A revealing incident
If the “Grand Theft Auto” video game were merely true to its title, it would win very little notice and even fewer sales. What makes it a bestseller is the other stuff it allows -- nay, encourages -- players to do: Buy drugs, shoot cops, destroy property, beat up assorted passersby and hire prostitutes (killing them afterward so players don’t have to pay).
So forgive us if we fail to share in the indignation over the news that the game also includes a single explicit sex scene. The presence of the scene, which is hidden from users and can only be unlocked by a piece of homemade software available online, caused the “San Andreas” iteration of the game to be pulled from store shelves last week. It also prompted a fresh round of indignation in Washington, where the video game industry has replaced the tobacco industry as the easiest target in town.
Video games are hardly a threat to the republic, and public denunciations of them (in Washington or, dare we say, on this page) are likely to achieve a surge in their popularity. Nevertheless, this controversy is revealing, if we may use that term without snickering, about its various accomplices.
“Grand Theft Auto’s” maker, Rockstar Games, at first denied the scene existed, claiming it was the invention of users who added it later. Only when the evidence was incontrovertible did the company admit that the scene was buried deep in the game’s code and was discovered by a Dutch player.
Stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart, meanwhile, had no objection to the game until last week. “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” has sold about 12 million copies, at about $50 each, in less than a year -- and stores won’t stop selling it unless forced to. The presence of the pornographic scene required an upgrade (downgrade?) in the game’s rating from “Mature” to “Adults Only,” and most stores do not stock such games.
It is a handful of politicians and interest groups in Washington, curiously enough, that come away with their principles mostly intact. Senators like Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) have long criticized violent games; some parents groups have called for an independent ratings system, instead of one set up by the industry.
Federal regulation of video games is probably pointless. And there is little doubt that scolds like Lieberman can be hard to take. But if philosophical consistency matters at all, he deserves some credit. If politicians have a role here, it is the one they are playing: using the bully pulpit. It may not always be effective, and it is too often abused. But there can be little doubt that in this case, it has been helpful.
