1. Audience and Critics Respond to
GTA IV
GTA IV has received a
large variety of
responses from its
audience and critics,
some goodand some
bad.
Overall, GTA has been
widely praised for it’s
groundbreaking gameplay
mechanics and sandbox style
genre. This has been shown
to be hugely popular as on
the first day of release GTA IV
sold around 3.7 million units
and an estimated 6 million
units worldwide, making
$500 million in revenue. In
May 2008 critics from the
Xbox Magazine UK published
their first GTA IV review,
giving the game 10/10 and
claiming it to be “a hugely
entertaining, multiplayer
game”. A similar report from
Xbox 360 said the game to
have a 98% rating, which is
the highest it has ever given
to any game. They mentioned
the game was everything
they were entitled to expect,
and yet somehow impossibly
more.
However after the initial
hype of GTA IV had declined,
coincidently the teenage
violence stats had increased;
putting the blame on the newly
released GTA IV. This sparked the
interest from psychologists, claiming
this behavior stemmed from GTA’s
violence and reflected on its audience’s
behavior patterns. This in turn would
be placed under the ‘copy-cat theory’,
similar to characteristics shown by the
Jamie Bulger Murderers. Though, some
psychologists argue that video games
have very little impact on it’s audience,
for example Tanya Byron’s report
which states that children may have
short-term aggression after playing a
game, and will quickly grow out of it.
Not all games have similarities to
GTA IV, some can be seen to be
beneficial to its consumers. Good
examples of this are the games centered
for the Nintendo Wii and DS. These
games improve your health and
stimulate your brain, coming under the
category of “Edutainment”, which is
when the game is both education and
fun to play. A few examples of these are
the Nintendo Wii Sports; which is
family orientated and gives a healthy
impact; another is Nintendo DS Brain
Training, which is aimed at all ages and
abilities, which in turn mentally
challenges the agent.
Opposites of this is also brought up
in today’s media, with many claiming
that games are largely unhealthy for the
consumer and removes a healthy
lifestyle many strive to achieve. Many
also claim that games create a social
outcast as children are fed by, ‘Junk
Media’. 9/10 children risk
growing up to have
unhealthy amounts of fat in
their bodies. As gaming
persuades children to eat
fast food and don’t exercise
enough. Children are losing
out due to the fact that they
are engrossed in social
networking sites such as,
Facebook, MSN and their
mobile phones. They now
use ‘text language’ in their
school assignments. Also
children today would turn
their noses up if asked to
write a letter to socialize this
has all been lost due to
modern technology.
Its still unclear to us all as
to if video games are actually
bad for us, or if they can even
be beneficial for it’s players.
By Jak Blakey and Leah
Sladen