GTA Controversy Timeline A History Of The Series Outrages

GTA Controversy Timeline: A History Of The Series’ Outrages

Contents

Nearly every Grand Theft Auto game has been met with controversy at launch. Here’s all of the drama that unfolded with every major release.

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GTA Controversy Timeline A History Of The Series Outrages

For 23 years, the Grand Theft Auto series has given players the freedom to run rampant through virtual cities as hardened criminals that can be as judicious or ruthless as they choose. The franchise’s depictions of gun violence, sexual conduct, and alcohol abuse has made GTA one of the most controversial games of all time. Even though these themes might fit the bill for a crime adventure, they’ve gotten developer Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two Interactive into a flurry of dicey situations with mainstream media, international governments, and plenty of attorneys.

Rockstar and Take-Two have been known to push the envelop with the kind of chaos their GTA releases, letting players wreak on their digital metropolises. While the eventual release of GTA 6 might not be coming soon, it will likely also be surrounded in its own storm of controversy, seeing as nearly all of the past installments of the game have been unable to dodge bad press. While this might seem like a curse for the series, it was actually a self-inflicted reputation that the early developers of the game are responsible for.

Even back in 1997 the first GTA release was riddled in controversy, which largely shaped how the masses would perceive each subsequent release. This initial notoriety was actually exactly what GTA developers wanted, but it turned into an image that the now-corporate Rockstar Games hasn’t been able to shake for more than two decades. Here are the controversies that unraveled with each major installment of the GTA series throughout its history

GTA Controversy Timeline: Grand Theft Auto

GTA Controversy Timeline A History Of The Series Outrages

The iconic franchise actually made a name for itself by purposefully stirring up controversy around Grand Theft Auto’s release in 1997 to gain the the attention of the media. Back then, Rockstar North was a United Kingdom-based independent developer named DMA Design that introduced its brand-new crime simulator to the world through a series of scathing newspaper articles detailing how violent GTA would be. This made the budding series infamous in the eyes of parents and lawyers around the world, who were convinced the release would encourage violent behavior in children.

GTA’s media push to gain notoriety was the handy work of English publicist Maxwell Clifford, who spoon-fed tabloids facts about the violence found in DMA Design’s title. This fed into the emerging argument that video games were “murder simulators” that encouraged acts of violence, which was primarily advanced by now-disbarred attorney and anti-videogame activist Jack Thompson. That didn’t stop GTA from being praised by reviewers for its technical innovations and from selling one million copies as of 2000, according to a GameSpot report. This proved that there was no such thing as bad publicity for the series.

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GTA Controversy Timeline: Grand Theft Auto 3

GTA Controversy Timeline A History Of The Series Outrages

The 1999 release of GTA 2 flew under the radar compared to other releases from the franchise, but the white-hot launch of GTA 3 made up for the lull in equal parts controversy and success for the series. GTA 3 caught flack from mainstream media networks, who blasted the game from its realistic depictions of carjacking, murder, and prostitution. It’s important to note that GTA 3 was released roughly a month after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, which played a major role in the scrutiny the title received. This, however, didn’t seem to dissuade gamers from picking up a copy of the title, which sold 5.4 million copies shortly after its launch according to CNN.

The game was banned in Australia at launch because Rockstar Games didn’t file it with the country’s Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). Once a request was submitted to the organization, it refused to classify GTA 3 since its highest rating (MA15+) was deemed unsuitable for the title, reported IGN. Rockstar had to modify the original version of GTA 3 in order to make it fit the MA15+ rating and have it released in Australia.

GTA Controversy Timeline: Vice City

GTA Controversy Timeline A History Of The Series Outrages

Vice City and its protagonist Tommy Vercetti debuted in 2002, a year after GTA 3, and was subjected to many of the same criticisms of its predecessor. Rockstar was once again forced to censor the Australian version of the title to gain OFLC approval, but the company had to also amend the US version of the title. CNN reported that Cuban and Haitian communities in Miami spoke out against GTA: Vice City, stating that the game incited violence towards both ethnicities in its depiction of the Cuban-Haitian gang war featured in the game’s campaign. This led to Rockstar censoring portions of the original campaign in a new version of the title which was launched in 2004.

GTA Controversy Timeline: San Andreas

GTA Controversy Timeline A History Of The Series Outrages

The 2004 release of San Andreas caught the same flak as previous GTA games, but its biggest point of contention was the controversial Hot Coffee Mod. This modification to the original game gave players access to an initially inaccessible mini-game where the main character Carl “CJ” Johnson has fully-clothed sex with his girlfriend. The hidden scene was meant to be an inside joke for Rockstar developers, but modders were able to access it through San Andreas’ source code.

Once it was discovered, it led the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to give San Andreas an Adults Only (AO) rating, which resulted in many retailers pulling it from shelves. That forced Rockstar to patch the scene out and re-release a rated-M version of the title across all of its platforms. The Hot Coffee scandal led to a class-action lawsuit against Rockstar holding company Take-Two that was settled in 2007 and required the company to pay over 2,000 customers $35 in cash, according to a PC World report.

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GTA Controversy Timeline: Grand Theft Auto 4

GTA Controversy Timeline A History Of The Series Outrages

The 2008 release of GTA 4, set in Liberty City, met immediate resistance by anti-video-game activist Jack Thompson, who filed suit to block the release of the game roughly a year before it was scheduled to launch. The attorney argued that the title would inspire acts of violence in its player base, but Thompson lost his crusade against Take-Two and was restricted from suing the company again, reported GameIndustry.biz.

GTA 4 was then criticized by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), who urged the company to reclassify the title as an Adults Only game, since it featured the ability to drive while intoxicated. Nothing except bad press ever came of this, as Take-Two defended the title by clarifying that drunk driving was a minor part of the title and there are even in-game features that discourage players from engaging in that kind of reckless behavior.

GTA Controversy Timeline: Grand Theft Auto 5

The latest installment of the series hit shelves in 2013 and was also met with a flurry of controversy primarily revolving around a graphic torture scene. One of the game’s main missions puts players in the shoes of protagonist Trevor Phillips, who is given the task of extracting information from a person he kidnaps. Rockstar made Trevor carry out gruesome acts of violence that were seen as going too far by nearly ever reviewer who tested the game. Rockstar was only required to sensor the scene in the Japanese version of GTA 5, but it remains in a majority of the copies sold.

GTA 5 was also put in the hot seat for its portrayal of women as overly-sexualized characters or as the punchline for in-game jokes. The title was overall praised for its satirical depiction of modern-day American life, but many reviewers agreed that the women featured in the title were a reflection of the Rockstar’s past misogynistic depictions of them in past releases. GTA co-creator Dan Houser even admitted to The New York Times that he had not thought about the portrayal of women in the game “as much as I should have.”

Houser has since parted ways with Rockstar, meaning GTA 6 will have a new creative who might push for change in how the series is perceived by the masses. Though, seeing how realistic games are becoming and how Grand Theft Auto will never stop being a crime simulator, past history suggests the franchise will never quite be able to shake its notoriety.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/gta-controversy-timeline-all-outrage-anger-explained-banned/

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