.......of all time !



https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...ore-money-than-any-movie-ever-2018-04-06

I've never had a desire to play it and likely never will but it's interesting to note how many have and i never would have given it the most successful title award but if they say so ...whatever

I really don't or care to know the meaning of"Misogynistic".

I just look at whom it is mostly used by and in what context and know I probably wouldn't agree with them on just about anything.

Oh...I tried that game on someones console ONCE, found it ridiculously boring and never looked back.

I think I hope that doesn't mean I am not "Misogynistic" cause I think I want to be...not sure and, I refuse to look it up.

i honestly think gta is the most inclusive and representative game series of all time..every game we play out there we are either a hunk macho or a perfect lustfull body female and everyone else is pretty close to that, in GTA you have gays,overweight people, jews,hippies, hipsters, gangster, crooked politicians, celebrities whores,paparazzos, drug addicteds, homeless people, rednecks, beach rats, testosterone junkies, immigrant workers, illegal alien and aliens,corrupt police officers,old people, middle age people, boarders, commuters,lesbians, adrenaline junkies,the only thing they are afraid to add is children and teenagers, don't know why they are already mature title, you can see in the artwork for GTA V that michael kids were clearly suposed to be adolescents.

That is sad and it says a lot about the moral decay of recent generations. Once I read what was included in it I decided to never play it or view you tubes of it.
Just my 2 cents and yes I am an old guy.(54)

S!Blade<><

I found the ones I played dull. Not sure what that says about me. Vice City had a great soundtrack though, I still picture it when I hear Flock of Seagulls “I Ran”.

While I haven't played it, the argument that fans of the series make is the freedom of action in an open world as what's pulling them in.

I have serious doubts if the average critic is after anything than cheap virtue signaling, to be honest. First, video game makers will rarely defend their artistic choices, so it's not as if the typical critric will ever be confronted with the consequences of a one-sided review. Next, the intent to frame a game title negatively is usually painfully obvious. As an example, is there such a thing as a "violent" video game (or "violent speech")? Because there's just no way how you can physically harm anyone by simply playing it; violence may be depicted, but that's hardly the same thing as actual violence.
And if "showing violence" is not the same as violence itself, the next question is whether making immoral choices in a game is actually morally reprehensible in the first place; IMO it is not worse than having "bad thoughts" - what counts in our real world, after all, is action. We don't have a thought police - yet. But suppose you even are of the opinion that choices in a virtual environment that do not affect other human players are morally equivelent to real life: All right, GTA allows you to interact with female characters in a way that can be characterized as misogynistic, but you don't have to; by the same token you can act heterophobic, but strangely enough nobody will ever complain about that.
From a game design point of view I have to ask, what's the point of enforced virtuous and moral behavior in a game? Truly moral choices can be made only if the player actually HAS the choice, and choice means by definition the unrestricted option for the morally reprehensive course of action.

I wish critics would focus on whether the consequences of bad actions are actually well portrayed or not; sure enough for example the police will chase the player if he violates traffic in sight of a patrol car, and these car chases have the potential to escalate dramatically. That's IMO a good element. But you can also commit murders without a proper simulation how the police may be slow to catch up with your actions, but may eventually arrest you much later as they have gathered enough evidence over time - this is something that doesn't happen in GTA, so I guess that's something that _I_ would criticize, but the professional critics never seem to do that. Go figure.


In short, I think that the professionally offended are yet another variant of modern day puritans who can't handle the difference between the interaction with cartoon characters in a virtual fantasy environment, and actions in real life. GTA is guilty of nothing but bad taste.

