Grand Theft Auto V
Many argue on the topic of video games that are claimed to include violence and have negative effect on kids specifically. Video games, GTA5 in particular, bring out more aggression to people playing it; thus, considered harmful to society. GTA5 is a sensational video game and a marvellous product of technical engineering. However, its controversy has not been far behind the adulation. Furthermore, women in the game are either bit-part players or set dressing: strippers to throw money at, or prostitutes to pick up.
Grand Theft Auto V is ultimately misanthropic, holding up a skewed mirror to our entertainment and industries and asking us to intervene in the ugly reflection. The game, developed by UK-based Rockstar North, was immediately criticised for the levels of violence, particularly for its depictions of torture and the way it often portrays women as strippers and prostitutes.
Young adults may benefit from playing survival and horror games over and over until the hideous content is mastered, but such mastery may come at a price. Here’s where pro-video games step in, claiming that GTA 5 does a better job of showing the consequences of violence, thus alarming people from them. Developers now accept that "if a game is fun, it is okay" is a straight convenient explanation for a problem (Kilhefner, 2015). Additional benefits they raise out of the game: police intervene if they catch you committing crimes, whether it is a murder, shoplifting or accidentally bumping a car.
On the contrary, due to the games’ depiction of violence against women, and sexist scenes portraying women as sex objects, the game was banned in stores all over Australia. The public fought over the game as humiliating human’s rights. In addition, further mistakes in game design ethics come from its reliance on a shame-based system that do not acknowledge ethical gray areas (Kilhefner, 2015).
People argued and proved that playing violent video games is one factor that leads to violent behavior. Critics of the declaration of protecting these games assert that, unlike books or movies, video games are interactive. They discuss that actually participating in simulated violence could lead to a desensitization to violence (Mathews, 2015).
The ethical responsibilities of video game manufacturers will evolve, depending on what science provides and what political affiliations dictate. However, parents have the opportunity to monitor what types of media their children consume. Personal protection attitudes depend on parental responses and mentalities of online gaming. Parents are obliged with selfimposed ethical standards, of monitoring their children and controlling what and for how long they are playing these games. While the court is not responsible for children’s acts as long as the game has warned from the content and has exposes its terms and restrictions directly.
The game’s designers take into consideration the harmful effects that might result of the game, and creates a two options for a character to choose; to be good or evil. That’s how they are not blamed on the game itself, as long as they provide restrictions about the game’s ethical standards. creators could still make whatever games they wanted; they just had to warn customers as to the content.
As long as the content is accepted by the audience, and the abusive harmful scenarios are normalised, the game designers are gaining profit and the people are absorbing more violent sexist attitudes.
This image is considered fun. This act not only portrays women as opressed and as sexual objects, but also sends the message to the society that women has to be treated this way in order to be protected. The man is always responsible for a woman’s safety.
The game allows a male character to rape girls in the streets. However, rape is not only a sexual action, it’s also about power. The domination of men on women, and the limited resistance of women constructs a political dilemma by itself. The largely male gaming population playing GTA5 virtually experience a small taste of the helplessness of being sexually assaulted. It has become all about both power and a violent, coercive view of sex.
“Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” (Suzan Brownmiller). Through these allowances, societies with patriarchal systems are still raising patriarchal mentalities, at least to males who play these games.
These games tell more evocative and engrossing stories that aren’t far off from reality in some places. Should society and developers set limits to what players experience to ensure good advantages for all? No matter what brutal scenes a game reveals, a spectrum of human’s values and rights should be considered. It’s the freedom of the designer to create what they want, and more about the ratings that encourage them to do more, but a set of should/shouldn’t list has to be announced. Any violent scene in any sexual, social, political manner has to be banned. Games should promote doing good in life and focus on a productive zone that can raise future generations.
Refernces:
Kilhefner, J. (2015). Ethics in Game Design. Hearst Newspaper, Houston, Texas.
Mathews, R. (2015). Ethical Responsibility of Video Game Manufacturers. Hearst Newspaper, Houston, Texas.
