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GTA IV Trailer Inflames Big Apple Politicians

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the not-on-our-watch dept.

GP writes "The GTA4 trailer isn't 48 hours old yet, but NYC politicians are up in arms because the game's setting, Liberty City, is a virtual version of the Big Apple." Obviously these guys never played GTA3, since it was also set in the "fictional" Liberty City, that also felt a lot like NYC.

37 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. MOD THE TROLL DOWN!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    MOD THE TROLL DOWN!!!

  2. Up in arms? by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're not up in arms. Some uppity reporter went to the Mayor and the council and said, "Hey, Grand Theft Auto is set in NYC. What's your response?" And neither reponse was particularly vitriolic. Much ado about nothing.

    1. Re:Up in arms? by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 5, Informative

      Just realized.. The submitter created this story in order to generate traffic to his site. Good work, assclown.

    2. Re:Up in arms? by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yup. Could the /. editors stop these nonsense advertisement ploys? Good lord...

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    3. Re:Up in arms? by HillaryWBush · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'd like to complain too since it will give me some karma.

    4. Re:Up in arms? by gorbachev · · Score: 2, Informative

      Uh, no.

      GamePolitics.com is a site that covers video game stories that touch on politics. This is a story that was created elsewhere (like the first poster mentioned) and is exactly the sort of a story GamePolitics.com covers.

      They don't need the /. traffic, they get plenty without.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
    5. Re:Up in arms? by Alastor187 · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is why I never RTFA until after I post a comment.

    6. Re:Up in arms? by DreadPiratePizz · · Score: 2, Funny

      10% offtopic and 90% funny? Looks like you LOST karma!

  3. Oooh! by MWoody · · Score: 5, Funny

    Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland.

    I think I speak for all gamers when I say this would, indeed, be awesome.

    1. Re:Oooh! by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 2, Funny

      Governor of Disneyland Inflamed by Slashdot Comment

      --
      My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
  4. How terribly unfair by Wuhao · · Score: 5, Funny

    This city is a completely unrealistic setting for a story about petty crime, gang violence and ethnicity-oriented organized crime. This is an affront to the citizens, and an insult to its elected officials who work hard to keep it clean. Liberty City is a finest city you will ever find, and for Rockstar to continue smearing it is abhorrent. Why can't they pick a genuine crime-infested hell hole, like New York?

  5. Ok, and? by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Funny

    Obviously these guys never played GTA3...

    Er, really? You think that huh?

    Exactly what would lead you to write a sentence where you'd seriously think it's in question whether politicians who have no understanding whatsoever of video games would have played a particular one in the first place?

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  6. Run your city and quit whining by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey, if you're going to have your game take place in a huge, crime-infested, urine-soaked hellhole, it just makes sense to model it after a real-life, crime-infested, urine-soaked hellhole!

  7. The reason NYC politicians are up in arms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    New GTA missions include smoking in public, rampant ingestion of trans fats, distribution of black market foie gras, and preemptive spying on puppet people.

    What kind of message does this send to the kids?

  8. I was more impressed by cno3 · · Score: 2, Funny

    That Peter Vallone not only knows of, but has apparently played Halo!

    Seriously, this is a gigantic non-story. The two best pull quotes they could manage say nothing directly negative about the game at all.

  9. Thank Goodness... by FREAKHEAD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...that we have movies that only reflect the great qualities of that city. If movies showed violence, cop killing, etc in N.Y., I am sure we would see equal outrage.

  10. Re:Politicians. by The+PS3+Will+Fail · · Score: 5, Informative
    No one was outraged.

    "Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland."
    No outrage there - just a politician answering a question asked by a reporter. He was spinning the question to point out how safe NYC is. There was no outrage.

    "The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers."
    This quip shows no signs of outrage either.
  11. When "Slow News Day" is way too fast by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How 'bout "Dead Stop News Day"?

    Meanwhile, the house committee on "intellectual property" ponders how to implement a licensing regime for ephemeral copies of recordings each time they pass through a computer's RAM.