I personally believe its guilty of much more. I've played some of the games but usually end up stopping because it becomes just too vulgar and violent for the sake of vulgarity, violence and offending. Nothing more. They are not even good stories. They can make whatever they want but I don't think that makes for a healthy game for any age to engage in. Rockstar has put out two gaming gems in the form of Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noir in my opinion. The GTA games however, even though they proudly assume the role of over the top, satirical, make fun of everyone and everything games, at the end of the day they are still essentially celebrating all the wrong things in my opinion. I personally believe they are detrimental especially to youths who should not be playing games like these. Games do require participation, they engage a human and they can capture the attention of, entertain and amuse all of which are not necessarily a good thing. I believe that games specifically like GTA with a combination of extreme violence coupled with extreme vulgarity and extreme sexual content, have the potential and likelihood to diminish one's inhibitions when exposed to it for too long. To be honest I have detected this within my own self when entertaining games like this. These are just my opinions and observations on the matter. There's a lot more too it but I think certain games, not all, are spiritually unhealthy. Personally I know there are certain types of entertainment that I have been accustomed to for years that I probably should repent of, change my mind about and then look to other sources for entertainment. I still enjoy games and movies and books that happen to have violence and suggestive themes but I understand where it ends and begins with me. Its a fiction that I enjoy that happens to be colored by these aspects and that's fine with me until the moment these things become overly emphasized or even somewhat venerated. Then I usually find myself needing to step away from it. Knowing what I've seen in some of their games I've always had this feeling that elements within Rockstar, be it executives or managers must be some pretty creepy, sleazy people.

I'm with you Coot. I'm not one who believes that vulgar and violent video games cause real violence in and of themselves, but they certainly contribute with some individuals. And while some violence is a part of our culture, from video games to football, GTA's brand is too much for me. Kids today need to see and learn the value of kindness, respect and the value of human life. Any game that encourages criminal behavior, vulgarity, prostitution, rape and the murder of innocents, virtual or otherwise, is certainly not teaching them any of those things. Rockstar crossed the line for me and my family, and as such, will see no more business from us. It won't make a lick of difference to them, but I don't care much. My kids are growing up to be responsible, decent young adults and that's all that matters to me.

you mean like skryim and fallout series ? funny i don't see people make a deal out of them......i guess role playing is a good excuse.
and just out of curiosity when did gta ever had rape ? And technically murder of innocents is on the player not the game,i never gunned down pedestrians on purpose or did a cathartic mayhem like most do, not even when i finished the game......in fact i usually leave side quests/events open in gta becouse once its over with the story i have nothing to do in it.

Hey Blade,

I am against ALL games that promote and/or encourage excessive vulgarity, violence and crime. It's one of the reasons I lean more toward sims. However, I never felt encouraged or directed to commit violent or misogynistic crimes in Skyrim or Fallout 4. Any open-world game is going to be used by the depraved as a tool to play out their violent fantasies, but there is a difference between a game where you CAN do something vs. a game where you MUST do something.

In many sandbox games you create your character and choose to be a hero or villain. I always choose the former, because I believe how I play games is a reflection of who I am. In GTA, you MUST play as a criminal. You already know this, but here is a description of GTA V from Rockstar's website:

"Amidst the turmoil, three very different criminals plot their own chances of survival and success: Franklin, a street hustler looking for real opportunities and serious money; Michael, a professional ex-con whose retirement is a lot less rosy than he hoped it would be; and Trevor, a violent maniac driven by the chance of a cheap high and the next big score. Running out of options, the crew risks everything in a series of daring and dangerous heists that could set them up for life."

I may have mis-spoke about rape. I've never played the game, I've simply seen clips that were pretty graphic and disturbing.

Regarding the killing of innocents, help me out here. When you do kill innocents in the game, is there any kind of reward for it? Do you get points or cash or achievements? Again, It's one thing if a player chooses to commit virtual atrocities, but I don't care much for games that encourage it through a reward system.

To be clear, I am not advocating banning anything. I am simply stating where my family and I have drawn the line. I think drawing that line and discussing it with our children is something every responsible parent should do.

I can easily say I've "killed" more people in flight sims than I have even come close to in GTA (but yeah, I never finished more than 3..4 assignments).
Same goes for ArmA series (gunned down pixels since 2001).
But as always, if you can't see who you kill it's all ok.

