Apparently GTA is worse than Child Molestation

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12292003/busin...iness/14640.htm

 

GIVE BACK TAKE-TWO

 

By CHRISTOPHER BYRON

 

December 29, 2003 -- IN this season of ecumenical brotherhood, here's a suggestion for how to advance the cause of peace: Sell your stock in Take-Two Interactive Inc.

In case you can't quite place the name, New York-based Take-Two Interactive is a Nasdaq-traded company in the video game business.

 

Over the last couple of years, the company has been one of Wall Street's hottest stocks, climbing by more than 500 percent to a high of nearly $42 per share earlier this year.

 

But Take-Two has lately gotten knocked around a bit, both in the market and on the regulatory front, as a long-smoldering Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the company's accounting looks to be coming to a head.

 

Yet that's not the only reason to stay away from this stock. Some long-overdue questions are also being raised about the nature of Take-Two's unusual product line, which is coming under attack by local and state legislators around the country.

 

SO before turning to Take-Two's other problems, let's first pause for some thoughts on the core question of what this company actually does - which is to produce and market video games of such luxuriously violent and disgusting content as to leave one simply speechless.

 

The latest installment in the company's best-selling "Grand Theft Auto" series - "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" - has been on the market for a little over a year now and has already sold more than 5 million copies.

 

Lately, the game has been in the news quite a bit - though not for any reason Take-Two would have wanted - as leaders in the Haitian community and elsewhere have gotten noticeably torqued up about a line of dialogue that consists of the following: "Kill the Haitians."

 

The offending line has brought public rebukes of the company from both Mayor Bloomberg and the Anti-Defamation League, and Take-Two has responded by saying it will remove the words from future editions of the game.

 

But trust me when I tell you that considering what else goes on in "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," that phrase is nothing.

 

HERE'S the game's basic bit: You're a cocaine dealer, see, and you get ripped off in a drug deal that goes bad. So your mission is to get your drugs and your money back - by committing as many violent, homicidal crimes as you can possibly think up.

 

You can pursue your goal by killing Haitians, of course, but you can also kill anyone (or everyone) else. You can machine-gun them, beat them with baseball bats, chop them up with machetes or run them over with stolen cars.

 

And when you do, everything will look incredibly and shockingly real, with blood spewing everywhere.

 

You can kill a cop, steal his gun, and then use it to shoot someone else. Or you can pick up a prostitute and have sex with her in the back of your stolen car, then beat her to death - or shoot her, bludgeon her, whatever you want.

 

In fact, "whatever you want" is what the game is all about. Thanks to its artful and complex programming and its incredibly realistic graphics, the game creates the impression of being inside a totally unscripted, live-action drama in which you can manufacture your mayhem as you go along.

 

People, this is insane. This is 10,000 times worse than the worst thing anybody thinks Michael Jackson ever did to a little boy - or than any lie the feds think Martha Stewart ever told them, or any line in any song that Bruce Springsteen ever sang that rankled a cop in the Meadowlands.

 

And trust me when I tell you, Mr. Mayor, what Take-Two Interactive is blowing into your face every day is a whole lot worse than second-hand cigarette smoke.

 

Out of that company is spewing the glorification of mass murder and the celebration of death. And the fact that the game supposedly can't be sold to anyone under 17 years of age is completely irrelevant and changes nothing.

 

FOR one thing, the age cutoff is totally unenforceable, and everyone knows it. And cases surface constantly in which "Grand Theft Auto" has been linked to violence and killing. In Tennessee last summer a motorist was killed and his passenger wounded when two boys - aged 14 and 16 - played "Grand Theft Auto" and then decided to go out and take sniper shots at cars, just like in the game.

 

Besides: By what preposterous reasoning can one argue that once someone turns 17 years of age it magically becomes OK to glorify mass murder? Are we saying that it would have been OK for that Beltway Sniper guy - who was apparently in his 40s - to have been allowed to play "Grand Theft Auto" before going on his killing spree, but it wouldn't have been OK for that young teenager who went along with him to have done the same?

 

This whole age-cutoff thing is simply garbage - just like "Grand Theft Auto" itself - and sooner or later, I would imagine, we'll come to our senses and ban these games from public commerce, just like we ban child pornography and entertainment spectacles such as cock fighting and dwarf throwing.

 

Meantime, Take-Two is milking this product for all it is worth: Next year the company will even be introducing a Gameboy version of the thing, so that kids can carry it around with them wherever they go. This way they'll be able to get re-stimulated, whenever necessary, with some of the most menacing messages known to civilized man.

