GTA 5 and Ethics

Grand Theft Auto 5 is one of the most adventurous video games of all time. It is created by Rockstar North and distributed by Rockstar Games. The story pursues three lawbreakers and their battles to complete crimes while under stress mode government organization. The main motive in GTA5 is to have the most cash, the best vehicles, and the best houses. This is done by completing missions and playing on the internet with different competitor players around the globe. In GTA5, you can abduct cars and steal stores. Also, you can execute and kill different players on the web. Furthermore, GTA adjustment has been known for its brutal sexual defamation of females like taking cars, slaughtering individuals and having naked ladies. But in the fifth edition, they took things further where the player can buy a female, let her do sexual actions that are experienced in first person point of view and then he could kill her and get the money back (Saar, 2014). Grand Theft Auto 5 is the most recent form of the best and loved computer game in the world. In this video game, the missions that are done by the players attracts them to spend more time playing. Also, the excitement of investigating this huge scenery of crime is considered appealing for the players. However, a lot of people find this game debatable since there is a lot of objectification of women, sexism, violence, and racism. For this reason, GTA5 was banned in several countries such as the UK and Saudi Arabia. Therefore, GTA has exposed players around the world to ideas such as nudity, sexism, racism and has always pushed adequate social limits in our lives.

The producer of the game is the one that decides the content of the video game. This relies under the freedom of speech rights. However, this issue is debatable since sometimes freedom can cross the boarders. Video games like GTA5 bring up issues of ethical problems that may Activate brutality against females and brutalize of people. These games are being guarded by freedom of speech however some visuals and activities are obstructing freedom since they are the motivation behind why games, for example, GTA5 are being censored in some countries as mentioned. The game has been fired at for its depictions of torture and portrayal of strippers and prostitutes (Trotman, 2014). For this reason, two questions should be asked here. First, what differentiates harm from freedom of speech? And on what grounds censorship should be practiced? Freedom in this game has no limits in harm causing. Censorship issues differ from country to country. It relies on the countries’ traditions and norms. For example, in Lebanon censorship issues strictly focus on religious and sexual conflict.

Manufacturers of these games are sometimes accused, along with makers of violent movies and writers of heavy metal and hip-hop music, as inciting violent behavior in youth (Mathews, R). Game designers and producers have great responsibilities and duties concerning what to publish to the world. Video games are considered collective. Video game manufacturers get a rating for their content, much like movies are assigned ratings. These ratings depend on the content of the games that may prevent racism, sexism and violence. A game can be labelled “E” for Everyone, “E10+” for ages 10 and up, “Teen,” for teens, or “M” for Mature. A game with an “M” rating means that it is recommended only for players 17 and older (Mathews, R). GTA5 is rated as “M”, in this case it is the parents’ decision to play such games. These ratings leave it to the consumer, or the parents of the consumer, to decide what level of adult or violent content they’ll find in their gaming experience (Mathews, R). This rating procedure is a shield makers exploit to benefit and control themselves from censorship assaulting their substance particularly parents of the kids playing this game. While reviewing the cases correlating the behavioral acts of kids to the kind of video games they play, an interesting case appears where two young boys addicted to such games killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves in Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado; or the case of the 14-year-old Canadian boy who walked into the WR Myers High School in Taber, Alberta killed one and seriously injured another (Freedman, n.d). What violence aims to here, is the case. For this reason, this will impact the emotional part of the children that are exposed to such games.

Freedom of speech and creativity and articulation is a privilege for each artist, and yet producers should think about that they are building up these amusements for worldwide clients and not all societies welcome and dismiss similar things. For example, the Censorship system in the US is easier when it comes to religion or sexploitation unlike Lebanon.

A study done about violent video games that included GTA 5 showed that teens act more aggressively when they play games like GTA through an experiment that lead to teens stealing things and bad decisions (Bushman, 2013). It appears that to numerous individuals calmly watching violence in films and on TV causes assault, effectively taking an interest in brutality in computer games ought to have a considerably more noteworthy impact. Toward the end, the game maker disregarding paying little to how much morals he puts into his choice, will finally put his/her concern for the earnings attained.

In a conclusion, Choices taken by those in control in the case of censoring a computer game or intentionally opening space for boundless freedom of speech are two extraordinary positions that require an exhaustive consideration. However, as an assessment and auditing the amusement on numerous viewpoints, it is certainly attempting to pass on to the coming ages that it is reasonable to steal, kill, or act improperly to fulfill and achieve your objective. Furthermore, the principles of our society are threatened. Controlling the violent content that is found in this game is good solution for this case.

References

Bushman, B. (2013, December 13). Dont Buy Your Kid Grand Theft Auto V for Christmas. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-j-bushman/dont-buy-your-kid-grand-theft-auto-v-for-christmas_b_4440477.html

Freedman. (n.d). Evaluating the Research on Violent Video Games. Retrieved from https://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/sites/culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/files/freedman.pdf

Mathews, R. (n.d.). Ethical Responsibility of Video Game Manufacturers. Retrieved from https://elearn.lau.edu.lb/bbcswebdav/pid-233777-dt-content-rid-716665_1/courses/JSC_419_11_201820/Ethical

Saar, S. (2014, December 09). Grand Theft Auto V and the Culture of Violence Against Women. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/malika-saada-saar/grand-theft-auto-v-and-the-culture-of-violence-against-women_b_6288528.html

Trotman, A. (2014, December 03). Grand Theft Auto 5 banned by retailer over graphic violence against women. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/11270982/Grand-Theft-Auto-5-banned-by-retailer-over-graphic-violence-against-women.html