7MMO
Moderator
It's fascinating how things change. I. for instance, used to love staying up all night playing videogames; now I get mad at the world if I miss my bedtime by 10 minutes. In kind of a similar vein, Grand Theft Auto was once the poster child for everything insidious, dangerous, and downright wrong about videogames, but now we have a member of the UK government—a secretary of state, no less—talking about how the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 is something the whole country should be proud of.
"My love for videogames knows no bounds, and I am an avid addict of things like Animal Crossing and the Mario series," Lisa Nandy, the UK's secretary of state for digital, culture, media, and sport, told The Rundown. "I'm not sure I get away with taking a day off to do it, but I think it's something that we can be really proud of.
"One of the reasons that we're investing in arts and music and all of those things that give people the chance to live richer, larger lives is because we are creating jobs in these incredible industries. And if you want to make a videogame like Grand Theft Auto, you need animators, you need musicians, you need so many people from across the creative industries to make them work. And why shouldn't it be our children in our communities who get the chance to get those jobs?"
I'm as politically cynical as most folks, and sure, Nandy is using the moment opportunistically to promote her government—although, cynicism notwithstanding, I do respect her ability to stay on-message by turning a softball question about GTA 6 into talking about job creation.
At the same time, though, this is a remarkable turnaround from, say, 20 years ago, when everyone in a position of authority lost their minds over the Hot Coffee mod for GTA: San Andreas. Some of you might not be old enough to remember (you have no idea how much it pains me to say that) but referring to GTA as a legitimate cultural export in the early 2000s would've got any mainstream Western politician laughed out of the room—and suggesting that it'd be cool if the children (the children!) grew up to make more games like that? Pure political suicide.
As PC Gamer's Evan Lahti wrote in 2017, "Any American who played games in the '90s remembers the period of pearl-clutching and pseudoscientific fear-mongering from senators like Joe Lieberman, who led a call to ban violent videogames." This was serious stuff back then, and it wasn't really until the US Supreme Court ruled that videogames, like other creative works, are protected speech under the First Amendment that the hysteria and hand-wringing started to meaningfully die down.
But now here we are, 15 years later: The Miami Heat are cosplaying as a Vice City sports team, Rockstar is holding a huge GTA music festival featuring Cardi B and Travis Scott, half the state of Florida is embracing a Leonida transformation (and the cops aren't even mad about it), and now we've got the UK government saying it's all quite grand—splendid, even. Time, man. It really is a river carving the bedrock of our souls.
Grand Theft Auto 6
GTA 6 guide: Everything we know
GTA 6 cars: The garage lineup
GTA 6 characters: Your anti-hero cast
GTA 6 map: Confirmed Vice City locales
GTA 6 PC release: When's it going to happen?
Continue reading...
"My love for videogames knows no bounds, and I am an avid addict of things like Animal Crossing and the Mario series," Lisa Nandy, the UK's secretary of state for digital, culture, media, and sport, told The Rundown. "I'm not sure I get away with taking a day off to do it, but I think it's something that we can be really proud of.
"One of the reasons that we're investing in arts and music and all of those things that give people the chance to live richer, larger lives is because we are creating jobs in these incredible industries. And if you want to make a videogame like Grand Theft Auto, you need animators, you need musicians, you need so many people from across the creative industries to make them work. And why shouldn't it be our children in our communities who get the chance to get those jobs?"
I'm as politically cynical as most folks, and sure, Nandy is using the moment opportunistically to promote her government—although, cynicism notwithstanding, I do respect her ability to stay on-message by turning a softball question about GTA 6 into talking about job creation.
At the same time, though, this is a remarkable turnaround from, say, 20 years ago, when everyone in a position of authority lost their minds over the Hot Coffee mod for GTA: San Andreas. Some of you might not be old enough to remember (you have no idea how much it pains me to say that) but referring to GTA as a legitimate cultural export in the early 2000s would've got any mainstream Western politician laughed out of the room—and suggesting that it'd be cool if the children (the children!) grew up to make more games like that? Pure political suicide.
As PC Gamer's Evan Lahti wrote in 2017, "Any American who played games in the '90s remembers the period of pearl-clutching and pseudoscientific fear-mongering from senators like Joe Lieberman, who led a call to ban violent videogames." This was serious stuff back then, and it wasn't really until the US Supreme Court ruled that videogames, like other creative works, are protected speech under the First Amendment that the hysteria and hand-wringing started to meaningfully die down.
But now here we are, 15 years later: The Miami Heat are cosplaying as a Vice City sports team, Rockstar is holding a huge GTA music festival featuring Cardi B and Travis Scott, half the state of Florida is embracing a Leonida transformation (and the cops aren't even mad about it), and now we've got the UK government saying it's all quite grand—splendid, even. Time, man. It really is a river carving the bedrock of our souls.
Grand Theft Auto 6
GTA 6 guide: Everything we know
GTA 6 cars: The garage lineup
GTA 6 characters: Your anti-hero cast
GTA 6 map: Confirmed Vice City locales
GTA 6 PC release: When's it going to happen?
Continue reading...
