto Five, GTA V is the fifth season in the collection of GTA video game, it was released on September 17, 2013. The purpose of this game is to have the most money, the best cars, and the best house. In other words, to achieve a fancy rich life, and to accomplish that players should steal cars, rob stores and kill other players online. It seems that this game contains a lot of fascinating and thrilling experiences for the players that boost their potential while playing the game. Is GTA 5 really a good game? Well, there is a quiet difference between what is good in terms of technicality and what is good in terms of the context absorbed from this video game. Mainly, good games are those that have strong gameplay, remarkable graphics, and bad games are those who are simple and are not enjoyable. (Reynolds, 2002). I think that this game is bad, and it has a negative impact on the player because it represents all sorts of violence and sexist gender portrayal. For some reasons, the main character is a man “a bodybuilder type of man” which is a stereotypical representation of masculinity in this game, he is aggressive and holds a gun or a sort of weapon in his hand which help him to be a good thieve because a thieve without a weapon is like being a lawyer without arguments.
Women in this game are pretty much portrayed as prostitutes or as the weakest part of the society.
They are objectified as a source of sex and desire even in the video game since they are always half naked on the street which is not applicable in any country around the world or prostitutes in the night clubs. Not only that but through this character the player could learn how to be subversive since the character may cause a revolution and the whole city could be attacking him if he did not find a way to escape. People who adore this game describe it as what they imagine they would do but they cannot because of ethics, laws, and traditions. So, people are aware that this game is dangerous, and they cannot apply its content to the actual world, but they play it anyway. What makes it controversial is the fact that it includes a lot of bad messages and concepts that could influence the mind of the player especially kids. Countries from Australia to Saudi Arabia have banned games in the “Grand Theft Auto” series for their violent content and glorification of criminal lifestyles. But a Brazilian court recently blocked the sale of the latest installment, “Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City,” for a more astonishing reason. The game features the song “Congo Kid,” which a Sao Paulo court ruled is an unauthorized remix of the song “Bota o Dedinho pro-Alto,” by the Brazilian composer Hamilton Lourenco da Silva. The judge ordered the game pulled from shelves worldwide because of the copyright violation. (Desk, 2010)
Video games are ethical objects, players are ethical managers, and that the ethics of computer games should be a complex system of responsibilities and ethical obligations. Designers, developers, and producers might be attracted to understanding the difficulty behind the products they develop. They should not just be told that they are morally responsible, but also understand why and how they are morally accountable. Confronting this responsibility is not an easy procedure, but it is one that, if undertaken, might provide new insights and creative challenges, thus inspiring innovation that could erase stigmas and open perceptions. (Sicart). According to Mathews in his article (Ethical Responsibility of Video Game Manufacturers), some scholars, particularly Craig Anderson at Iowa State University, claim that there is enough indication to show that playing violent video games is one element leading to violent behavior.
On the other hand, there are also questions that relate to what impact the producers go through towards ensuring the ethics in producing a video game. Many game developers face the issue, like many other artists of other art, in which they have the right to freedom of speech and creativity and balancing that with the effect it may have on the consumers. This also shows that producers feel that their audiences are active consumers and that they are aware of the actions within a virtual reality is not the same as the real world (Tegegn, 2014). In addition, games affect their audience, for example in GTA 5, the player not only learns violence but also bad social habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol and taking drugs, without forgetting the normalization of prostitution and violence against women (Stokes, 2011). However, there is also the issue that it promotes the stereotypical roles of gangsters and mobs in society. The production of Grand Theft Auto encouraged the chance to act on the dark side of people’s behaviors but also lets the audience experiment with their curiosity of immoral and unethical aspects of reality (Tegegn, 2014).
Olson claims violent games reduce empathy and effective anger management skills and promote aggression. The other contingent rebuts that such research plays into “moral panic,” exaggerates the negative impact and ignores the positive effects of violent gameplay. Given the sheer popularity of violent video games, their psychological impact is an urgent issue for society, and for the millions of parents whose children dive into virtual worlds for hours every day (Greenwood, 2010). It seems that the effects of GTA 5 is very bad on the players, they spend hours and hours just sitting and immersing in this virtual world and they became criminals, the problem is that the affection of this game can vary from one person to another relying on the age and the amount of aggression absorption. I think that this game enhanced the love of breaking rules in myself because I used to play with it when I was a kid and the atmosphere, I lived in back then was quite conservative, maybe this is an indirect reason for hating systems and regulations. Being part of a video game and having the will of the character is what makes the video games have added effects than films and television series. But at the end of the day, the user is playing in the map created by the designer which will lead him to continue the phases of the game. Nowadays, some films are becoming immersive too in the sense that the audience can decide which path the character could go, so they manipulate the character’s path.
Censorship or banning a game is the most effective answer to potential harms. Because adding restriction to a game could not ignore the fact that other users are getting harm from it such as restricting age. Also, what could be helpful is to censor the design and the context of the game before the release because one the game is released, it is very hard to eliminate it from the country especially that now you can find all the games online if not on CD.
References
Desk, N. (2010, December 29). Business, economics and jobs. Retrieved from PRI: https://www.pri.org/stories/2010-12-29/blacklisted-worlds-banned-video-games
Greenwood, D. (2010, June 22). Grand Theft Auto Is Good for You? Not So Fast… Retrieved from Scientific American : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/grand-theft-auto-is-good/
Mathews, R. (n.d.). ethical responsibility of video game manufacturers.
Reynolds, R. (2002). Playing a “Good” Game: A Philosophical. international game developers association, 1.
Sicart, M. (n.d.). the ethics of computer games . In Cambridge, Massachusetts (pp. 2–8). London : The MIT press.
Tegegn, S. (2014, September 11). Video Games: Ethical Issues faced by Producers and Consumers. Retrieved from Masters of media: https://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/blog/2014/09/11/video-games-ethical-issues-faced-by-producers-and-consumers/
