Wednesday, October 05, 2005

GTA

gallery51
gallery51,
originally uploaded by labalicious.
Upon playing the brilliantly addictive game that is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, I was faced with a moral dilemma when my conscience (which sounds a lot like my mum's "stern voice") reprimanded me for playing a video game in which the way to gain money to purchase various weapons and modifications for my "dope ride" (hydraulics, ahoy!) was to, in the game, approach people walking about in the streets looking moderately well off and punch their lights out, at which point any cash or weapons they were carrying would be spilled onto the street, right next to their blood, and I could take it all and run off to repeat the act of flagrant violence. What disturbs me is that that save for the rival gangmembers, who seem curiously better off than anyone in my own gang, the demographic that carries the most money is women. Hence, if you should approach a woman on the street of this game and punch her lights out, you would get more money than you would if you did the same with a man. Odd and disconcerting, to say to the least, especially when I observed my brothers and his friends, in their turns, gleefully kicking a woman's unconscious body to get her posessions.

And yet, a generation continues to play, as do I. I am reminded of a study someone was doing a while back in which they asked various gamers about the moral implications of having to murder a baby to get ahead in the level. Would they do it? Most said no, but that was probably because few games, if any, would ask that level of desensitization to voilence from them. Hell, I hated myself for having to shoot the rabid dogs that attacked me in Resident Evil. Is this really where we want to go as a generation?

Misha at Wednesday, October 05, 2005

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