Kids shouldn't play Grand Theft Auto IV, says Knoxville, TN child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. John Robertson, and almost everyone would agree.

But Robertson can't fathom why adults would want to play the ultra-popular crime adventure, either. In an interview with Knoxville's WVLT-8, Robertson said:

There's a line between we think about something and then we plan to do it and we act upon that. And that line gets more and more blurred, is what's happening.

Yes, [games like GTA IV] are for mature audiences. But why would adults even be playing them? I have no idea. You get rewarded for going to the prostitute. You get more health benefits, and then if you steal her money, beat her up and steal her money, you get more.

Just going to church on Sundays isn't going to necessarily negate hours and hours of raping, pillaging, and murdering. [In playing Superman, Batman, and G.I. Joe] there was morality. There was a sense of justice. There was a sense of right and wrong in that. [GTA IV has] totally flipped that.

Actor Wil Wheaton, who rather bluntly dissed anti-game attorney Jack Thompson at PAX 2007, has weighed in on the GTA IV controversy via his blog:

The usual gang of idiots are up in arms about how this game will lead to the end of civilization as we know it... The hysteria surrounding the release of GTA IV has officially crossed into the realm of the absurd...

Can I just take a moment and point out how insane this is? This type of hysterical overreaction to a video game is completely out of proportion to any alleged harm it could inflict on anyone, but is accepted because it is done, as it always is, in the name of protecting The Children.

...which leads me to wonder where The Parents are, and if these people are so serious about making the world better for The Children, why they don't invest the same amount of energy and resources into securing quality healthcare and world-class education for them as they spend wringing their hands over video games that aren't even supposed to be played by The Children in the first place.

Wheaton, an ECA member, starred in the 1986 classic Stand By Me, played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: Next Generation and has numerous other acting credits. He has also done video game voice-over work, including on several GTA titles.

Full Disclosure Dept: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics…

Okay, so it wasn't the funniest bit we've ever seen on The Daily Show.

But host Jon Stewart and "Senior Virtual Correspondent" Aasif Madvi take a look at GTA IV in this video.

Via: Whip It Out

At a campaign stop in Indiana, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama referred to the frenzy of publicity surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV as he repeated one of his regular themes: kids studying more and playing video games less. 

GamePolitics has covered similar comments from the Illinois Senator during the campaign (see: Obama Campaign Theme: Video Games as Metaphor for Underachievement).

Here is the transcript of Obama's remarks:

I was just catching the news this morning about Grand Theft Auto, this video game, which is gonna break all records and make goo-gobs of money for whoever designed it. Now, this isn't intended for kids, although I promise you there are kids who are playing it, but these video games are raising our kids...

Across the board, middle-class, upper-class, working-class kids, they're spending a huge amount of their time not on their studies, but on entertainment.

And so part of our job is going to have to be to inspire the entire country to say, 'How are we giving our kids a thirst for knowledge?' And turning off the TV set, and getting them to be engaged and interested, like their future really does matter on how well they do in school."

Raw Story has the video.

GP: Big thanks to GamePolitics reader Ryan Graff for the transcription of Sen. Obama's comments!!

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has issued a statement critical of the opportunites for virtual drunk driving in GTA IV:

Each year nearly 13,500 people die in drunk driving crashes and another half a million are injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes. This is why MADD is extremely disappointed by the decision of the manufacturers of the game Grand Theft Auto IV to include a game module where players have to drive drunk.

Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable. MADD is calling on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an Adults Only game, a step up from the current rating of Mature and for the manufacturer to consider a stop in distribution – if not out of responsibility to society then out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.

It's difficult to imagine the sense of shock and loss experienced by the loved ones of a police officer killed in the line of duty.

So it's not surprising to read in today's New York Daily News that the mother of slain NYPD Officer Russel Timoshenko (left) doesn't appreciate the cops-and-robbers animated violence in Grand Theft Auto IV. Tatyana Timoshenko told the Daily News:

For some people, it's a game. But for me, it's not funny. It was for real. It was my son. This game teaches children to kill, then they wonder where criminals come from.

Big Apple Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has criticized GTA in the past, added:

The kids are playing these violent games that don't exactly teach the kind of things that you'd want to teach your kids.

Pat Lynch, president of the NYPD Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President, said:

Being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people.

