Grand Theft Auto vs. Grand Theft Auto

To celebrate the launch of Grand Theft Auto, here's a graph cooked up by Comment Central to help all those people who think gamers can't understand the differences between video games and real life.

Here's what happened to real Grand Theft Auto as sales of the game version have soared.

Comments

[Alan Black]

But wait, this doesn't fit with the narrative that video games cause violence.

As we all know, violent video games exist, and violence happens.

The correlation is indisputable (unless you use "facts" and "statistics" to back up any dispute)

No, no... I'm afraid I'll have to ignore this statistic Daniel.

[George]

You know, loth though I am to say this, that graph actually seems to be showing the opposite of what Comment Central are trying to imply. Notice that the sharp rise in GTA game sales is followed (after the predictable time lag), by a similar rise in actual GTA figures. Might the subsequent fall not just be a response to the rise by the police force or by an increase in the effectiveness of car security systems?

Not that I believe there is any causal relationship, of course, I realise that this is tongue-in-cheek.

[Will]

Not wishing to dispute the conclusion that video game 'crime' fails to affect real crime (which I would agree with), I would like to emphasise that the drop in vehicle crime figure is pretty small (~10%) and that it is probably caused by new cars having massively superiour anti-theft technology to older models. (Other types of theft don't show this decline.) Its failure to correlate with sales of a particular computer game is thus fairly meaningless.

[Little Richardjohn]

It is yet another fantasy to imagine that fulfilling a violent dehumanising fantasy on a regular, sustained, systematic basis, with no moral or practical consequences, and no goals other than triumphalist domination of the assigned enemy by whatever force possible, does not transfer some of the values of that barbaric world to the user - the subject in this conditioning process. The fact is that many, if not all of the witnesses to the attack seem to have believed that the incident was a publicity stunt by the developers. That the blood and screams were simulated. They were, in other words, prepared to discount the evidence of their senses and lapse into a world of virtual wish-fulfillment again.

Practice does make perfect, it seems.

[alison]

My God how desperate are you. You are now beyond the "paranoia" you trivialize of those who raise a few pertinent points. Eg genuine concerns that maybe overly graphic violence and overtly mysoginist sexual content is not the fantastic mastabatory woweeee fabulous creation you all seem to think it is. If such things in life that we enjoy for entertainment do not influence us at all then why do we insist our children learn to read and consume the creative escapee works of various entertaining geniuses of centuries gone by? What's the fuss about the imaginary entertaining world of Shakespeare? Care to explain? Noone is suggesting gamers will go out and steal cars! But that there is influence, information and a desensitising most certainly yes.

[Peter]

Daniel

Could you also give us the figures comparing the urge to commit extreme violence and the number of times Gordon Brown smiles in public - it would probably be very enlightening....

[Craig Tinning]

well, heres a thought. maybee the game lead to more violence maybee it doesn't. But as more of the typical young lads play video games who is left to steal the cars? so of course the numbers should be decreasing

[Paul]

I am a 24 year old PhD student who has played every Grand Theft Auto game at one time or another and has never felt the slightest urge to go and steal a car.

I think the real issue here is not that games 'cause' violence or particulally encourage criminal activity - the problem dosent lie with gamers or game developers or outlets. The real problem lies with parents who go out and buy their child a game with 18 slapped on the front in huge letters and think nothing of letting them play it.

When kids play these games (targeted and designed for adults) they see graphic violence and criminal activity which numbs their response to the same kinds of events in real life.

I have seen parents who one would hope would not let their 12 year old watch a movie like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, quing up in shops with their child buying an 18 game and telling the guy behind the counter it's for them not their son. Pure and simply, this is irresponsible parenting.

[Giles]

Where do these sales figures come from? Take Two themselves have stated (http://taketwovalue.com/documents/TTWO_Value.pdf#page=9) that the GTA series has sold, in total, 70 million copies - and yet this graph suggests that it sold between 14 and 22 million copies every year for the past seven years.

I do not want to criticise the game - playing it does not directly harm anyone else, and is clearly stimulating fun with scenes no more bloody than those in the Iliad.

Nevertheless, your graph does leave something to be desired.