    Sorry, I know I'm not supposed to bitch about rejected stories or (in this case) ones that have been pending for a week... couldn't help it this one time.

    --
    My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
  12. Safest? by kurt555gs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I live near Chicago ( Joliet ) and travel extensively through ought the USA. "Safest"? and New York do not belong in the same sentence in my opinion. To me, New York is just NASTY. I did a job just across the Brooklyn Bridge in Williamsburg at a public housing project. The guards there leave after dark for fear of being shot.

    I think one of the reasons that New York politico's don't like the New York / Liberty City parallel is that it is just to close to home, and NYC really is very similar to the virtual world inside GTA.

    Chicago is a much nicer, safer, cleaner and just better city than New York. Notice that game makers don't generally use it.

    Cheers

    --
    * Carthago Delenda Est *
    1. Re:Safest? by Pink+Tinkletini · · Score: 4, Informative

      Chicago's a much nicer place than New York in a lot of ways, and even more forward-thinking—the greenroofs movement in private development, for example—but New York is still the safest big city in the country according to the FBI's comprehensive crime statistics, as it has been for many years. It's safer than most suburbs too, for that matter, thanks to its population density.

      --
      And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
    2. Re:Safest? by nomadic · · Score: 4, Funny

      Chicago is a much nicer, safer, cleaner and just better city than New York.

      ...with apparently a massive inferiority complex.

    3. Re:Safest? by TodMinuit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Chicago is a much nicer, safer, cleaner and just better city than New York. Notice that game makers don't generally use it.

      That's because Chicago has something New York has long forgotten: Class. In Chicago, crime isn't spilling onto the streets. It's locked away in the Government itself.

      If you wanted to set a crime game in Chicago, it'd have to be about stealing election votes, selling illegal drivers licenses, and collecting kick backs from major Government projects. The final mission would be to break into Meigs Field at 2AM and illegally destroy the runways (using tax-payer funded crews, no less).

      In some places, it's called the mafia. In Chicago, it's called the Government.

      --
      I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
    4. Re:Safest? by codeshack · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Erm, Williamsburg isn't near the Brooklyn Bridge. As I write this, from my apartment about ten blocks from the middle of Williamsburg, in a lovely, safe, neighborhood, I am somewhat confused as to what you're talking about. Plus, I'm sure Chicago's housing projects are just delightful. Where was that Cabrini-Green place again?

    5. Re:Safest? by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You can thank former mayor juliani (however it is spelled)for that.

      I remember going into NYC back in the early 90's and it was scary. You could see a difference after he became mayor and this difference was more rvident the more the news stations complained about him. I guess he created a floating precinct idea were an entire police station was mobile and could be located where ever the need for extra enforcement popped up in less then 24 hours.

      He was also accused of many civil rights violations and such but I think the real turning point was that some criminals were only opportunists and once the likelihood of getting caught was there, they passed on this opportunity.

    6. Re:Safest? by roaddemon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Uh... no. Chicago is about 3 times as dangerous by every stat here:

      http://www.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=ne w+york&s1=NY&c2=chicago&s2=IL

    7. Re:Safest? by badasscat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can thank former mayor juliani (however it is spelled)for that.

      Crime was dropping before Giuliani took office. And it's dropped faster under Bloomberg than it did under Giuliani.

      Crime dropped *nationwide* while Giuliani was in office, largely as a result of Bill Clinton's initiatives in both crime prevention (through educational programs, etc.) and in enforcement (100,000 new officers nationwide for community policing, of which about 5,000 ended up in NYC - that's 5,000 cops walking the beat that the city never had before, and Giuliani had nothing to do with them).

      I guess he created a floating precinct idea were an entire police station was mobile and could be located where ever the need for extra enforcement popped up in less then 24 hours.

      There's no such thing as a "floating precinct". William Bratton and his lieutenants came up with most of the ideas that lowered crime, but the two biggest things that you can credit from an enforcement standpoint are just those 5,000 extra cops and the computerized COMPSTAT crime tracking system that was both devised and implemented by deputy commissioner Jack Maple.