While public transit agencies in Chicago and Miami have pulled ads for Grand Theft Auto IV, it looks as if GP's local bus company will permit the ads to stay.

According to a report by all-news radio station KYW-1060, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) won't bow to (unspecified) pressure to remove the ads. From the KYW story:

SEPTA... is standing firm in its decision run the ads on hundreds of its buses...

SEPTA officials would not be interviewed, but they issued a statement saying while some might consider the game offensive, "the advertisement is not."

The ad campaign is slated to run for six weeks, with 350 posters on buses and other locations, generating $83,000 in revenue for SEPTA.

SEPTA last year was criticized for accepting ads for the movie "Hitman," ads featuring images of guns.

GP: It's not yet clear how SEPTA came to deal with the GTA IV ad issue. However, after I posted a picture of a SEPTA bus carrying a GTA IV ad last Friday, Jack Thompson, who was then in the process of persuading Miami-Dade Transit to drop its GTA IV ads, indicated he would pressure SEPTA to take a similar course of action.

In any case, if Thompson did try with SEPTA, he failed. GP has a call into SEPTA management for more details. In the meantime, it's good to see SEPTA standing firm on this issue. There are obvious First Amendment implications and, hey, SEPTA is strapped for cash. As a regional taxpayer, I'm happy to see that $83,000 in revenue coming in.

A member of New Zealand's Parliament has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto IV.

As reported by Scoop, Independent MP Gordon Copeland wants GTA IV to be unavailable to New Zealanders. Copeland told Scoop:

Sadly New Zealand has become a violent society. Our criminal courts are almost log jammed with cases involving murder, manslaughter, rape, and other heinous crimes. Our jails are overflowing.

A recent study has indicated that, on a per capita basis, New Zealand is now twice as violent as the USA...

Simply stated, it is time to reverse the tide of violence in New Zealand. We have to have the courage somewhere, sometime, to say "no" and I agree with kiwi parents and the police, that this is not a bad place to start.

San Diego's 10news has a video report on John Douglas, described as a 20-year video game industry veteran. Douglas likens Grand Theft Auto IV to porn:

If adults want to do it, that's their choice. But that's not where the problem is... Personally, I think it's sick and twisted... They should be putting this stuff behind the counter so that the adults that want it can come in and ask for it, like they would an adult magazine...

According to 10news, Douglas left the game biz because he became "burned out" over the increasing level of violence in games. He believes that the video game industry markets adult games to children.

Douglas's past involvement with the video game industry is unknown. He is currently president of Grand Design Productions. The company's website describes it as in the business of creating "faith-based, family-friendly entertainment with valuable spiritual and moral messages."

Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) president Hal Halpin appeared on the CBS Evening News last night during tech reporter Daniel Sieberg's segment on the Grand Theft Auto IV launch.

Hal spoke about how games are becoming as influential as movies in terms of entertainment.



And while it doesn't appear on this video, did anyone notice the snotty aside which Katie Couric directed toward GTA IV?

As Sieberg wrapped up the GTA IV segment he said: "Of course, that's assuming you'll want to spend more time with characters... like these..." As Couric came back on camera she dropped an acid, "No thanks."

GP: Thanks to GamePolitics reader Mark of Cain for YouTube'ing the video of Hal's appearance!

Full Disclosure Dept: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics…

A representative of Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police has criticized Grand Theft Auto IV. 

Off. Eugene Blagmond spoke to local TV station NBC-10 about GTA IV's in-game confrontations with virtual cops:

The glorification of killing of any police officer is just wrong. I mean, it desensitizes people to the real mayhem that's going on out on the streets, and we already have a real problem with people not valuing human life.

People don't seem to have a problem turning guns on cops, and this game -- I know it's just a game, but people sometimes have trouble separating reality from fantasy.

Not every police officer would seem to agree with Blagmond's assessment, however. NBC-10's Jamison Uhler reports that while his crew was filming at a local GameStop, four different Philadelphia police officers came in to purchase GTA IV in the space of an hour.

Police in San Diego arrested a 27-year-old man yesterday and charged him with robbing a GameStop location, pepper-spraying two employees there and stealing a launch day copy of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Richard Fiel (at left, in the back of a police car) found that it's tougher to shake real cops than GTA IV's animated ones and was busted after a short standoff.