 

WHAT would be left of an outfit like Take- Two Interactive if its bizarre version of digital snuff porn were outlawed?

 

Frankly, not much. The company's latest three-month and nine-month financial results, covering the period through July 31, show "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" and an earlier version of the same ghastly program ("Grand Theft Auto III") to have accounted for just under half the company's sales.

 

Take-Two was founded in 1993 by a young fellow named Ryan Brant, who was apparently raised in a family steeped in its own Vice City values. Ryan's daddy, Peter, a polo-playing fop from Greenwich, Conn., did time in federal prison for tax fraud after trying to write off $1.5 million worth of massages, jewelry, scalp rubs and what-not as business expenses.

 

Last spring, Dad was hit with more tax woes when federal prosecutors filed a suit against him and his partner - art dealer Larry Gagosian - alleging that they owe $26 million in taxes on fine art sales dating back to 1990.

 

Dad was an original investor in Master Ryan's excellent adventure, and currently collects $474,000 per year from the company in return for leasing it some of the New York real estate he owns. That lease is set to expire in the new year.

 

THE Securities and Exchange Commission got interested in Take-Two last year after the company restated its financial results for most of the previous two years. The restatement followed reports that the company had been claiming revenues from fictitious sales.

 

Now the SEC seems ready to act. Earlier this month it issued the company something known as a Wells Notice, which amounts to a "your time is up" letter; its purpose is to inform the target of an SEC investigation that fraud charges are about to be filed against it. Ryan Brant received an additional Wells Notice himself, as did two former officials who the company did not name - meaning that the SEC plans to include all three as defendants in its complaint.

 

Bottom line: Stay away from this stock - far, far away - and you'll be doing both your wallet and your fellow man a favor. Happy New Year.

[Styles 0]

Yeah, well last time I checked Michael is accused of perpretrating a crime against a REAL child, while everything in the game is just pretend. But I guess I'll take his message to heart, instead of playing violent video games next time I want to have some fun, I'll just go molest some children which is 10,000 times less harmful.

[Guest MikeSC]

Yeah, well last time I checked Michael is accused of perpretrating a crime against a REAL child, while everything in the game is just pretend. But I guess I'll take his message to heart, instead of playing violent video games next time I want to have some fun, I'll just go molest some children which is 10,000 times less harmful.

I dunno.

 

GTA III and GTA: VC haven't molested any children --- but what about the FIRST TWO GAMES?

 

GTA I & II were nothing but filthy whores. Can't trust them.

-=Mike

[Ravenbomb 0]

GTA 2 sodomized me

[DerangedHermit 0]

GTA 1 touched me in inappropriate places.

[Mole 0]

Wow, I really hate when people say those things.

 

If the game is too violent for kids, then the parents SHOULDN'T LET THEM HAVE IT.

 

Simple as that.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Apparently GTA is worse than Child Molestation

 

I rented Child Molestation, and I thought it was pretty good, although I was disappointed that it was short and not very hard.

[2GOLD 0]

Remember when kids would dress up like plummers and crush turtles under their feet and eat mushrooms?

 

Or when they went out with their dog and shot at ducks with a handgun?

 

 

Yeah, me neither.

 

If your kid is influenced into life decisions by a video game, a) they are already brain dead b) you are braindead for failing to raise them right and c) repeat a and b.

 

You want to know what REALLY causes violence? Morons.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Apparently GTA is worse than Child Molestation

 

I rented Child Molestation, and I thought it was pretty good, although I was disappointed that it was short and not very hard.

That was uproariously hilarious. Kudos.

[Guest JacK]

So . . . if I go and molest 10,000 children . . . can I blame it on this guy, because I've already played Vice City, and thats worse than that? Can I then sue him because he made me do it? He so did, as if he didn't! Will he then be sent to jail? Will I be, for the heinous crime of playing Vice City? Because child molestation carries a jail term . . . how do I know there won't be a sting when Vice City's purchasd? I'm livin in fear . . . there gunna get me . . . find me . . . I can't sleep now . . . the feds are out to kill me!

[Guest FrigidSoul]

Remember when kids would dress up like plummers and crush turtles under their feet and eat mushrooms?

 

Or when they went out with their dog and shot at ducks with a handgun?

I threw large barrels at people climbing ladders then proceeded to pound my chest to show my dominance during my youth

[2GOLD 0]

Remember when kids would dress up like plummers and crush turtles under their feet and eat mushrooms?

 

Or when they went out with their dog and shot at ducks with a handgun?