      Since 9/11, Giuliani gets credit for way too many things that he had little or nothing to do with. Most New Yorkers did not like him in the waning days of his mayoralty, and most credited Bratton and Clinton more with the reduction in crime than Giuliani. (I'm not sure if you can still find old gallup polls anywhere, but the polls did reflect that.)

      And how did Giuliani repay Bratton for his hard work? By asking for his resignation and hiring Bernard Kerik, a personal friend with ties to the mafia, to replace him.

      You're going to be hearing about this a lot more if Giuliani presses ahead with his presidential campaign.

    8. Re:Safest? by benzapp · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Umm, no. Chicago has something called racial divide. It appears to suburban residents like the OP that Chicago is safe because they only stray into very small nearly exclusively white enclaves like Lincoln Park or the Gold Coast. They never go to the south side, which has 75 square miles of land entirely filled with Negroes. The reality, which is masked by the difficulty in finding race based crime stats, is that the vast majority of crimes in Chicago involve Negroes as both criminal and victim. It is mostly ghettoized.

      --
      I don't read or respond to AC posts
    9. Re:Safest? by benzapp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, not really. There are many Hispanic neighborhoods that have similar income demographics but are generally safer.

      The materialistic view of crime worked well in the 1960s when the US was 90% white and 5% black with everyone else mixed in.

      Today, it's a different story. The story of the criminality of the American Negro is unique and irrespective of wealth. There are many hispanic neighborhoods which are significantly more safe, despite having similar income demographics. The same is true for many asian neighborhoods, whether they be orientals, south asians, or even slavs/turkic peoples.

      What I'm saying is that you're clearly a suburban white boy who has been taught by teachers who grew up in the 1960s. You've never really spent time in a multiethnic city in the US and noticed how EVERYONE avoids black neighborhoods, except for black people themselves.

      --
      I don't read or respond to AC posts
  13. Rockstar Games to NYC City Council by gorbachev · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thanks for the advertisement, we sure appreciate it.

    *laugh all the way to the bank*

    --
    In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
  14. hmm by nomadic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Obviously these guys never played GTA3, since it was also set in the "fictional" Liberty City, that also felt a lot like NYC

    It felt nothing like NYC. Seriously, Rockstar hasn't really done a good job capturing the feel of the cities they parallel. Vice City didn't feel like Miami either.

  15. Sequel idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Set it in the Greater Toronto Area next time! GTA: GTA. ... anyone?

  16. Re:Wait. . . by PipOC · · Score: 4, Informative

    GTA 3, VC, and SA used the same engine, and are thus from the same generation, kind of like episodic content, while still being full length games. GTA 4 has a new game engine so it's a different generation. Though this distinction wasn't really maintained in GTA 1 and 2, as they used the same engine, as well as there being another game London 1969 between them.

  17. Good thing it wasn't Boston by Nimey · · Score: 2, Funny

    If Rockstar had set IV in a virtual Boston, there's no telling /what/ the city government might have done. Detonate game boxes because they might be bombs, probably.

    --
    Hail Eris, full of mischief...

    E pluribus sanguinem
  18. that's not new york city. by vena · · Score: 2, Funny

    that's washington, dc.

  19. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  20. um... by syrinx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Obviously these guys never played GTA3, since it was also set in the "fictional" Liberty City"

    um... or the first GTA, which was the original source of the GTA Liberty City? seriously, can no one remember anything more than 3 years ago?

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
  21. Re:The news poster hasn't played GTA3 either... by bobstevens_took_my_n · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, it's somewhat obvious that the news poster hasn't played GTA3 either, because if he had he'd have known it wasn't based in Liberty City.

    Maybe you haven't either? (See http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product_id=9382 42)

    There is one game GTA3, it is set in Liberty City. It has two offshoots... GTA:Vice City and GTA:San Andreas, which I have not played, but gather from the titles that they are not set in Liberty City.