In addition to GTA IV, Police found a copy of GTA III and a PlayStation 3 controller in his pickup truck. A San Diego PD spokesperson told the local NBC affiliate:

The call came out as a robbery of a commercial business... and the suspect was described, and the vehicle that he got into was described as a white Toyota pickup truck, lifted with the tailgate down, and our helicopter ABLE spotted the vehicle southbound. The officers followed it.

There was no word on how many police alert stars Fiel's crime generated.

Tim Rutten, media critic for the Los Angeles Times, flays GTA IV - and its fans - in today's column.

To be candid, Rutten's comments sound rather generation gappish from here. Perhaps he should be called the LA Times "old media" critic:

One of the hallmarks of a healthy consumer society is that its older generation habitually despises and decries the entertainments of the young. The young, in turn, elevate their aesthetic rebellion to respectability over time...

There's a new world of entertainment here... But what does it contain? In this case, [protagonist Niko Bellic] kills, maims, has sex, then kills and maims some more, while also stealing various forms of transportation...

Where earlier generations of youthful art crossed boundaries... they also affirmed something else, some alternative or countercultural value...

What "Grand Theft Auto IV" affirms is the pleasure of eschewing decency for obnoxious violence... One of the most interesting things about this game is that it's the product of a global youth culture whose frame of reference has been shaped by mindless American action films, by post-apocalyptic Euro-American fantasy fiction and Japanese graphic novels...

Sent to us without explanation by the man himself...

The only clue is the subject line of the e-mail, which says, cryptically:

Evidence

UPDATE: Some GP readers have suggested that Miami Jack has a GTA IV "sting" announcement coming up. That's certainly a possibility.

It's either that or he has entered a Niko Bellic look-alike contest...

Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) president Hal Halpin will appear on the CBS Evening News to discuss the Grand Theft Auto IV launch.The program airs at 6:30 PM Eastern. More details to follow...

Full Disclosure Dept: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics...

With today's GTA IV launch, criticism of the series has risen to a whole new level.

GTA bashers invariably point to two instances of GTA violence as particularly worrisome.

The first deals with violence against the game's virtual hookers. This concern has been voiced by, among others, real-world hooker afficianado Eliot Spitzer. These criticisms generally run along the lines of "you can have sex with a prostitute and then kill her to get your money back."

While technically true, in GTA's sandbox world such activity is strictly optional. The player can choose not to have the virtual liaison in the first place. Or, if the player does opt to indulge, there's nothing in GTA which precludes allowing the hooker to stroll off peacefully in search of her next trick.

The game's virtual police officers, on the other hand, are more problematic. Because GTA is a crime adventure, the player will invariably run afoul of the law. For all practical purposes, it is impossible to log significant time on any Grand Theft Auto title without getting into a virtual confrontation with the game's animated depictions of law enforcement officers.

Despite claims by game violence critics and some law enforcement personnel, video games like Grand Theft Auto IV are not motivating youthful players to join gangs.

According to the Edmonton Metro, gang expert Michael Chettleburgh says the video game controversy is over-hyped:

If you actually go out and talk to young gang members about the top 10 reasons why they joined a gang, you will never hear them talk about the influences of hip hop, video games or media.

It’s just not a primary driver of why kids join gangs.

Chettleburgh is the author of Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs.

Via: Next Generation

While the make-pretend crime in Grand Theft Auto IV is the subject of an enormous amount criticism from politicians, activists and media pundits, a police chief says it's only a game.

Kansas TV station KSWO-7 includes an interview with Lawton P.D. Chief Ronnie Smith in its coverage of the hoopla surrounding the GTA IV launch. Chief Smith told reporter Elaina Rusk:

Most of the young people who play these games know they're only games, they're smart enough to know they're only games. It's that small percentage that don't realize, or that start thinking the wrong way, and end up getting themselves in trouble by thinking, 'you know, this is cool, I can do this in real life.'

This is all fun and games when you're playing these games, but turn them off and forget about it, and know that that's not real life. Because in real life you don't get up and walk away... In real life it's a totally different ball game.

Ars Technica has a report on Jack Thompson's claim that the sexual content in Grand Theft Auto IV is essentially pornographic.

As is his custom, Thompson once again invokes law enforcement by writing to his local US Attorney about the game's hooker and strip club scenes:

Indictments should be returned against Take Two corporately and its Chairman, Strauss Zelnick, along with other Take Two officers. Indictment should also be against Sony and Microsoft which are making this pornographic game available to minors, and openly so, on their PS3 and Xbox systems.

