Overshadowed by Controversy: Difference between revisions
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* Taking ''Doom'' and ''Mortal Kombat''{{'}}s place as the poster child for video game obscenity controversies is ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' especially in the 2000s when ''[[Grand Theft Auto III]]'' first came out, though the first game in the series did gain some notoriety in the UK thanks to a PR campaign by Max Clifford (who ironically would be controversial in his own right due to his rather inappropriate interactions with minors). [[Moral Guardians]] and authorities alike singled out the game and blamed it for causing real-world violence, which led to bans in a number of countries and certain versions of the games censored to appease ratings bureaus like in Australia, Germany and Japan.
** ''Vice City'' attracted racism accusations when Haitian-American groups took umbrage at a mission involving a Cuban-Haitian gang war, the Haitian ''gangs'' serving as the villains. Haitian Centers Council and Haitian Americans for Human Rights staged protests in New York City over complaints about how the game portrayed Haitians in an unflattering right, with the mission "Cannon Fodder" having a genocidal-sounding objective "KILL ALL THE HAITIANS!!" and other dialogue by [[Large Ham|Umberto Robina]] expressing grave hatred towards the gang. While Take-Two Interactive argued that the dialogue and objectives should be taken within the context of the game, the company relented and had subsequent releases of the game altered to remove any references to the Haitian gangs.
** Besides wanton violence, ''GTA''{{'}}s sexual content also came under intense scrutiny, most notably the (previously) [[Dummied Out]] "Hot Coffee" minigame where CJ engages in casual sexual intercourse with a number of women. The minigame, which was discovered and re-enabled by Dutch software engineer Patrick Wildenborg, sparked significant controversy especially in the United States, where now-disbarred lawyer [[Jack Thompson]] and senator Hillary Clinton campaigned against the game and called for stringent ESRB regulations. And contrary to initial statements by Rockstar that the mod was the product of "hackers" who made "significant technical modifications to and reverse engineering" the game, this would be proven [[Blatant Lies|untrue]] when similar code was found in the console versions, and could be re-enabled through a third-party tool. It is later revealed that there was some tension within the company over the contested scenes, and Dan Houser lamented about the [[Double Standard|double standards]] in the United States with sex and violence keeping them from pushing the boundaries of the video game medium. They were however forced to hastily disable the minigame as the potential Adults Only rating the scenes would garner were not worth the decreased sales.
** ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' [[Sarcasm Mode|didn't disappoint]] [[Moral Guardians]] either, with its drunk driving sequences and the usual violence. Sensationalist media played up on a number of incidents allegedly inspired by ''GTA IV'', like when a bunch of teenagers were arrested after participating in a crime spree in New Hyde Park, New York, and when a Thai man shot and killed a taxi driver in apparent imitation of the game, which led to the series as a whole being banned in the country. In a more recent incident, an eight-year old boy (unwittingly) shot and killed her 90-year old grandmother, again apparently being desensitised to the game. A minor controversy also ensued when British tabloid ''The Sun'' played up on the presence of the in-game website "Little Lacy's Surprise Pageant", which was seized by authorities as a child pornography site in the game's lore (Little Lacy Surprise being a fictional brand of children's underwear in the series, with said brand supposedly hosting a child beauty pageant). Visiting the site on the in-game web browser gives the player an instant five-star wanted level, satirising intense law enforcement response and raids against suspected paedophiles, though in no way does the game (or the series in general for that matter) encourage or put players in the role of a sex offender, for much the same reason as to why [[Hide Your Children|there are no children]] to be seen in the games in the first place.
** Unsurprisingly, ''[[Grand Theft Auto V]]'' courted controversy, this time over its portrayal of women and a torture sequence carried out by [[Ax Crazy|Trevor Philips]] to an Azerbaijani individual who is believed to have links with terrorists. Politicans, advocacy groups and even video game journalists deemed the mission in poor taste. Asked about performing the torture sequence, Trevor's actor Steven Ogg said that he treated it like "just another day at the office", and was focused more on not making mistakes during filming than the scene's ethics. The sequence was censored in the Japanese release due to the country having more stringent guidelines. As for the portrayal of women, certain commentators remarked how females were unfairly treated ingame, one of them being GameSpot journalist Carolyn Petit. Adding to the complication was that the game was released at the time when the Gamergate controversy was taking place; the less said about the latter, the better.
** On top of the series being the butt of numerous controversies and lawsuits, it was reported that series co-writer Dan Houser cited changing sociopolitical attitudes as the reason why he left the company, as he felt increasingly uneasy with satirising modern American society without attracting controversy or offending anyone.
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