Her son, as it turns out is a sophomore in high school.
And the game she bought him was Grand Theft Auto 4. Which I'm sure you're not surprised by at all.
However, she was complaining about the game- not from having watched him play or played herself- but from what she had heard about the game on tv. She said that she'd heard the game was about crime and murder and prostitutes.
And, if she'd known that before she bought the game she never would have gotten it. And, how, back when she was a kid there wasn't this kind of thing and no one would have done it if there was. Well, at least not decent people anyway.
that at one point she actually had to buy the game and most likely
did it at a store so had the chance to read the back cover. And that
the game is for mature audience's only and not meant for minor's.
Let's ignore that part.
And think about the other thing she brought up- this wouldn't have happened when I was a kid.
That's what she really meant. The concept of a game based on crime would never have been sold or even made. And if by some freakish chance it had been no one would have played it.
And, quite frankly I find this to be an asinine statement. I mean, let's assume that when she was a child there wasn't even an Atari or the Pong game. Let's assume that. And while we're at it, let's just remove any other sort of gaming entertainment such as boardgames, card games, or dice games.
Because those all require competition and to actively work against the other players. You know, screwing over your friends and family for temporary gain.
So, for entertainment purposes that leaves television, movies, and books. And I have to wonder, has she seen any of this material? I mean, going back to the Greeks it's filled with violence, murder, theft, sex, brutality, lies, cheating, and all the same things that GTA3 has plenty of. Along with a morality.
The same morality in those other stories.
Because GTA4 is a story you get to help tell- that's all it really is. A story you tell.
It's the same as the stories we've been telling each other for centuries. It's a way of reminding ourselves how to live with each other. How not to act so we can make it through one more day with each other.
Because let's face it, there are a few people we'd all like to pistol whip a few times. But, by living vicariously through these stories we come to know more about who we are and more
importantly what we aren't. We know from our reaction to the brutality, to murder, and to all the other unseemly things in our world that we aren't those sort of people. Because the people who do those sort of things would do them with or without the game being in existence.
