I've never been a huge fan of the GTA games.  I have them, and I usually manage to play them for about 30 min before I go 'meh' and pop in something else.  I figure I'll beat them eventually, if I ever get bored enough.  I like the concept behind the games - the 'sandbox' idea of go and do what you want - however the gameplay and story don't do a lot for me.

Despite not really caring for the games, I got rather miffed at a news article I stumbled across on Yahoo news:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/ap_on_bi_ge/take_two_shareholder_revolt_10

Stockholder and business news is one thing.  If (former) CEO's and such are fixing stock prices and padding their own pockets - thats bad business.  However, in this article (especially near the end) the line between the end product (the games) and business ethics just disappears.

 Financial analysts criticize Take-Two - as well as rivals such as Activision Inc., THQ Inc. and top-selling Electronic Arts Inc. - for relying too heavily on relatively uncreative sequels, sports games and bloodthirsty "first-person shooters." While so-called hardcore games remain popular with teens and young men, new online genres - trivia quizzes, word games and multiplayer role-playing games - are catching on with women, older players and millions of mobile phone users.

Uncreative sequels and sports games?  Well, if people shell out the money for it, what can ya do?  I'm more of an Okami/Ico/Fear Effect sort of gal, so I really don't get that bit - but I do know people who swear by their latest football game as if it were the 2nd coming.  Is it wrong?  I figure not, since people like what they like, and everyone's entitled to their opinion.  However, my opinion is that Madden shouldnt outsell Psychonauts by like 30-to-1 or whatever that crazy number was.  But it does.  So, if its selling, why are financial analysts pitching a fit?  "Bloodthirsty FPS"?  Sure, some of them are.  But not all. And anyone remember games like 'Rise of the Triad'?  chunky bits and eyeballs if you got a good explosion off?  What about BLOOD?  You could kick heads around like soccer balls, and the dark humor in that game...well...you'll never look at a mime the same way again.  Blood in videogames isnt anything new, and just because someone plays something with blood and gore in it doesnt immediately make someone a 'hardcore' gamer.  And as for women playing videogames - get out from under the rock people.  Women have been playing games from the beginning.  I know...I was there.  I grew up with videogames starting in the early 70s, and so have many of my (female) friends and coworkers.  I know more women who game than women who don't.  Why the industry continues to portray us as non-gamers or a gamer who only plays games like 'The Sims' or 'Barbie adventure' I don't know.  Maybe because the media doesnt want guys to consider that the player who just headshotted and corpse-humped them in Halo was actually a woman, who knows.

Child advocacy groups and legislators are Take-Two's biggest foes, complaining that the company produces the industry's most violent, mean-spirited games. In "Grand Theft Auto," players shoot pedestrians and police with reckless abandon. Another hit is "Bully," about a slingshot-wielding 15-year-old at Bullworth Academy boarding school, whose motto is "Canis Canem Edit," Latin for "dog eat dog."

Lets think about this for a moment.  "child advocacy".  Well, first of all, how many 'children' do I know who just have enough cash lying around to buy a $50 game?  Well, I cant think of any offhand, but maybe thats because I dont know any 10-year olds with a job to make that kind of money.  Or a car to go buy the game for that matter.  Hmmm...I WONDER where they could possibly be getting these games from?  I dont recall ever seeing any free copies come out of a cereal box.  Oh well, children aside for the moment, I wonder if the author of this article ever actually PLAYED GTA or Bully.  I'm betting he didnt.  In GTA, which does have an M rating, you can CHOOSE to kill police and bystanders....but you dont have to.  Bully actually only has a Teen rating. No guns, you dont kill people.  It actually ISNT the 'Columbine Simulator' that the (conservative) media claimed.

"New York-based Take-Two is best known for a version of "Grand Theft Auto" that included a hidden, lewd scene that sparked a 2005 congressional uproar. Programmers at many game publishers hide bonus material or tricks that players may unlock with special codes. "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" had a modification distributed online known as "Hot Coffee," which allowed players to download modifications to reveal oral sex scenes. The House voted 355-21 to pass a resolution asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Take-Two and its subsidiary, Rockstar Games. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., Best Buy Co. and Circuit City Stores Inc. pulled the game, which was the top seller of 2004. Take Two initially said the scenes were not part of the retail version of the game but were created by third parties. Later, the company acknowledged the scenes were contained in its version. James Steyer, CEO and founder of San Francisco-based multimedia ratings group Common Sense Media Inc., said the unceremonious ouster is long overdue. "If you look at the content of what these guys have distributed, it's so offensive and inappropriate. It's not surprising to learn they had committed massive acts of fraud at the board and CEO level," said Steyer, whose nonprofit rates video games and other content for violence and other factors. "The chickens have come home to roost for this company - and I say good riddance to these guys." Video game industry analyst Tom Gardner, CEO of Alexandria, Va.-based investment company The Motley Fool, praised the revolt. "Sometimes institutions play football with small public companies, and they can inflict a lot of damage if companies don't have a large enough ownership stake to protect against institutions that squeeze out profits in the near term," Gardner said. "But in this case, the institutions look quite good: You have backdated options, hidden porn, accounting issues and mismanagement. You have management that was at best incompetent and at worst dishonest.""

This bit pulls it all together.  What the game designers do or don't do has very little to do with the CEOs of the company.  i'd bet that the game designers and level designers and graphic artists never even saw the CEOs, let alone plotted and schemed with them to get parents to buy these games for their kids.  Yes, 'hot coffee' was going to be part of the game, and it got cut at some point during the games production.  The code to activate the little sex minigames was removed so that it could not be accessed.  So....someone with hacking knowledge found it and helped design 'codes' that would let those sections be playable.  Never mind that the minigames are from a point early on and are so poorly constructed that if you do use a gameshark or similar to access the 'secret content' theres a VERY good chance you'll crash your game (it crashed every time I tried it anyway).  On every cheat code site I've come across, they warn people to save their games before they attempt the minigame cheat, because their game will probably crash.  Does THAT sound like a deliberate 'easter egg' that was meant to be found?  And yes, I've watched the minigame scenes - and you know what?  It was about on par with the sex scenes from an R rated movie.  It was NOWHERE close to the hardcore porn people were claiming it was. 

I'm not against booting the CEOs and people who were hurting the company - what I am against is the way this article tries to blur the line between corrupt business and 'corrupt' games.  I do not believe the two are linked in any way, shape or form (at least not in this case).  I am all in favor of Take Two/Rockstar putting in as much freedom (even freedom to go on a shooting spree or pick up hookers) into a game as they can.  I believe it is a freedom of expression, and even if I dont particularly care for the game itself, I still think they have the right to create what they please.

So, those of you who are buying your kids just whatever without bothering to read the back of the frickin box:  stop complaining and start paying attention.  If you arent paying attention to what your kids are watching/reading/playing, and you havent ever bothered to explain the difference between real and fantasy to them then YOU are more part of the problem than anything else could ever be.  I don't want to have to be restricted to games like pac-man and solitaire because morons are having children and arent paying attention to the games and movies that are being used to babysit them.  I love my Resident Evil, Dead Rising, DOOM, Duke Nukem, BLOOD, Silent Hill, God of War, Elder Scrolls, Metal Gear Solid....and I sure as hell don't want to give them up for a bunch of future Darwin Award winners. :p