I threw large barrels at people climbing ladders then proceeded to pound my chest to show my dominance during my youth

 

Eh, that's nothing. I used to eat giant white tablets and try to eat people until I felt tired then I ran away.

[Guest MikeSC]

Apparently GTA is worse than Child Molestation

 

I rented Child Molestation, and I thought it was pretty good, although I was disappointed that it was short and not very hard.

I dunno. I thought it was unduly hard. And NOT in a good way.

-=Mike

[Lando Griffin 0]

I fondly remember my youth in the jungle. I would run in one direction for hours, swinging over tar pits and alligators, and jumping over snakes and rolling logs.

[Guest Cerebus]

I ate mushrooms to gain powerups...still do as a matter of fact.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

That's nothing. I used to be this fat yellow guy who would eat these tablets and ghost would chase me if didn't take my medication.

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, I play GTA3 or used to. I want to get the Xbox version.

 

I know the following:

 

1) Stealing is bad

 

2) Killing people/cops/Haitian/Armenians/Eskimos/etc. is very wrong.

 

3) People who can't handle this game should not be able to play it. Most people seem fine with. This is only the 00's version of Mortal Kombat.

[Guest Cerebus]

When I was a boy I had a pet blob that only ate jellybeans. I miss that blob sometimes...

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I remember sliding up and down a black background with my twin brother, batting a tiny ball back and forth.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Ah, the days of my lost youth. I used to fight a Brazilian beast that could generate electricity from his skin and red hair, as well as fight a Japanese man with unusually large eyebrows that could somehow shoot fire from his hands...

 

Ah, THOSE WERE THE DAYS...

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I once mimicked Mortal Kombat, and after morphing into about 7 or 8 of my friends and family members, I finally knocked my brother unconscious, and pulled his soul from his body, thus unbalancing the furies and bringing about a new dark age for our dimension. Boy was mom ticked at me.

[notJames 0]

Memo to Christopher Byron:

 

"Journalists" who use post hoc fallacy to write their articles are the real criminals. If people are really stupid enough to let a video game dictate how they live, how many other stupid people are out there that actually think that what you say is true?

 

Stupid human. If I had my winged ostrich right now, I'd joust you until an egg dropped out of your ass.

[Masked Man of Mystery 0]

In all seriousness, parents should go and see what their kids are doing. If they really don't like it, then DO something about it. I work at a Best Buy, and there was a mother I was talking to who had the GTA set in her hand. I started talking to her about it, and describing what I knew of the series(I haven't played any of it except a demo I briefly had of GTA 2, but I know about some of the stuff in there) and I tod her that if her son wants it so bad, rent it, and watch him play it, and then SHE makes the call. I don't buy M rated games even though I'm old enough to because I don't want my little bro exosed to that and even some of the T stuff. Wrestling and fighting is about as bad as I go. Of course, I have a Gamecube, so I have plenty of options in the T and under range.

[Guest FrigidSoul]

Back when I was little and played the Track and Field game for the NES (remember back when systems came out with games included! *shock*) I would hyperventelate and pass out in the living room from trying to beat Cheetah on that damned matt you would run on. Then of course I learned you could just kneel and alternate your punches on its large A and B circles.

 

Now that was a dangerous game

[Lando Griffin 0]

I really hated when my dog would laugh at me when I missed those ducks. So I shot him. But I missed.

[DerangedHermit 0]

I once mimicked Mortal Kombat, and after morphing into about 7 or 8 of my friends and family members, I finally knocked my brother unconscious, and pulled his soul from his body, thus unbalancing the furies and bringing about a new dark age for our dimension. Boy was mom ticked at me.

WHAT? No multiple flame skulls?

===================

 

Also I thought I could run fast and not die as long as I had gold rings. Learned in the Ghetto Zone Act 1, that was not the case.

[Ravenbomb 0]

once I tried to ride my friend's pet lizard and force feed it turtles, football players and assorted berries

[DerangedHermit 0]

once I tried to ride my friend's pet lizard and force feed it turtles, football players and assorted berries

Did the green ones give more time (oh say, twenty seconds)?

[The Czech Republic 0]

When I was little and played with my friends, I'd usually win but then the jerk from down the street would always reveal his true form, which was like an angel with gross skin. I did win with my trusty sword, but I could hurt him without even making contact! Weirdest thing.

[CanadianChris 0]

I remember when I was a kid how my brother and I would crawl into the sewers and take out all these giant turtles, crabs and flies. We'd usually find a lot of money lying around down there, too.

[snuffbox 0]

I ate mushrooms to gain powerups...still do as a matter of fact.

 

 

'man, you look like koopa!'