A letter to anyone who bought GTA V

by coarseheart

Hi. Hello. Howdy.
This is not a typical letter, as the demographic who will be reading this is not… typical.
Okay.
So.
This is a letter to anyone who bought GTA V,
and with buying a game, I would assume that means that you play the game.
If you bought it and plan to just leave it on your shelves because it looks good…
Well.
That’s stupid and you’re weird. (but people like that don’t exist… right?)
Anyways.

I’m writing this letter to you for three reasons:
1. I want to say a few things about the game
2. I want to ask you a question.
3. I want more readers on my blog and this seems like a relevant issue that I can say a few controversial things about and I’ll get more readers. (not actually though.)
(okay maybe a bit)

First, A little about me.

I used to be a very avid video gamer. It started with Diddy Kong racing, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I never started with a Super Nintendo. Me and my brother received a N64 as children and never looked back (we discovered the glories that are Mario games later, don’t worry). I also played WoW. It consumed 2 years of my life, and when I say consumed, I mean it. After realizing what the game was doing to me (devouring my soul and turning me into a black abyss of sorrow and despair, until all that was left was a hollow husk that was once called “My 14 year old self”) I promptly quit and to this day I have never returned. In high school I spent a good 4-5 hours a day playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. My pew pew skills grew great and my K.D. ratio was that to be marveled about (sorry to all you non-gamers for the lingo). Then it moved on to Halo and Battlefield and whatever other game tickled my computer generated trigger finger fancy.
I was no stranger to RPGs either. I loved the Final Fantasy franchise and spent many of my hours on FF7 and FF12.

So essentially, what I’m trying to say here is that I used to play a lot of video games.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I am using past tenses when referring to my video game playing.
There’s a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation, that really doesn’t need explanation, for that.
I quit video games for a while.
I recognized how they were negatively affecting my life
“Hey Jeff, you wanna come do this super fun social thing with your real life friends and actually see the light of day once this week?”
“Nah. I need to do one more battleground.” (WoW reference. I don’t know if it’s still relevant)

I quit for a while and managed to stay away from playing most video games for a decent amount of time, but eventually I realized they were way too fun and as long as I didn’t become terribly addicted to the point where I forgot what sunlight and friends were, it was okay to indulge a little bit.
So now I like to play video games socially (and recently, due to my unemployment and massive amount of free time, I started playing a little Skyrim) but for the most part I really really try hard not to become addicted.

So now that you know my past and my credentials, you can know that I understand the draw to a game like GTA V.

Okay, now onto

Reason #1: Things to say about the game.

I’ve played all the past GTA games. I know the franchise. They’re extremely well made games that are shining gems among the sandbox open world genre of video games. I recognize that. I also recognize the appeal. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT! That’s awesome. Whenever I played GTA, I would always just rack up as many stars as I could and try to evade the cops for as long as possible. Hell yeah. (and maybe sometimes I would just drive up and down the sidewalks because I enjoyed watching dozens of people fly 100 feet through the air like crash test dummies, just to stand up and walk away)
I don’t think I ever played through the campaigns, but I hear they were decent.
Essentially what I’m saying is that I understand why it’s successful. I get the appeal.
What I don’t get though is why we are so fascinated by it.
I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but GTA V has raked in the highest gross sales in entertainment history. It beat out Avatar, COD: Black Ops and the Avengers by making $1 Billion by its second day of release. (http://www.challies.com/articles/the-greatest-entertainment-launch-in-history)
That’s crazy.
EVERYONE wanted this game apparently.
I wasn’t even aware of the release date.

There’s a whole lot of people out there playing this game.
A game that outright glorifies everything that is wrong with our culture.
I find it a little strange that a demographic of people, who I assume watch the news and are generally horrified when they see that people are being murdered, shot, stolen from, screwed over, swindled and abused,
who I would assume do not support practices that cause us, as a culture, hell, as humans, to become more depraved and impoverished
who I would assume at least try to be nice, honorable people,
play a video game that encourages all of this.

That just seems a little odd to me.

I mean, in this game, you can steal a car, go pick up a prostitute and then promptly after the encounter you can kill her and take back all your money. And there’s no consequences. That’s. Disgusting.
ANY one of you that plays this game would, in a second, say that you would never do that in real life and would most likely be very appalled by anyone who did. I know that.
But for some reason, in this game, you’re okay with doing all these things.
Of course, since there’s no real world repercussions its not a huge deal right?
Every gamer KNOWS the difference between the real world and video games. (that’s not sarcasm, I know that gamers do actually know the difference.)
But does every gamer know that what’s in your heart comes out in every decision you make?
Including the ones in video games.
I’m not saying that you’re a terrible person for going on a 5 star rampage.
but maybe I’m saying that it’s not the most productive thing you could be doing with your time.
maybe it’s not the most positive thing you can put in your mind.

Don’t just take this as feely/whiney garbage.
It’s logic.
You put shit in. Shit comes out.
You’re not going to go rummage through your garbage can looking for basketballs.
You know there’s garbage in there because you put it there.
Same goes for your heart and mind.

That logic also applies to our culture.
GTA V (aka, shit) gets put in, GTA V comes out.
Probably not in the form of school shootings or real life grand theft auto, but maybe in other ways.  What are those ways? I don’t know. I’m only making observations.
I am in no way claiming that games like this are causing kids to go out and steal cars, but I am claiming that they do something.
They DO have an effect on you.
That much I do know.

So now comes the second part of this post.

Reason #2: The Question

I don’t expect you to respond on the blog but if you do that’s cool. I’m open. They’re more so for the purpose of making you think critically about what you’re putting in your mind and what Entertainment companies are contributing to the world.

I remember one of my teachers in elementary school. He made our class watch T.V. advertisements and try to figure out what was going on in them. He pointed out all the underlying messages that were hidden in them. The amount of subconscious messages astounded me. I was baffled and appalled at the fact that I had never noticed that these commercials were actually trying to convince me of something.
Most forms of entertainment have messages. Whether they know it or not.

What message do you think this game is sending to its players?

I think we can agree that it’s not a positive message.

So, then what is it?

After thinking about all this, I want you ask this one last question to yourself.

Why do you play?

I understand that it’s entertainment.

But at what cost?