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p2pnet news | Games:- GTA IV has it made.
Take-Two Interactive’s brutal, bloody, sexually explicit game is exactly where it wants to be.
In June, 2007, company chairman Strauss Zelnick described another Take-Two blood-fest, Manhunt 2, as “fine art“. It was attacked relentlessly but has raked in millions, thanks largely to all the free PR.
Now if Darren Zenko is to believe, GTA IV which, like Manhunt, has been the centre of unremitting outraged since Day One, has similarly weathered the storm of international protest, achieving social acceptance.
“Somewhat lost between the discussion of Grand Theft Auto IV’s wonderfulness as a game on one hand and of the child-poisoning horrors of its violent content on the other is the fact that GTA IV, like its series predecessors, is a profoundly social game,” says his report in the Toronto Star, which goes on >>>
Like few other single-player games, Grand Theft Auto is as fun to watch as it is to play, groups of friends passing the controller hand-to-hand with one central goal: to entertain each other.
That’s what we’re all here for, old pals who’ve played every game in the series together, logging hundreds of hours, and wouldn’t miss this one for anything. I drove five hours to Edmonton for the gathering, other dudes have flown up from the States. The host of the fun’s got a few dozen people coming over for a GTA-centric dance/drink/game party this weekend, and even as we drive, shoot and laugh through IV’s opening acts, our thoughts turn to compadres who couldn’t make it because an ocean’s worth of distance got in the way. We miss their distinct styles of mayhem.
Put it all together, “and it would seem that the modern gamer is going to be a bleary-eyed but excitable zombie with no personality and an intense desire to commit crime if only he could remember what crime it was he was planning to commit,” says author Anthony Horowitz in the Telegraph.
But on the other hand, “perhaps we should agree with Leslie Benziers, the 37-year-old president of Rockstar North who dismisses scientific, parental or media concern as predictable fuddy-duddiness,” says the story, going on to quote him as saying, “It’s like the coming of railways. It’s Elvis shaking his hips.”
He has, “global sales of $6 billion to protect (his last big release, Manhunt 2, was banned by the BBFC for its ‘casual sadism… unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone’, although that decision was recently overturned),” the story says. “But he does also have a point.”
Horowitz pays tribute to Grand Theft Auto IV for its, “extraordinary graphics, its attention to detail (no two buildings are the same), its scope and cinematic style,” continuing >>>
Or so I’m told. I haven’t played it, of course. I did have a go at GTA3, but I believe there’s a secret program built into all modern games that makes them stultifyingly boring and at times nausea-inducing to anyone aged over 25. Even so, young people tell me that it is very good indeed.
Nor do I really think that it will corrupt them in any meaningful way. Because - and this is a point that the critics always seem to miss - no matter how well manufactured computer games may be, they can never compete with books because they’re missing one vital ingredient: story. They are completely unengaging, never quite escaping the simple binary codes to which they owe their existence. Even the name of GTA4’s hero - Niko Bellic - makes him sound like an anagram. How can anyone be moved or affected by anything so skin-deep? I’ve watched my sons on their PlayStation 3 and they’re oblivious to the bloodshed. They don’t think they’re killing anyone. It’s just a question of left thumb or right thumb and all they’re interested in is reaching the next level.
We also need to recognise that - again, unlike books - all games endure for about as long as this season’s fashion statement. Anyone remember Doom? Back in 1999 it was blamed for inspiring the Columbine shootings that claimed 15 lives, but now no self-respecting teenager would be seen playing it. It’s too tame… an antique. By this time next year, GTA4 won’t even be a memory.
Undoubtedly, something much worse will have come along.
Undoubtedly 
, and meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto IV is also a vehicle for at least one member of the organised music cartel.
It includes a feature that wants players to tag songs in the soundtrack to, ” receive more information about the title and artist, as well as store tagged tracks in a custom playlist on the Amazon digital music store for [of course] later purchase,” says Reuters.
“It’s been well established how TV shows, ads and videogames are growing areas of music discovery and promotion. But until ‘GTA IV,’ there’s been no construct that allows for the immediate identification and purchase of those songs from videogames. ‘GTA IV’ has added that ‘buy’ button, and record labels welcome the innovation.”
“It’s a very big deal for us,” it has EMI’s Cynthia Sexton stating, going on:
“We’re continually looking for new ways to sell our music. There are millions of people buying ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ and we hope they will enjoy the music and in turn buy those tracks.”
The labels all knew “the ‘GTA’ call” was coming, MTV has Ivan Pavlovich the main guy at Rockstar Games responsible for GTA IV’s 214-song soundtrac saying, but,”My heart died when some little band out of nowhere was posting on their blog, or something like that, talking about how they were requested for ‘GTA,’ ” Pavlovich said.
” ‘GTA’ soundtracks are a big deal,” Pavlovich states. ” ‘GTA,’ more than any game, helps people discover new music and become aware of old music and break bands and all that,” and, “Those who’ve been bingeing on the game this week, hearing many of its tunes in their heads, would find that hard to dispute.”
Will the other three cartel members, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Sony BMG, join EMI on GTA IV?
Stay tuned.
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.Stumble It!
fine art - No apologies for Manhunt2, June 29, 2007
Toronto Star - Grand Theft Auto IV’s great fun even for spectators, May 4, 2008
Telegraph - Grand Theft Auto - just a game?, May 5, 2008
Reuters - ‘Grand Theft Auto’ simplifies song purchasing, May 4, 2008
MTV - ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ Music Man Explains How Those 214 Songs Made The SoundtrackMay 2, 2008
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May 5th, 2008 at 10:50 am
“It includes a feature that wants players to tag songs in the soundtrack to, ” receive more information about the title and artist, as well as store tagged tracks in a custom playlist on the Amazon digital music store for [of course] later purchase,”
I don’t know about this version, but gta vice city had a directory where you could place your own mp3’s, and one of the car’s radio stations would play them.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I been reading about this game frequently freezing on some consoles.
I assume it hasn’t been released for the PC.