Grand Theft Auto IV was released for two different video game consoles this week; the prior popularity and notoriety of the series means that its release merits the broadest kind of attention. As a cultural spectacle, in terms of written articles and television stories, the game’s debut was up there with the biggest movies, the most bestselling of bestselling books and Nielsen dominating television programs. This is an honor rarely accorded to a video game, but this is the second time in less than a year that it’s happened, Halo 3 received similar attention last September.
What makes the whole thing fascinating and absurd is that the game is a niche product, it is an extremely popular niche product, but it’s still just that. Anyone can go out and see a movie just as anyone can purchase a book or watch a television program. But games like Grand Theft Auto and Halo require something more from their customers and that makes them impossible for an outsider to really understand.
First and foremost is the obvious financial cost. The game retails for sixty dollars but in order to play it you also need to have a three hundred dollar (or more) video game console and a relatively recent television.
In addition to the finances there’s the fact that in order to really experience the game you need to be a somewhat competent video game player. That may seem like a quibble, but take someone who’s never (or only rarely) played a game that requires you to maneuver a character in a three dimensional environment and see what happens. It’s a difficult mental state in which to put yourself and plenty of people just don’t find enough appeal in it to make learning it worthwhile.
Compare that to something like a book or a television program. Any literate person can open a book and immediately know what to do. Any person, literate or otherwise, can sit in front of a screen and pay attention. But only a segment of the population can really get into any video game, much less one as complicated as Grand Theft Auto.
There are a lot of ways to render accounts or descriptions of the gameplay, video of someone else playing the game can be captured, or someone can play the game and then write an account of what it was like. But to really experience what the creators of the game intended one needs to be able to play the game, and for games as vast and varied as Grand Theft Auto that requires both a lot of time and a very specific skill set.
What that means is that any outside discussion of the game is rendered completely absurd. A common frame of reference is needed for any meaningful information about the game to pass from one party to another. Games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto are popular and lucrative enough to generate mainstream media attention, but with the exception of reviews (which serve the purpose of informing potential players whether or not the game in question is worth their time and money) any story or article about the game is telling a hopelessly incomplete tale to anyone who hasn’t spent some time in Liberty City or on a Halo ring.
Is Knocked Up sexist? Or is The Passion of the Christ anti-Semitic? There is no absolute answer, but you can gain all the information you need for an informed opinion by watching them. Is The Da Vinci Code anti-Catholic? All you need is an eighth grade reading level and a few spare hours to find out for yourself. The same cannot be said for Grand Theft Auto or any other large, complex video game. If you want to know what you’re talking or writing about you need to play the game (extensively); and if you haven’t done that then no one who has is going to take your opinions or conclusions at all seriously. Nor should they.
