May 7, 2008 -
It will be a long time until we again see the like of last week's Grand Theft Auto IV media feeding frenzy. Perhaps it will take the release of GTA V.The highly-anticipated launch was fraught with cultural and political significance which elevated the level of interest in GTA IV far beyond that of any previous video game. Last year's Halo 3 launch may have held the pre-GTA IV sales record, but didn't come close in terms of cultural impact.
Love it or hate it, every blogger, watchdog group, TV news station, special interest, politician, columnist and talking head seemed to have something to say about GTA IV. Here at GamePolitics we basically turned the entire week's coverage over to tracking the GTA IV controversy. And why not? The hurly-burly surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV was on everyone's mind.
Game scribe Kyle Orland has penned a nice summary piece on the media frenzy for GameSpot, tracking the major coverage received by the game:
As much as Grand Theft Auto IV is being hailed as a revolution in gaming, its release also seems to herald a revolution in mainstream coverage of gaming itself...
For all the moral scolds getting column inches, many mainstream outlets seem to be offering a genuine counterpoint this time around... Overall, the mainstream media seems to be at least considering the idea that this game is no more of a threat than comic books or rock and roll were back in their most controversial days...
Judging by the media coverage, it's a Grand Theft Auto world, and the rest of us are just playing in it.
Comments
I have five times offered to debate him on Fox News and CNN, with any show as the moderator. Five times I received a call back from the network saying that he wouldn't agree to the terms.
Its as bad as Dr. Boyce Watkins debating Bill Cosby on the Radio. He didn't let Cosby come, so he got a guy who acted with Cosby on the Cosby Show. It's the pussiest kind of debate there is.
?
Once again, did it actually "smash" anything? Seriously? I mean, the biggest entertainment releases of all time are topped by a factor of two ON THE FIRST DAY IT WAS RELEASED and none of the major news sites (Yahoo, for instance) give a shit? Seriously? They called it for Halo 3, but they are completely unwilling to do so for GTA IV? I say it's bullshit.
Dumbest line I've ever read. Seriously.
Its nice to see a good counterpoint after so many years of being bashed by the media nonstop. Now, the problem is, too many people don't read newspapers and whatnot. We need more fair TV station coverage across the board, as well as the ability to debate the opponents of Video gaming. JT vs. any gamer would be a great victory for videogamers everywhere.
It didn't come close in first day sales either - according to R* they made $310 million on the first day. Halo 3 racked up an impressive $170 million.
The record has not just been broken - it has been SHATTERED! :)
"JT vs. any gamer would be a great victory for videogamers everywhere."
Honestly, no, it wouldn't. "Any gamer" is not as articulate, media savvy, or able to maintain a coherent argument without descending into a profanity-laced tirade as Thompson is. There are gamers out there that could pull it off with alarming style and class. Adam Sessler and Wil Wheaton immediately come to mind. Andrew Bub is another.
But most of us would come off as the blithering idiots we are. But, then again, I guess that would be "fair" television coverage. It just wouldn't put forth the image that organizations such as the ECA are trying to convey about gamers.
True enough. I meant any of the gamers on here all the time.
Obviously, there's always the extremists of any group, as well as the people with no ability to have a rational discussion (Gordon Ramsey from Hell's Kitchen, for example) without swearing. But I find that most of the people here are better informed than your average man, and I know that I could easily demolish the man in a 'debate', no matter which side the moderator swung for.
I question those numbers. Such a record shattering would be news worthy everywhere, yet this is the first time I've heard of it. I'm calling bullshit.
@GP
What do you mean "more cultural impact"? Gaming culture, maybe, but not anything else. The GTA frenzy has always been there. This isn't really new. Halo's biggest achievement was that it reached across to the casual gamer and brought gaming itself into more of the mainstream. Without Halo, it's arguable that GTA would be as popular as it is.
These are the people who you are trying to believe in what you are saying.
But the easiest way to lose them is to swear or even point out a few of your opponents bad habbits...like lying on FOXNews and things like that.
It is more better to try and point out the good things in games like GTA, and even mention many of the E rated games and also T rated games, as well as pointing at all of the research out there that the US crime rate has NOT climbed since the early 90s, and that the school shootings have sometimes been caused by other more complicated incidents other than just someone playing Violent Videogames.
Also note that there are so many adults who do love to play Videogames, and also mention everything from the ESRB ratings and also how an AO rating means DEAD MARKET and letting people know about how hard it is to make a Commercial Videogame and that is the need to sell copies so all that hard work would pay off.
Well, that is how I would do it in a debate,
also comment on your own personal life and how the negative Gamer steriotype is not an accurate reflection of yourself
Like for me, I was able to surprize a woman last week when I told her that I was a Gamer and also loved Japanese Anime cartoons even as an adult, yet I also love to play Sports and I used to play allot of school sports when I was younger as well as lots of Videogames during my younger years,
And she tused to think that people who play Videogames don't even play sports,
I think it is better to handle this at a Grass Roots level and try to talk to people in everyday life and when the discussion comes to videogames, you could talk to them about your own experience and how you think about what goes on about Videogames when they are being bashed in the mainstream media,
it would all be a good practice for something important like a debate on Violent Videogames, or any other missconception of Videogames that may prop up in the future.
Anyone else could add to my comment???
but its a MULTI FORMAT release.
2X systems for it to bleed on...
As long as JT gets put down hard, we're all good.
I know that GTA sold double copies locally than Halo 3 did. There were 304 reserves at my local gamestop (where a friend of mine works). So many caopies, in fact, that I helped them unload five boxes of games and guides.
All in all, they had 450 plus copies of the game in the store, and were down to 3 two days later.
450*60= 27000. From one store.
I remember they only sold 102 copies of Halo 3 on opening day.
Alright, Yahoo just broke it. First week sales are at $500 million. First day sales are not mentioned, but if we estimate by the numbers Halo put out (170 to 300) we come up with... $283 million first day, percentage-wise. Not bad. I'm shocked.
You see my friend, a lot of those news outlets that were so quick to talk about how this game was inappropriate for everyone and how its the devil incarnate and will make us all murder each other aren't too quick to point out that nearly 10 million people just bought it. It'll undermine the view that we're all going to go on killing sprees with chainsaws.
JT vs. any gamer would be a great victory for videogamers everywhere.
Unless their one of those Halo idiots that spray obscenities faster than a minigun
Nah, I was waiting for them just because they tend to have their facts right and report the big stories. I usually find my gaming news elsewhere. What's going to undermine the view is if the crime figures don't respond to GTA IV's release.