Further, indictments should be handed down against Wal-Mart, Best Buy, GameStop, and all other retailers distributing this game to minors at their retail stores, openly, to kids who are only seventeen.

So, lock everyone up, then? Are the feds even talking to Thompson yet? The controversial attorney's rant continues:

Grand Theft Auto IV is the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio.

Since polio...

While Ars Technica concludes that an IGN video (NSFW) which rolls a number of the game's sex scenes into one segment gives Thompson ammunition, we're not so sure.

For one thing, these are animations, not real people. But even so, protagonist Niko Bellic's encounters with hookers in cars (notably unsexy pic at left) and strippers in clubs are all simulated; no genitalia are visible. The participants do not even appear to be unclothed. We've seen more graphic content in any number of R-rated films.

What's more, the ESRB content descriptors for GTA IV list "strong sexual content" and "partial nudity." We're quite sure that, given the industry-rocking 2005 Hot Coffee scandal, both Take Two and the ESRB had their legal experts closely review GTA IV's sex scenes.

Will Thompson get some publicity mileage from GTA IV's sex scenes? Sure. Will anything come of it?

No.

Ben Fritz (left), who writes The Cut Scene blog for Variety, questions the journalistic ethics underlying exclusive game reviews.

At the center of Fritz's concern is IGN's recent perfect score for Grand Theft Auto IV. Fritz writes:

I'm not at all accusing IGN of being dishonest in this particular case... HOWEVER... what the hell is with the concept of an "exclusive review?" Is anyone else as troubled by this entire concept as I am?

...being the first outlet to review a highly anticipated new videogame is a big deal. It means a major boost in Web traffic or magazine sales. ...But how can we trust a videogame review when the outlet running it has been given a major commercial favor -- one that's worth money -- from the publisher of the game?

You never see a paper or TV station getting special access from a movie studio or TV network or book publisher to run an "exclusive review." Imagine the L.A. Times or Roger Ebert touting their "exclusive review of 'Iron Man.'" Absurd, right? So why do we tolerate it for a videogame?

Via: That Videogame Blog

UPDATE: IGN responds in an interview on Game Daily. Xbox Editor Hilary Goldstein said:

My problem with online journalism in general is that nobody does their due diligence. Nobody from Variety called us and said, "Hey, would you like to comment about this?" ...A lot of people didn't get the game early. So if Variety didn't get the game early then you're looking at somebody, I don't know, who had a grudge on his shoulder because he didn't even have the game yet and we'd already put out the review.

I just wish people would call. We had so many people writing comments about us and not a single person contacted us. Not Kotaku. Not Variety. Nobody called. They just all made assumptions. And of course we gave it a 10. But so did everyone else.

The Timothy Plan, a Maitland, Florida-based mutual fund group which offers a "biblical choice when it comes to investing," has issued a press release slamming Take Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), publisher of Grand Theft Auto IV.

From the release:

Take-Two Interactive... has done it again, releasing another video game that contains extreme sexual and violent content... Beyond the intense violence, blood and mayhem, during the game the character can have sex with prostitutes, visit adult clubs, request a private lap dance and drive drunk.

The Timothy Plan, a morally responsible family of mutual funds, refuses to invest in companies like Take-Two Interactive because of their involvement in the anti-family entertainment and pornography industry.

Timothy Plan president Arthur Ally (left) is quoted in the press release: 

This $30 billion a year [video game] business is exploiting sex and violence more than ever in their products. We hope more parents will not continue to fall into a category that four out of ten often do by relying simply on the ESRB rating and leave their children alone while they are playing video games.

While the ESRB system is a step in the right direction, the ratings are confusing and incomplete at best.

Ally also criticized another Rockstar game, Bully: Scholarship Education, because protagonist Jimmy Hopkins can kiss other boys in the game.

Take Two is among several dozen publicly-traded companies listed on the Timothy Plan's Hall of Shame. Others include Starbucks, PlanetOut, Wal-Mart, Microsoft and would-be Take Two acquirer, Electronic Arts.

While it's not clear exactly how these firms have transgressed in the Arthur Ally's view, the Timothy Plan is anti-gay, pro-life and opposed to investing in companies which deal in alcohol, tobacco, gambling or pornography.

Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer features a front page article on GTA IV which includes an interview with one of the authors of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games.

