Expecting the worst: GTA and the London riots by Krystal

This is a guest post from the wonderful Krystal Sim, who you can bother on Twitter @KrystalSim

It feels stupendously silly, writing a piece about video games with everything we’ve seen on streets across the country and on our TVs for the last few nights. There are so many bigger and more important things to say than what game I’ve got on the go just now or which studio has a new trailer to punt.

That said, gamers won’t have missed the wholly predictable accusation in a London newspaper this week that Rockstar title Grand Theft Auto may have inspired some of the looters.

On Tuesday it was reported that London’s Evening Standard was going to press with this coverline:

Children as young as ten, inspired by video game, among the looters

This was followed by a reference in the first few paragraphs of the lead story to children looters “said to have been inspired by video game Grand Theft Auto”. Ah.

An editorial on the paper’s website also carried a quote from one police officer who said: “When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they’re playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves.” Ah.

A nation of gamers, and games journalists took a collective sigh and registered their opinions on the various sites carrying the story. Hours passed and the second pressing of that night’s edition was changed:

Children as young as ten hunted by police after riots across city

Before and after

The edition I picked up in Soho didn’t even carry that far less confrontational and arguably misleading line. No harm done, but moral panic is something gamers have become all too familiar with, to the point that we expect the worst.

Game controversies have become something of a regular thing – Mortal Kombat , Manhunt, GTA have all been cited as corrupters of the young, potentially usurping the moral order.

Critics may believe gamers have become desensitised to violence (and are therefore dangerous), but in reality we’ve just become hardened to the criticism. At best you roll your eyes, at worst you’re posting angry comments with devil emoticons, cursing the name of Alan Titchmarsh.

Thankfully this story seemed to begin and end with a coverline, a fleeting reference and an off-the-cuff remark from a police officer. It felt more like a pathetic cliché trying to divert from the more pressing issues at hand.

In all honesty I’ve never been much of a fan of GTA. Hung around too many dorm rooms and student flats while someone spends several hours making a fort of tanks with a cheat code book before going all Tony Montana. I’ve owned GTA IV for about a year and the most I’ve done is the first few missions, gone on the odd date and made the obligatory visit to a strip club.

What I find galling is the defensive position you have to take if you’re a fan of interactive entertainment. This idea that by shaping the not always pleasant events of a video game you are somehow enacting your deepest, darkest fantasies and that given half the chance you’d play them out in the real world. I can’t stand guns. I shot an air rifle. Once. But I have killed a lot of zombies on Left 4 Dead, and enjoyed it.

There is no looting in Grand Theft Auto, a point many angry comments on news sites made with vigour, and there is no proven link between violence in video games and violence in the real world.

There are a great many reasons why riots have occurred over the years, but I very much doubt a video game is one of them.

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