Grand nanny governance: The CTA offs GTA

    Chicago may be the nanny-government capitol of the nation. Its mayor, Richard M. Daley, has pledged to have high-tech surveillance cameras on every corner in the city within the next eight years. Its 50-member city council passed legislation forbidding restaurants to sell foie gras because a majority of its aldermen doesn’t like the way ducks are force-fed to fatten up their livers.
    The latest nanny-notion the Windy City has acted on is gaming. I’m not referring to the gaming Republican spin-meister Frank Luntz came up with when he pimped the word to change the image of Las Vegas gambling. No, I’m talking about computer and Internet gaming.
    As it turns out, the Chicago Transit Authority recently removed a series of Grand Theft Auto IV ads from the city’s bus shelters. The city didn’t want to be promoting a game that features simulated sex, car theft and drive-by shootings—especially after a news report by the local Fox station speculated that an ugly rash of violence in Chicago maybe somehow related to the game’s release—or not.

    " ...the CTA can do what they want, the game has enough publicity without the CTA ads. I've seen real violence, sexuality and drug use while riding the CTA. Maybe they shouldn't worry about protecting their riders from virtual violence and worry more about reality.”

    Grand Theft Auto IV may be good, but I can’t imagine it’s that good. I just can’t imagine a video game being so compelling that it would drive hordes of young people away from their computers and out on the streets to car jack and shoot up the toddling town.
    But first, a disclaimer: I’ve never played the game. In fact, I don’t play computer games at all because I’m fearful that I’ll become addicted to them and waste all my time with the Sims instead of investing it in real life. So who am I to say what evil lurks in computer games.
    Fortunately for me, I have an expert in the family. My 24-year-old son, Scott Anderson, is a game developer. Before he moved to Arizona last year to work on “Stargate Worlds,” an upcoming massively multiplayer online role playing game, he was a devoted and regular CTA customer. And, if memory serves me right, the Grand Theft Auto series is one of his favs.
    Who better to call on than someone who is well acquainted with both the CTA and the GTA? I emailed doubly knowledgeable son to ask what he thought.
    Scott, who is working overtime to help Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment finish the game by its year’s-end deadline, didn’t waste a lot of words sharing his opinion on the wisdom of the CTA offing the GTA IV ads from its bus shelters.
    “It's an odd choice, but the CTA can do what they want, the game has enough publicity without the CTA ads. I've seen real violence, sexuality and drug use while riding the CTA,” Scott wrote back about the game which made $310 million in its first week of release. “Maybe they shouldn't worry about protecting their riders from virtual violence and worry more about reality.”
    In the meantime, Take-Two Interactive, the creators of GTA 4, is suing the Chicago Transit Authority for violating a $300,000 deal they’d struck with the city.
    The Chicago mob is alive and well and living in the suburbs. Maybe, instead of spending a lot time in the court, Take-Two Interactive ought to have their people have a sit-down with a couple of real-life hit men.
    After kneecapping a Chicago pol or two, they might be able to get the city leaders to understand the difference between what’s pretend and what’s the real deal.

Comments

[rawdawgbuffalo]

video games are the new crack

[gshinn]

Reply to impossible: The author of the book i cited is an ex army ranger who is heavily involved with the training of military personnel and paramilitary organizations like SWAT teams. Both the military and SWAT teams say the games are used to desensitize. I'm not talking about games that teach foreign languages, I'm talking about murder simulation games. I note that the claims of lower use of the pre-frontal lobe by kids who play these games goes unchallenged, as does the warnings of what these games do to the minds of our children from those who are paid to take care of their health, both physical and mental. Is that not enough to keep them away from them? Why allow children to engage in dangerous games that also dumb them dowm? As for the fact that not all who play these games turn to mass murder, read the book on some terrible examples of training have been abandoned because some, not all, soldiers and police officers were taking the bad training into the field. There are only absolutes, only risk factors. These games are a terrible unnecesary risk. Read the book written by one who has been there, knows what works and what doesn't, and has researched the issue instead of a source almost certainly funded by the game manufacturers.

[Impossible]

It's just as easy (if not easier) to make the opposite claim. There is a book titled "Grand Theft Childhood" (http://www.grandtheftchildhood.com/GTC/Home.html) that presents a balanced, rational view of the entire situation.

The argument that school shootings are caused by violent video games is flawed. Many males under 40 play or have played violent video games. Teenagers and adults that commit mass murders do it because they are mentally ill, not because they played too much Grand Theft Auto or Counter-Strike.

The military does not use games to desensitize soldiers. Simulations are used to teach tactics, teamwork and how to respond in various situations, combat and otherwise. For example, there are military simulations that teach soldiers foreign languages and how to deal with foreign cultures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_Language_%26_Culture_Training_System.) Playing a game isn't a good way to improve your real life marksmanship, you're much better off going to a firing range.

This is ignoring the fact that games like GTA are not for kids and there is a rating system in place to keep underage persons from purchasing games with mature content. A system that is more strictly enforced than ratings for movies and music (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/05/secretshop.shtm)

[gshinn]

There is a book titled "On Combat" that documents how 1. Violent video games use technology closely connected to what the military uses to desensitize soldiers to killing their fellow humans and also improve their marksmanship. 2. Kids who play such games extensively use less of the part of the brain connected to reason and judgement. 3. The vast majority of the mass murders and shootings at our schools were committed by kids who play these games extensively (see 1 above). 4. The AMA, the American association of pediatricians and the American association of psychiatrists are unanimous in saying that exposure to these games does indeed lead children to violence. I urge you and all your readers to read the chapter in the book dealing with these games and what they are doing to our children and our country.