Firstly, the charge against GTA is not so much that it increases car crime in general but that it pushes a number people - who were perhaps a little bonkers anyway - over the edge. It is not really in dispute that the majority of people who have played GTA have not become prostitute-murdering tank-stealing gangsters.

Whilst broad statistics can show large scale effects on crime, they do not show the individual psychological effects that this game could perhaps be having on a small (but nevertheless dangerous!) number of individuals.

Secondly, the first realistic version of Grand Theft Auto was GTA 3. GTA 3 for the first time provided 3D graphics - until this point, the games had been fun but much less involving and more like a cartoon.

GTA 3 was released in 2001 and that year saw a jump in car crime, which continued at the raised level 2006. Three versions of GTA were released between 2001-2004, but since then there has been no major release until this week. In 2006 - by which time the latest GTA had become old - car crime again started to drop, as had been the trend before the release of the first realistic GTA.

I personally think it unlikely that there is any direct correlation between GTA sales and car thefts, but this graph does not necessarily support that argument.

Finally, though - the GTA series really are very good computer games.

[Ad]

Thank God for rational analysis. This kind of statistic holds true not only for theft. Take a country like the US, with heavy penetration of gaming consoles and compare the growth in this type of game (GTA, Call of Duty, etc.) with the murder statistic. Game & console sales have increased tremendously and over the same period the murder rates have gone down significantly. Maybe we should be releasing more of this genre, not less?

[Jamie]

Although i strongly advocate the use of ratings on these games and no under 18 being allowed to play, i still that GTA and all other games of its nature allow us to do things that in conventional society we're generally not.

We're allowed to become these drug smuggling pimps/gangsters in a virtual reality which is satiating our inner animalistic desires to get into fights. As humans we have been generally violent people, we have been fighting wars for millenniums and these games kind of let us relive that. Although still don't think that GTA has curbed crime in any way.

[Robin Debreuil]

There are basically two types of car theft, one is for money and tends to be 'professional'. Now there is a fairly new category, where younger people steal to go joy riding. The second is the only one you would expect to be affected by these games. It has went from almost none in the 80's/90's to epidemic levels (at least in North America). There are also huge number of cases of intentionally running over pedestrians, running into police cars, putting a rock on the gas and sending cars through intersections etc.

Stealing cars has become a cool thing to do amongst a certain segment. Running over people or police is getting cooler as well. This is all new, and since the release of GTA etc. To deny there is a link requires some serious eye shut.

The claim was never that 'everyone who plays these games will steal cars', or even a large number of people will. But it does make it 'cool', and yes it does affect crime. The type of crime, and the severity of it.

The Titanic comes out and public interest soars, Jackass comes out and riding shopping carts down hills becomes a trend. GTA comes out, and car theft (and car violence) goes up. Certainly most of these kids would still be getting into 'trouble', but personally I liked it better when they threw eggs, or broke windows at the school.

[Ben]

I agree, the game caused a massive surge violence. No other form of media has any effect.

The legalising of guns has nothing to do with violence. Nobody ever died from guns.

That's why Australia, where guns are banned, has such a high murder per person rate.... oh wait, no we don't!

Maybe the media should make a chart linking guns per person to murders & injuries per person... I wonder if there is any relationship?

[Jon Carvell]

Alan Black makes a crucial mistake. Just because there are two sets of data about the same thing does not mean they produce any form of correlation!

[Adam]

Isn't it about time the government just let the people make they're own choices. Who am I to tell you how to raise your children. Morality of the child is gift from the parents. Thus its safe to say that a child with a violent game who has a conscience will not offend . But to openly make and excuse to attack a this form of media with out real provocation only makes me wonder what the real reason is. Clearly its not for protection of the child. The care factor of someone else child is zilch. "not our problem"

I'm only speculation here, but!! I know the government and its mainstream media has its way with the people. Thus I can see that this type of game being detrimental to the brained washed society they have so carefully been putting in place. The nanny state is here and to openly let the government tell you how to raise your children and what they should be watching/playing, will only give way to more government controls over our already planned out lives. "Hitler did this to the german people" So will it stop! Only if the people want it to stop. In our society today I'm seeing a new breed of people. They are all trained to be softies.So farting in a public space could constitute as a arrestable offence under the terrorism act.