Ssnake, love your comment on "professionally offended"

WTH is a "misogynistic crime"?
There's criminal targeting, and it may be out of misogynistic motives, but again that's up to the player who can just as well decide to only attack male characters in GTA (so all of a sudden it's then a misandric game?). So we're talking about crimes in general (...in a virtual fantasy land with cartoon characters, let's keep that in mind); we can only speculate about the player's motivation when committing them. Calling a game "misogynist" just because it's possible to treat female characters just as bad as every other cartoon character in the game world clearly shows the writer's intent to frame the game in the context of contemporary identity/gender politics. I'd call GTA radiacally egalitarian since you may treat anyone in this game like sh!t, irrespective of the melanin content of his skin or the presence of a Y chromosome. You can choose to be a male of female criminal, or choose not to be a criminal at all (in which case there's less to do, of course).

Do the developers of the game aim for the lowest of taste?
Absolutely.

Does that make their game misogynist or violent?
Absolutely not.


Don't get me wrong, I don't want to defend GTA as a highlight of game culture. I'm just saying, it's being used as a projection surface by pretty much all its critics who rarely seem to have played it. They just watch a couple of the most outrageous Youtube videos and "feel informed enough to form an opinion", yet another model case manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. You can judge a game only by actually playing it. And here it's up to the player to decide what to do in the GTA world. Yes, the game rewards criminal activities, just like criminal activities are rewarded in real life (at least in the short term). But it doesn't enforce it. That's an absolutely vital point!

GTA is an awesome, fun game. You do stuff you'd never do in real life. It's a game. That's about it.

It is fun once you get into it - try it out some time. The storylines are over the top, the characters are funny and interesting, and you don't have to follow the storyline if that's not your thing.

Keep in mind you can play the game without ever breaking any laws at all (Though you won't complete the storyline) It's up to you.

IMHO GTA walk a line between seemingly irresponsible violence vs the freedom of the player to do as he/she wishes. There's plenty of terrible things you can do in the GTA universe, and also plenty of pleasant things. And one of the main thrusts of the tone of the game is heavy satire, try playing golf as a black guy and see how far you get, or listening to the vapid DJs of the numerous radio stations.

For sure the main storyline is violent - there's not much scope to play in any other way than violently, that's the nature of the characters (which are deliberate stereotypes and even - in the case of the character Trevor - a direct trolling of deliberate sociopathic gameplay that many people flock to GTA for). As usual in open world games I tend to not follow the storyline and just wander the landscape and see what's available to do and see. There's no denying that the world Rockstar has created is one of the best designed and functional game settings ever made.

A game that focuses on criminals as their main characters, and is called "Grand Theft Auto" is bound to cause outrage based purely on that, understandable, I see the issue there. The debate on whether this game should exist needs only that to justify it, but what I see is a lot of complaints that you can kill innocents, go to strip clubs, get drunk, take drugs etc... but that's what the player decides to do, the player could also go play tennis, hike, hunt, play pool, do some mountainbiking, yoga etc - and I think Rockstar included these activities to point out an interesting idea, that what you do as a player is the player's responsibility. You beat up a poledancer? Dude that's messed up why would you do that even in a game?

If I have one aspect of GTA that do find objectionable, it's the "Star Wars Stormtrooper-esque" depiction of the killing of cops, killing multiple cops is a simple matter of blowing away avatars then avoiding detection for like 3 minutes. To be sure you don't need to do that, again it's on the player, but when faced with cops they most usually start shooting first and the "option" to become arrested or to escape is limited, and most players are not interested in that.

Haven't played GTA since GTAIII. Lost my interest. GTAII was stupid fun, like the old Car Wars.

Everyone with a healthy curiosity has a desire to see what his or her alter ego would do. Games like GTA XXX allow that. While is has excesses of various things, it's the portrayal of it that bothers some people, not the fact that it was possible in the game.

Being excessive for the sake of itself is dumb. But the scope of a GTAXXX has allure for what's possible. My appetite for similar things tends to be tacsims; the 'go here steal that get away' aspect is wash rinse repeat I can get from Mafia which is a similar type of game but more my thing.