Authors Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson are both members of the Harvard Medical School faculty and the recently-released book has been widely acclaimed by the video game community for its reasonable - and unqiue - perspective on video game violence.

Kutner told the P-I:

For most kids and most parents, the bottom-line results of our research can be summed up in a single word: Relax... We have a long history of panicking over the introduction of new media. We have no evidence this is different.

The real question is which kids if any are at significant risk, and can we use behavior involving violent video game play as markers as what kids [should watch].

If you're looking for more of Kutner's thoughts, the Toronto Star has an excerpt of Grand Theft Childhood in today's edition.

The Post-Intelligencer story also features interviews with a concerned parent, as well as with What The Play editor John Davison and Hilarie Cash, author of the upcoming book Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control.

GP: Big thanks to GamePolitics reader Phantom for the tip!

Are critics of the Grand Theft Auto series the same breed of culture cops who were mortified by Elvis Presley's hip shaking style of rock'n'roll in the 1950's?

Leslie Benzies (left), president of Scotland's Rockstar North, creator of GTA IV, says they are. Benzies told The Scotsman:

[GTA IV critics are] the same kind of people who complained about Elvis... There is a big fear factor here. It's [like] the coming of the railways, it's Elvis shaking his hips. It's cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode.

We've had such a beating over the past three years, by the US government, the British government, the Daily Mail. 'You kill prostitutes' – that's usually the objection. I ask if they've ever played the game. Invariably they haven't.

Benzies also offered his thoughts on another controversial title, Manhunt 2. The game was banned in the UK until Rockstar won an appeal earlier thus year:

We wanted to make a horror game that would scare you in the same way a film would. If it's a film or a book, you can do what you want. We seem to be in a different category. We're very careful who we market the game to, and what is in the game.

The Associated Press reports that Tuesday's GTA IV launch will be the biggest video game release of all time, easily topping the $300 million in first-week sales generated by Halo 3 in 2007.

The AP quotes Wedbush-Morgan financial analyst Michael Pachter:

The addressable market at launch is about 24 million consoles. So how many will sell in the first week or month or few months? Nine million. That’s the number. That’s about a 35 percent attach rate. By year’s end, it’ll be somewhere between 11 and 13 million because more consoles will be sold before the holidays.

Bloomberg offers a similar prediction, as well as an estimate from Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey that GTA IV will hit the $360 million mark during its first week at retail. Hickey summed it up for Bloomberg:

People are going to buy this game.

Last week we gave a mention to Minusworld's tongue-in-cheek GTA IV Activity Book for Kids.

This morning we note that Crackle.com has posted a pretty funny GTA IV parody video (left).

Minusworld takes another (not quite as clever) bite of the GTA IV apple with a satirical article explaining why Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is begging Rockstar to create Grand Theft Auto: Montreal as its next installment in the series

Finally, an artist by the name of Scave has apparently created a custom GTA IV munny (left) for Rockstar.

The munny features, of course, GTA IV protagonist Niko Bellic.

Today's GamePolitics poll asks whether you plan to buy Grand Theft Auto IV and, if so, which version (PS3 or Xbox 360) you're getting.

The poll is in the right sidebar.

Be sure to vote!

According to the New Zealand Herald, Kiwi gamers who purchase Grand Theft Auto IV will be getting the same edited version as their Australian neighbors.

GP readers may recall that GTA IV publisher Rockstar Games was required to sanitize the game in order to gain clearance from Australian government censors. From the Herald report:

The censorship of Grand Theft Auto IV has forced the country's largest online retailer of games to cancel $50,000 worth of advance orders.

Meanwhile, Bob McCoskrie, a spokesman for watchdog group Family First, ripped GTA IV and called for a ban:

Players could re-enact having sex with a prostitute, beating her bloody, taking her money and running her over with a car and shooting at police officers.

It is completely naive to believe that teenagers and young children won't have access to and be able to play the game. It is also completely unrealistic to believe that young people will not be influenced in their attitudes and behaviours by constant exposure to this type of material.

So-called ‘entertainment’ and freedom of expression should never be at the expense of the safety of our community, appropriate emotional and moral development of our children, and promoting acceptable attitudes towards women, violence and law enforcement.

