GTA IV breaks records, annoys feminists and amuses gamers

11:06AM Monday May 5, 2008

Almost a week on and GTA IV seems to be smashing records to become the biggest-selling game ever.

First indicator was in the UK where sales beat the record for highest first week sales of any video game in the UK - selling a record 609,000 copies on its first day of release.

Some US analysts are predicting sales will top 10 million but TakeTwo's CEO Ben Feder said: "Our expectations are very high, higher than analysts give the game credit for.

The game's producer, Leslie Benzies, told the Times:

"It cost about US$100m making it probably the most expensive game ever. Asked about the critics of the games, he said it was the same old song: "There is a big fear factor here. It's the coming of the railways. It's Elvis shaking his hips. It's cars going over 25 miles an hour and making people explode."

The Times also put into perspective the impact of sales on new movies like Ironman by pointing out the UK sales are about twice what Hollywood can expect its first blockbuster of the year, Iron Man, to earn when it opened last weekend. "Some experts are even tipping GTA to topple the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 movie from its perch as the entertainment title with the most first-week sales.

GTA IV is on both Xbox and PS3 and both console makers are relying on the game to lift console sales this month.

Both are reported by Yahoo news as being confident GTA sales are benefiting their respective consoles. Eventually console sales figures for this month will give us the answer. Day one UK sales are reported to be: Xbox360 335.000 copies, PS3 274.000.

It's not clear what impact the fact that the game was edited for NZ and Australian customers will have on local sales. I've certainly heard of local gamers buying direct from the US and a poll by an Australian site, PAIGN found that of 1333 votes, 651 of them (or 48.84 per cent) said they would import the game.

The BBC has reported some freezing issues and Rockstar issued a patch but I haven't had any problems so far.

Rockstar should give its marketing department a holiday as those predictable critics are keeping their angst about the game in the headlines.

The powerful US lobby group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, wants the game pulled "if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving."

If not, it should be pulled from US shops and re-rated from its present "mature" rating (R17) and made "adults only."

MADD says: "Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 per cent preventable." (Forget having a few on the couch relaxing into driving the streets of Paradise city then.)

Online news commentary site Salon points out that groups like MADD forgot something especially significant.

Salon says: "Grand Theft Auto is a game. The difference turns out to be of some importance. What one does in a game, see, occurs almost entirely inside one's head, where the action cannot harm another soul. There is no evidence that doing something in a game is predictive of future such real-life action, or even suggestive of a desire to commit such action."

The Boston Globe devoted one of last week's editorials to saying to package such violence for profit and entertainment is a crime although it stopped just short of calling for it to be banned.

"No defender of free expression, such as a newspaper editorial page, can easily support censorship. And unlike cigarettes, guns, or alcohol, the danger even to minors of possessing debased video games is a murkier science to prove. Ultimately, parents must be the gatekeepers of the media their children consume.

"Still, the GTA-IV experience is particularly insidious. The very features its fans love - high-quality graphics that immerse the player in a convincingly realistic world - raise the stakes. The targets are not space aliens or cartoon characters but police officers, taxi drivers, strippers, and the occasional innocent bystander. The violence, especially toward women, is unusually gratuitous. There is nothing about GTA-IV that can be considered remotely "socially redeeming" - one of the tests the courts use to judge whether material is obscene.

"The other familiar obscenity test is whether something violates 'community standards,' and here the game may already be lost. Every time another rap song or video game pushes the envelope, it becomes the new standard."

The Fox news channel which, ironically, is savaged in the game's 'Weazel TV' segments, labelled GTA "the king of violent video" (you mean there have never been more violent films? Get a grip!).

CBS, in its news story talked of how "many parents and educators remain upset about [Grand Theft Auto's] violent content...they contend it's downright inappropriate, even harmful." (I sure hope they won't buy support the game by buying it then!)

And popular online feminist blogs are in full flight with one warning that "many young men are going to have their first ... sexual experiences via GTA and then they are going to kill the women they are sleeping with."

The rave continues: "The implications of that are mind-blowing. It is no question that GTA is merely reflective of the bigger misogyny embedded in capitalist patriarchy, but the question is why is a game that depicts such violence towards women so popular? How is that acceptable?"

Meanwhile another game has started among owners of the game to find the hidden easter eggs such as this Apple parody.

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