Grand Theft AutoControversy

By Craig Dennett

Grand Theft Auto is a multi-award-winning video game

series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones. The series is set in fictional American city's. Gameplay focuses on an open world where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side activities, all consisting of action-adventure, driving, occasional role-playing, stealth, and racing elements. The series has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. According to The Guinness World Records 2008 and 2009 Gamer's Edition, it is the most controversial video game series in history, with over 4,000 articles published about it

The Series

The game was controversial from the outset, in spite of its

cartoonish graphics. Grand Theft Auto was condemned in Britain, Germany, and France due to its "extreme violence", and Brazil banned it outright.

The controversies flared up again with Grand Theft Auto III, since the 3D graphics made the violence more realistic, and the player could pay the services of prostitutes to recover their health before killing them.

There is also criticism from the focus on illegal activities in comparison with traditional "heroic" roles that other games offer. The main character can commit a wide variety of crimes and violent acts.

GTA 1, 2 and 3

The sixth game in the series, Grand Theft Auto: Vice

City, also came under criticism. One mission in particular, in which the player must instigate a gang war between Haitian and Cuban gangs, sparked controversy for both sides, Haitian and Cuban anti-defamation groups criticised the game.

Jean-Robert Lafortune of the Haitian American Grassroots Coalition is quoted as saying that "The game shouldn't be designed to destroy human life, it shouldn't be designed to destroy an ethnic group,"

Vice City

San Andreas was criticised initially due to its "gangster"

elements, which include drugs, prostitution, and murder, along with the extreme violence, sexual content, and extreme language, but later due to the discovery of disabled interactive sex scenes, nicknamed Hot Coffee, which was a sexual minigame that was cut from the game, but remained in the game code. Dubbed the "Hot Coffee mod", the minigame allowed players to have sex with their in-game girlfriends and also record sextapes.

This was understandably condemned by most, but hackers and moders managed to unlock the codes, and create a mod of the game whereby these features could once again be used.

San Andreas

In GTA IV, drunk driving is a playable event, but after

complaints and controversy, the game was edited and the final release it is a crime that automatically generates a wanted rating and protagonist Niko Bellic loudly proclaims that it is a "bad idea" and that he "should know better".

The Lost and Damned expansion pack was condemned by U.S. parents group Common Sense Media who issued a public warning against the pack's content due to a full-frontal nudity scene during one of the cut scenes. They claimed the game was "more controversial than its predecessors" because it featured "full frontal male nudity“ as well as most of the previous controversial content of the other games in the series.

GTA IV and Expansion Packs.