While New Zealand has been know to censor video game content, it is apparently the game publisher's decision to sell the watered-down GTA IV there: Simon Barton of Gameplanet told the newspaper: 

Everyone's assuming it is logistics. It just makes sense for them to send us the Australian version... There's plenty of swearing, plenty of violence [in the game]. It's very good. But I wouldn't want my 15-year-old playing it.

A complaint by Jack Thompson has prompted Miami's transit authority to remove ads for Grand Theft Auto IV from local bus shelters.

Miami thus joins Chicago as the second major US city to pull GTA IV ads from its public transit system in recent days.

GamePolitics reported on Thursday that Thompson had complained about the GTA IV ads to Miami Mayor Carlos Alvarez. The GTA IV ads were apparently removed sometime on Friday afternoon. Hugh Chen, Miami-Dade Transit's deputy director of operations, told GamePolitics on Friday evening, via e-mail:
 

The posters were removed after a review of our approval process and contract... Be assured that the circumstances around placing and removing  these specific posters were reviewed before action was taken. We are governed by our contract with our shelter contractor and County ordinances.

A spokesman for GTA IV publisher Take-Two Interactive said the company was still reviewing the situation. A spokesman for the ESA referred inquiries back to Take-Two.

For his part, Thompson wasted no time in crowing about the removal of the ads in a news release:
 

...Jack Thompson has today persuaded the Miami-Dade Transit System to pull all advertisements for the Grand Theft Auto IV cop-killing simulation game from its bus stops.

 

In the wake of this success, Thompson is proceeding to get all GTA IV ads pulled from all US transit systems since such ads clearly violate promises made by the [ESRB], found right at its web site, not to place “Mature-rated” game ads in venues that will be seen by teens. 

However, Thompson's contention about the ESRB appears to be incorrect. An ESRB spokesman told GP on Friday, "Considering the overwhelmingly adult demographic profile of mass transit riders... the placement of GTA IV ads in these types of outlets would typically not be in violation of [Ad Review Council] guidelines." Nor do the advertising guidelines listed on the ESRB website appear to support Thompson's contention.

Thompson may be confusing the ESRB ad guidelines with a 2002 report on the marketing of media violence by the Federal Trade Commission which addressed limiting the advertising of M-rated games in media where children constitute a specific percentage of the potential audience. The FTC report notes that the video game industry has a self-regulatory standard prohibiting print ads when children comprise more than 45% of the likely audience.

In his news release, the embattled Thompson also alleged a conspiracy between the video game industry and the judge who presided over his nine-day trial on Florida Bar ethics charges last November. That judge's recommendation on Thompson's future status as an attorney is expected in August.

GP: Readers, don't forget to Send Us Your GTA IV Bus Pix (Before they’re all gone)...

The relationship between the National Institute on Media & the Family (NIMF) and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has often been a contentious one.

But the two organizations have joined forces in the run-up to the Grand Theft Auto IV launch to remind parents that Rockstar's controversial game is not intended for younger players. A press release jointly issued by ESRB president Patricia Vance (left) and NIMF president David Walsh (right) reads, in part:

With [GTA IV] to be released on April 29th, parents need to be reminded to make sure their kids are playing games appropriate for their age and level of maturity. Grand Theft Auto IV is rated M (Mature for ages 17+)... The game’s rating also includes content descriptors for Intense Violence, Blood, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Partial Nudity and Use of Drugs and Alcohol.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, a parent is involved in the purchase of a video game nearly nine out of every ten times, so it is critical that parents consider the assigned rating carefully when purchasing or renting computer and video games for their children.

The ESRB and [NIMF] encourage parents to be informed and exercise their discretion when considering the purchase of all M-rated games. Parents should look for the ESRB rating on the game’s box, which provides guidance on age-appropriateness as well as describes the content in the game...

So I'm out and about this morning when I stumble upon a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) bus idling in a nearby strip mall.

The bus was sporting the (non-violent, non-obscene) GTA IV ad seen at left.

With bus ads now gone in Chicago and, apparently, Miami (more upcoming about that), I was pleased that the censorcrats haven't yet pressured my local bus company to remove the ads. So, I couldn't resist snapping this pic with my mobile phone.

GamePolitics readers, how about photographing GTA ads on your local buses or bus shelters and sending them in. Be sure to let us know where you took the pic. Put yourself in the pic, if you like. Be creative. We'll post as many as we can!

And... be sure to let your local transit authority and elected officials know that you value the First Amendment...