May 12, 2008 -
In the latest media whinge about GTA IV, syndicated columnist Susan Estrich (left), who ran Michael Dukakis' ill-fated 1988 presidential campaign, criticizes some of the game's non-interactive plot elements:From what I’ve heard about the ending... In one version, so I’m told, your cousin and his bride die in a drive-by shooting at their wedding. In another, your girlfriend gets killed...
GP: In the celebrated film The Godfather, Sonny Corleone is gunned down at a toll booth. Michael Corleone's first wife Appollonia, is blown up by a car bomb. The Godfather himself is badly wounded in an assassination attempt. And yet Michael carries on.
These are dramatic devices which advance the story. Why shouldn't a game feature such plot turns? Does Ms. Estrich understand that the player doesn't control these non-interactive cut scenes? Or would Estrich chastise the video game medium for employing the same dramatic license extended to cinema?
It's also interesting to note that, while Estrich's son (age unspecified) apparently enjoys GTA IV, she's worried about everyone else's kid:
There’s no question that our reviews of the latest in this infamous series are not in sync. [My son] thinks it’s a great new game...
It’s not my son I’m really worried about. He does well in school, follows the important rules and generally gets bored with most video games before they get in the way of life. It’s his generation, the generation that he is going to grow up in and live with, full of kids who take this stuff for granted and spend more time with it than with real life, that worries me.
GP: Estrich comes off as both out of touch and two-faced here. And, while we had previously noted Estrich's column, our old pal Jack Thompson informed us that she was once Dukasis' campaign manager.
Comments
raRGH like, spoilers? you
raRGH like, spoilers? you weren't freaking kidding. that may have been the most gigundus spoiler i've ever accidentally read. :(
but the point raised is correct. just because something happens in a video game doesn't necessarily mean it is endorsed.the same as with almost any creative medium. the godfather examples highlight the double standard perfectly.
it's interesting that it was pointed out that the aforementioned sequences in the game are non-interactive. who gives a crap? it seems to be the interactivity that people find so terrifying. they've found a new scapegoat (old news, i know)
think of the scene from a clockwork orange where he is forced to watch film as a type of conditioning- i'm pretty sure now there'd be a controller in there somehow. people need to chill the hell out.
Yeah, kinda pissed me off when I saw that too. I've been playing as much as my schedule and kids have allowed since the day it came out, and have only just made it to the second island last night. I'll still finish it, but I'm starting to think that Jack and others are trying to reuin the ending of games thinking it will make people stop playing them since some people will not watch a movie once the ending is given away. that's going pretty damn low.
I'm not done with the game yet!
This women is a hypocrite.
"My son's fine, but all of YOUR sons will be killers!!!"
Yep. I well remember the Dukakais campaign. Which makes me wonder why Estrich so frequently trumpets the fact that she managed that campaign. Don't most people leave their epic failures off their resume?
I seem to recall the implied ending for either GTA III or VC where Sonny shoots dead the blathering bimbo to silence her.
I also recall a number of TV shows where female characters seem to be given "immunity" to injury or even death. There are a great many times when "you're a man so you're expendable" seems to play heavily into story plots. As if someone is afraid to have a female character injured or killed because bigot will scream "violence against women!", which does tend to happen when someone crosses that line.
Remember, in Mass Effect, you have to choose letting either a Male character die or a Female character die. So... what's your reason for saving one or the other?
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Thanks
Oh and that woman is a hypocrtitical cow
It was GTAIII
Like I said before, all the complaints about GTA IV to me have become one long droning sound...except whenever JT says something. Then it becomes a shrill whine.
“My son’s fine, but all of YOUR sons will be killers!!!”"
i see it the same way.
she's a good mother, but everyone else is a bad parent by comparison is what she's saying IMO.
basicly i don't think she knows what a plot is.
apparently a lot of people seem to think games shouldn't have plot outside of "save the princess from spikey turtle guy"
i mean, even manhunt 2 was under flak just cause it used a mental institute for its opening where the main guy was being held.
its just a plot control people! no worse than scarface's bathtub chop'em'up scene.
At the end though, we should just ignore her, anyone who signed off on any part of Dukakis' campaign should just hide.
"when someone commits an act of violence, I blame the person and believe they should be punished, regardless of deterrence. I do not blame the game they played or the Web site they visited. I also believe in the First Amendment, for adults anyway, which means that it’s not the business of government to tell people what has artistic value and what doesn’t."
or this one
"There’s no question that great minds are behind these games, in terms of creative and technological skill, but think of what else they could be doing. And aren’t."
She doesn't want to censor anybody, and she explicitly says she doesn't believe video games make criminals. Seriously, she seems about as divided over the issue as most of us gamers are. It's deeply unprofessional to paint her as "out of touch and two-faced" just because she's not one hundred percent on our side.
What about SAW? Hostel? Etc..
But it's ok if it's a movie... just the typical hypocrisies of politicians. Nothing new.
It' comes down to this - plain and simple - they aren't getting as much of the 'piece of the pie' from video games as they would like to - and seek to dip deeper into the till.
Her quote "but think of what else they could be doing. And aren’t.” is pretty out of touch. It's like criticizing Martin Scorsese for not being like Jim Henson.
Did we even read the same article? Yes, I'm talking about the one written by Susan Estrich. I don't see her so much on the fence on this issue as attempting to seem resonable. She's as much on our side as JT is.
Here's some experts you seemed to have missed:
"A mother I know and respect told me some years ago that if you want your kids to follow your rules, don’t make too many of them, make clear that “no” is really “no,” and as for the rest, go for honesty and communication. I remember asking her what was on her “no” list. She said, three: heroin, cigarettes and motorcycles without helmets. I have a few more than that, but having seen the way kids get around their parents’ bans on video games, Internet content, etc., I’ve settled for full disclosure rather than absolute bans in those departments."
"It’s a shame and a waste, and it portends a generation going down the tubes. “Rockstar,” my you-know-what. Shame on you. You owe the kids who worship you — and line your coffers — better than this garbage."
This woman is a menace.
There was one there about 15 minutes before you posted...
A touch two-faced? Completely two-faced!
She should consider heeping her nose out of others buisness before she goes interfering. Maybe she should ask her son his opinions and stick to them. It isn't harming him, nor is it harming countless others out there. Leave our entertainment alone!
That's a bad faith argument. You're assuming she's lying. And if we just assume she's lying, we can think all sorts of nasty things about her that her actual writing doesn't imply.
Yes, that last paragraph is very strongly worded; but notice how she is addressing Rockstar directly and not calling for angry mobs to descend on them, or even claiming to speak for anybody else. That's how civil free speech is supposed to work. How is that problematic, in your opinion?
The other paragraph seems to be saying that the best parenting policy when it comes to media is "honesty and communication." Is that supposed to offend gamers?
Maybe Attention Whore.
about which one to save, it could depend of if your character had been developing a relationship with one of them. after all, if you had put a bunch of effort into developing a relationship with one of the characters that die, you wouldn't want that one to die.
So what she basically said was "My son is going to be good, your sons are going to be evil"
That there is no happy ending?
I mean, I don't really understand what the purpose of the column was or how it is relevant to anything that is going on.
Dukakis' "tank" campaign ad was about as ill-thought out and ill-advised as that photo-op of Bush on the deck of the carrier with nuts all scrunched up in that ridiculous fighter pilot get-up.
How can selflessness sound so annoying? Dunno, but she accomplished it.