GTA, Humor, and Protagonists - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 88

a section header that proclaims “Questionable Content? Maybe For Your
Grandma . . .” and states, “Let's get one thing straight. This game is not
for the weak. It's not for the people who like a little poofy dragon chase or
a double butt-bump for shiny coins. Nah. Grand Theft Auto III is about
knocking people of , it's a game about criminals and about the things they
do.” 21 GTA III is for those who have grown up and out of the games of
their youth, but are not so old as to be out of touch with what is cool. The
criticism of the game fuels the interest of gamers, as they do not want to be
the old women, the 'grandmas,' who worry about the content of GTA .
Occasionally the critiques aimed at GTA are resituated, which is fre-
quently the postscript to discussions about the controversy of the series
in academic literature. Irene Chien redescribes the open world that critics
fi nd disturbing by arguing that “what makes this series so gripping is not
that it requires you to perform extremes of ultra-violence, but that it of ers
an immense, open-ended environment where such actions are possible.” 22
This is a fundamental point of impasse, and perhaps the most interesting
aspect of the discourse, as the same aspect of the series provokes moral
questions from critics and praise from academics and gamers. Additionally,
defenders of GTA contend that although violence is portrayed as a major
problem in a series like GTA , games where one represents an agent of the
state, like a police oi cer or a soldier, are far less likely to provoke calls for
a retailer boycott. To this end, although “a ceaseless parade of patriotic,
heart-in-hand World War II games, in which you merrily blow the skulls
of Japanese and German soldiers under the explicit authority of the U.S.
of A . . . anti-gaming critics didn't really explode with indignation until
Grand Theft Auto 3 came along.” 23 These responses are interesting, as they
rearticulate the terms of discussion about games by pointing out areas of
inconsistency in public criticism. Understanding why the reasons behind
these dif erences matter requires looking more closely at how gamers talk
about GTA .
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?: DETAILS AND NIKO
Describing the dif erence of opinion about how games like GTA impact cul-
ture or demonstrating the divide between gamers and public critics about
the series is not particularly newsworthy. However, the dissonance present
in discourse about the games of ers a platform upon which to engage in
critical analysis of reviews and to develop how wordplay can analyze games
as texts. There are two keys to understanding how the violence that can be
part of GTA is not a focal point of the series for gamers: players appreciate
the attention to detail in the game's design, and characters like Niko Bel-
lic, the protagonist in GTA IV , change how players identify with the game.
Reviews of the series are notable because of what is absent: reviewers do
not talk much about violence or sexual content, instead attending to other