But just like I found the PMRC to be a joke in the 80s, the violent video game outcry- I'm not describing people here- is laughable. I won't get into politics but this same mindset is responsible for many bad things in my opinion, because it focuses on the wrong thing in an attempt to do something good.

I vivdly remember the "think of the children!" handwringing that was brought up when cheesy action flicks followed the surge of VHS player installations (which was kinda ironic since it was the parents at the time who bought VHS recorders primarily to watch porn). The same old arguments were made (in rough descending order of time passed since peak popularity):

• smartphones
• sexting
• postmodernism
• flight simulators (yes, flight simulators!)
• the internet
• first person shooters
• rap music
• video films
• video games
• TV
• Dungeons & Dragons
• rock music
• comic books
• pop music
• twelve-tone music
• modern art
• jazz music
• cinema
• illustrated journals
• novels for entertainment

Somehow they were all out to taint the youth's morality since the late 19th century when all that you needed was a single book per household, and that was the Bible. To the extent that someone subscribes to the thought that the world has gone downhill since at least the last 150 years, I'll concede that zhe simply has a different set of morality. But if you didn't go all the way in the media critique, I'd call you a hypocrite. At the core the arguments haven't changed, they are just being thrown at the latest new medium that violates the critic's sense of the natural order of things. For some people, all of this is a sign of the impending apocalypse. For me, it's a sign that you're growing old/feel disconnected from whatever is popular at the moment.

I've tried, and own all the GTA games. (I like game sales). I don't think I've ever play more than 20 min before i quit. They just feel juvenile to me, the over the top swearing (I swear a lot), N bombs, thug mentality, just not for me.

you get money, but not always and they changed it in gta v to be VERY little to not make it worth unlike previous version wher you could get even 2000 usd from a pedestrian, its not really a reward, it used to be lots of help in vice city where it was scarce and the police was so gunho in killing you they would run over pedestrians and shoot them as well....and yes you could trick police to agro pedestrians and get the money, i did this a lot. about your concern, the game is very moralist against violence in gta v.....franklin is a hustler but tired of doing little crime, he just want to make more money and becouse he is blck and from hood he dont see oportunities,his actual job was to get back cars for a crummy leaser, michael was a street banker and from the oppening in the game you can tell he was that type of criminal who wants to do stuff clean (no civilain casualties), it was trevor the one who did the killings becouse he was a psychopath, and michael wanted to move away from that life becouse he had a family now, he was a bank robber not a murderer. Trevor is a murderer psychopath,canibalistic who does all drugs and enjoys killing, he is basically most GTA players, i actually dislike playing as him and only did becouse of his missions, you can even see so in my tracking profile, i leaned more towards franklin (representation i guess, and becouse he doesnt tire as much as michael).

about violence, i agree with your notion of parenting, my dad never let me watch of play violent videogames, i couldnt even play splatterhouse on genesys untill i was 14 an that was a 2d pixel game !!! i never cared for mortal kombat though, only liked the "realistic" look of the characters, i didnt know it was photo i actually though it was 3d lol.

The only crime i'm guilty in every gta is agro the police so i can get their better guns right at the start of the game since i will have to fight them anyway during the game, but for exemple in watchdogs i avoided conflict and watchdogs 2 i would use the taser rifle against them.

This is what I respect. Whatever game it is, whether or not I feel the same way. It’s up to the parent to know what their kid is doing and decide how they feel about it.
Unfortunately, not all parents are like that and don’t bother to know what their kid is playing, or having friends over to play.
For me, the issue is age related. I didn’t let my son play it for years, but eventually I did. He was a little older and I knew he was only interested in the MP side, shootouts, vehicles with friends etc, not th crime story. I know he played it some and that MP isn’t an innocent environment, but by that age I felt confident about him knowing a game from reality.
I absolutely respect a parent’s decision, certainly an informed one, even if it isn’t the same as my own, whether more or less permissive. Most go around with blinders on.

to be honest, parents should teach kids to respect for others, most toxicity online comes from teenagers and adolescents, older gamers rarely curse you and are far more chill then they "i hope you get cancer ,kill yourself" generation,