I don’t talk about video games much outside of my writing. I talk to other writers and people ingrained in the world of release dates, console wars, and promotional events; but I have so many friends outside of the frey that we talk about a myriad of other topics. I might pass along a game like the The Last of Us, or talk up the Elder Scrolls Online, but when it comes to topics of controversy or argument, my social circle is pretty uninterested. Which is a why Grand Theft Auto V has rocked my world.
Everyone I talk to wants to know about Grand Theft Auto. They want to know how it plays, they want to know how violent it is, they want to know if it is the same game they played over a decade ago or how it has grown. They also know more about Grand Theft Auto than any game we normally talk about. They know it made $800 million in it’s first day of sales, they know you can kill a prostitute, they know it is represents all that is bad about video games and society. It has made me realize that sometimes writing about games, I forget that there is a large population of people who are completely ignorant of video games, aside from what they see on TV and hear on the news. Most people have kids or friends might pick up Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, and Madden, but even larger titles like Bioshock and Uncharted mean nothing to them.
The last three days have represented Grand Theft Auto in perfect fashion. When the reviews dropped on Monday, I was elated to see that the highly anticipated game was a critical success. High scores littered the internet and the game currently sits on Metacritic with a 97/98 (depending on the console). Then came the negativity as the fans turned on reviewers with an–unfortunately–expected nastiness. Normally people get impassioned when a singular bad reviews stands out amidst a series of glowing ones, but that was not the case on Monday. Instead, fans turned on anyone who gave the game a score below perfect, and turned particularly venomous when anyone brought up issues of misogyny. A petition was started to fire one reviewer and more than one reviewer vented their frustrations with commenters. The ravenous way that fans of video games attacked anyone speaking ill of certain franchises has always been off-putting, but the release of Grand Theft Auto V found a way to bring out the worst of the worst.
Then came a wave of writers, reviewers–sometimes the very people who praised the game–writing about the game’s issues with gender. Leigh Alexander wrote a fake review of Grand Theft Auto V satirising the many favorable reviews the game received. I see Alexander’s point, also the point made by numerous publications and writers that Grand Theft Auto has–at best–ignored women for significant period of time. The game also pokes at the issues of race, sexuality, and other controversial topics in a juvenile fashion. While I have a hard time believing that the writing/development team at Rockstar is sexist, racist, and all things evil, it is not difficult to feel like they are ignorant or at least out of touch with the issues they so eagerly agitate. Thus, the response to the series is appropriate.
Alexander’s piece is a disservice to the point she is trying to make. Instead of a mock-review and a piece where she says she doesn’t take the game seriously, I would have loved to read where she thinks the series can improve. If she was plopped down into the shoes of Sam and Dan Hauser–the executive producer and head writer–what she would do. When something as popular as Grand Theft Auto is offensive (which I won’t argue) then ignoring it is almost more painful than taking part in it. Would having a women as part of the three-man heist team solve all the problems? Likely not. The issue is important and if Alexander really cares about games, engaging its fan base in an intelligent way is always the best way to get a message across instead of welcoming death threats and stirring the pot.
Then came the raising issue of violence. Video games were dragged back into this conversation after the massacre at a naval shipyard, where a gunman murdered twelve people and took his own life. Fox News wasted no time in pinning this on violent video games, again numbing an issue that deserves a great deal of conversation. I started getting questions from friends, family, and others asking about the validity to this argument. Friends who work for a retailer talked about how their GTA V deliveries were going to be late and their customers had responded with childish, tantrum-like insults. They joked about these customers turning violent, it might be jokes, but there was a twinge of truth. The title of “gamer” is starting to evoke some very specific images, ones of people throwing fits at a TV and screaming about late deliveries. Even worse, an image of people who pick up weapons and shoot up civilians.
That’s when I finally got to play Grand Theft Auto V. It is funny, because Grand Theft Auto is none of the things that people want it to be. It is not video game Jesus, a masterpiece of gameplay, storytelling, and creativity. It is fun, it is immersive, but it is just more Grand Theft Auto. It is not boiling pot of all things offensive, hating women and loving all things male and white. It is cringe inducing at times, but mostly it is simply annoyingly sarcastic and generic. It is not a tool of violence and evil. The game fosters chaos and tells stories of disgusting people doing disgusting things, but it doesn’t revel in it.
What is great about Grand Theft Auto is what has always been great about it. A large open world which is an ode to the second largest city in America while feeling completely original. It warmly embraces a west coast metropolis of plastic and greed, telling the story of how three not-go-great people want to make the most of it. The loop of get money, spend money is as addictive as it is in real life, minus the consequences. What is negative about GTA is that the game feels sophomoric, the writing–especially the humor–feels ham fisted, and there’s still a bunch of boring gameplay issues.
For those who love it for its biting humor, financial fantasies, and immersive world, you should enjoy it for all that and more. For those who view the game as the platform for violence, misogyny, and immaturity, trust me, you’ll have plenty of ammunition for those ideas. Grand Theft Auto means means many different things to many different people, for better and worse. What is really amazing, is Grand Theft Auto raises the video games as a topic of conversation like no other title. When I tried to explain the magic of Gone Home to my friends, they could not have cared less about some independent two hour game where a girl discovering her sexuality. The game that everyone wants to hear about is the $800 million juggernaut that tells a story of sex, greed, and violence. People can talk, hate, and fight, but Grand Theft Auto V won before anyone even opened their mouths.
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