Grand Theft Auto Ban To Be Decided By Courts

Wingchild writes "Haitian civil rights groups in Florida have filed a lawsuit with the circuit court in Palm Beach County, which Rockstar Games has asked to be moved up to a federal court for a final decision on whether or not their game has to be banned from stores. This move happens as the court of media opinion begins weighing in on the subject (facts irrelevant, of course), a fact which Slashdot Games noted a scant two days ago."

Comments

Dear Mr. Byron,

[pdk]

Dear Mr. Byron,

I recently read your business editorial in the December 29 issue of the New York Post. I am glad to see that you are open to letters and responses concerning your rather harsh defamation of Take Two Interactive. Many in your position prefer to hide in semi-anonymity when writing such provocative words, but you rather than do so have included your e-mail address. I do admire your ability to present an argument irrespective of what I hold as my own position.

I am an average man living a rather average life in Toronto, Canada. I was born here, raised here and love living with the freedoms I have. Freedoms my grandfather fought for in the Second World War. I am a professional computer programmer and part-time philosophy major at The University of Toronto. I enjoy writing and reading among my hobbies. I am a very evident pacifist. I deplore guns. I despise violence. I am so against it that I can hardly stand to watch the news.

You may wonder why on Earth I was even reading your editorial at all. Well, the fact is, I am also an avid gamer. As you may have soon realized, as no doubt you have received many similar letters from other video game fans from around the USA and the World at large. A link to your article has been making the rounds through the gaming news world. After all, we are a passionate bunch, with strong views about our favourite hobby and many of us will defend our Right to purchase, play, and discuss video games of all sorts. It seems fair, if you ask me, since we do live in The Free World.

Now discounting the SEC's charges of fraud, of which I cannot really make any sort of argument against, I would like to take a serious posture against what you have said. I take issue with your skewed portrayal of video games, video gamers and the state of Take Two's production values. I am very tired of defending the video game world to obviously ignorant individuals. Not to take it personally against you, after all, you do seem highly educated, but rather misinformed. We must stop riding the Scare Tactics Train to the Media Circus surrounding many recent real-world violent acts through out the World and domestically and start taking a hard look at the real reason that they happen. Video games are not it.

I will grant the accusation that Take Two's Grand Theft Auto series of games depicts violent acts. If I attempted to deny such a fact would be just outrageous and quite impossible to do. Also the fact that much of the line-up of games that they produce for the Playstation 1 and 2, Gameboy, and PC contain some violent content would be equally difficult to ignore as fact. What I do want to say is that this is no different from the equally easily accessible media in the Western world such as movies and television and in books and newspapers.

Each year, from the hallowed studios of Hollywood, billions of dollars are spent on thousands of movies depicting gore, violent acts, sex, drug use, and all manner of objectionable activity that is portrayed in less detail in any of the recent Grand Theft Auto video games. To name only a few such as The Godfather would be an exercise in futility as examples of such films. Yet the same such movie is lauded as one of the all-time greatest movies.

In fact, just checking the heralded internet resource, imdb.com ( http://imdb.com/top_250_films ) names it the greatest by almost 700,000 more votes than its runner-up. In fact, a quick browse of the same list makes it evident that they find violent films to be quite highly regarded. It includes recent action flicks such as The Matrix, adventure films as The Lord of the Rings and older suspense movies such as Psycho and "Ultra-violent" dramas such as A Clockwork Orange. It would be quite arguable that these same movies are not as high quality as we grant them, and they all feature extremely graphic violence and other objectionable acts.

Yes, these movies are all rated R (Restricted) in the USA. The film industry is self-regulating in it's r

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[NanoGator]

" I'd imagine that all sorts of issues get involved, from racial/ethnical issues ("Kill the Haitians!")"

Man, that shouldn't even be an ethnic/racial issue. The reference was to the Haitian gang, not the entire population from that background.

Re:You're missing a lot of gray area.....

[MillionthMonkey]

and secondly, commercial speech (they are selling a video game) can be highly regulated.

Bzzzt, wrong. The restrictions on commercial speech do not apply to the content of the game itself. Rockstar's commercials promoting the game, however, are subject to restrictions on commercial speech. Rockstar cannot claim, for example, that the game adds two inches to your penis, or helps you learn how to successfully deal with police.

Commercial speech has not appeared in many video games so far, and it's difficult to imagine how it really could. In Crazy Taxi, passengers get in the cab and always want to be taken to places like KFC (beautifully rendered, logo and all). If a game comes out where you have to go to KFC and gorge on buckets of greasy chicken to keep your health points from going to zero, then the game makers (along with KFC) might conceivably be playing with the possibility of commercial restrictions. But movies have been getting away with product placement payola for a while now, so I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[clarkcox3]

The faculty or act of expressing or describing thoughts, feelings, or perceptions by the articulation of words.

I'd say that that covers a character in a story (which is all GTA really is: an interactive story) saying "Kill the Hatians" (or whatever the actual quote is).

Also, there is precedence for interpreting "speech" in the first amendment to encompass the larger concept of "expression", for instance, when the Supreme Court struck down the Flag Protection Act in U.S. v. Haggerty and U.S. v. Eichman. So, according to the Supreme Court, flag burning is constitutionally protected "speech"

"if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable"

--Supreme Court Justice William Brennan

There are other examples of non-verbal expression being interpreted as "speech". For example the decision in Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court said that the right of public school students to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War was protected by the First Amendment.

Re:A Game Is Freedom of Speech

[jadavis]

GTA is not in violation of any obscenity laws since it's not a public display. Nobody is forcing anyone to look at it. The only violation that even makes sense is that it incites violence.

However, inciting violence requires a lot more specificity than what is shown in GTA. They don't say "kill the hatians that live at 123 Maple Ave".