So what should be done about this game .Nothing. English classes in our schools teach books that contain violence. "Shakespeare Mc Beth" John Steinbeck."Of Mice and Men" What's the real difference? basically not allot. It's only a different type of media.

You can see how they think...

Gaming is equal to play. Playing in the animal kingdom is practice for survival. Restrict the play and you have a form of breeding. So in there eyes we are nothing but animals.

[Peter]

Paul makes an excellent point when he talks about parents allowing their children to paly these games. There has recently been debate about the introduction of a video games ratings system, with seeming ignorance of the fact that one exists.

Frequent comments on this page that (to paraphrase) "to deny that there is a link would require some serious eyes shut" are based on pure circumstantial evidence. We blieve violent crime, car theft, etc etc are going up so we look to blame something. As I recall, most examples of controversy surrounding people who have "lived out video games fantasies" (with a link normally as tenuous as the Columbine murders to Marilyn Manson) have involved people under the age that these games are intended for.

I am yet to see a piece of objective analysis or research that indicate that these games have any effect on their TARGET AUDIENCE.

[Anton Chigurh]

Little Richardjohn has clearly never played any of the GTA games. You can kill pedestrians if you want, but there are consequences, the Police come after you. Neither are the games aimless, you have very clear aims and objectives throughout the game.

It always seems a little unfair to me that GTA gets all the flack when it's a little tame when compared to the genuinely sadistic stuff Eli Roth churns out. The difference is, of course, Eli Roth is a film director and our moral guardians understand what films are. They're yet to get there with games, they're stuck in a world where they're for kids only. That isn't the case anymore.

[Andrew O]

im off to buy this game. If it has that much of an impact it must be good. ill call it a social experiment. If i steal a car then the graph is valid, if i dont its poppycock.

[Jane]

So Anton are there consequences for sleeping with prostitutes? Do you get a disease or pursued by the police or made to understand the issues of human trafficking which is rife? Maybe he loses a sister to the whole business? Or is that just all A okay hunky dory? Are all the women in the games whores?

[truncheon]

Correlation does not equal causation, durr. Anti-theft devices are much more effective, and more common on new cars, so this graph basically means nothing.

[Merus]

"It is yet another fantasy to imagine that fulfilling a violent dehumanising fantasy on a regular, sustained, systematic basis, with no moral or practical consequences, and no goals other than triumphalist domination of the assigned enemy by whatever force possible, does not transfer some of the values of that barbaric world to the user - the subject in this conditioning process."

Good thing there's police officers that chase you for breaking the law, eh? In every GTA, one of the touted features is the increasing effectiveness of the police, and from the beginning they've been more or less omniscient, easy to provoke and hard to shake.

"Are all the women in the games whores?"

By no means. There are prostitutes on the streets, true, but that's merely a reflection of big cities and the twisted nature of the setting (it's only once seeing the in-game media that you notice the creators are painting America as a violence and sex-obsessed culture). In terms of what the players actually do? The only benefit the prostitutes give is a minor increase to the player's health, easily wiped out from an accident or being attacked by a street gang or some racist lowlifes, and the loss of money that could have been spent on food or clothing. The game's not trying to be a prostitution simulator - it paints them with the same broad brush as it paints the rest of America - but nevertheless it's sort of pointless and kind of sleazy. entertaining because it's an unexpected possibility (the appeal of GTA is that it's an intricate clockwork universe where the possibilities seem endless), but not particularly rewarding in and off itself.

And because it never gets mentioned, let me throw it out there: in the most recent GTA, it appears to be possible to complete the game without ever stealing a car. This is on top of the legal side pursuits the series delights in throwing in - players can take dates out bowling or to cabarets and comedy clubs, and go out with other characters to play pool or darts or just go out drinking. They can also do side-jobs driving a taxi, and I expect the game also allows players, like in the previous ones, to take a side job as a fireman or even pretend to be a police officer and participate in high-speed chases on the side of the law. There's also hours and hours of radio stations, TV shows and web sites to spend time with, all with a strongly satirical (if occasionally immature) bent.

[Good Free RPG Games]

The real GTA figures don't really vary much at all when you look at the scale compared to the scale for the game.

[Alex williams]

very cool game, can't live without it. Check out my website at www.videogamegeek.pbwiki.com