Grand Theft Auto...too violent?

Grand Theft Auto is a video game for the Xbox 360. In this game, people are taken into the life of a criminal who steals and kills in order to make a living. The player actually controls this criminal and there are missions and other sort of things like that where the player must kill certain people or steal certain things in order to gain street credit and money. The graphics are mind-blowing, with the ability to even count the freckles on peoples’ faces. With these graphics, you can also see every little detail of every single gun in the game, as well as the blood drops that fly from the people after you shoot them in a rain of gunfire.

Are some video games just too violent? Now I have played Grand Theft Auto, and I understand that it has a rating of “M”, which means that you must be I think 18 in order to purchase this game, but that is not going to stop kids who are younger to get a hold of this game and play it. When I played the game for the first time, I thought that most of the material that was displayed throughout the game were simply too inappropriate for younger children. Between dealing drugs, excessive drinking, drive-by shootings, and going to strip clubs, this game could cause younger children to grow up in a bad way. Also, this sort of game can also encourage violent behavior in young children. If a child is in control of a character who shoots somebody and makes money and walks away without getting in any sort of trouble, some will think that it is not a bad thing to do this since nothing bad happened to the character in the game.

This relates to the few readings we have had that have discussed the idea of misinterpretation. With the type of material that is in a game like Grand Theft Auto, children of younger ages will not be able to understand that what this game is showing them is inappropriate to do in society. The makers of the game format the game around the “mature” rating, knowing that those who are playing the game who are 18 or older understand the realistic side to the game, and not considering those who are younger and don’t understand the repercussions of these actions.