I bought the game for my boyfriend who liked the idea of being given a whole city to do what he wanted in. As I watched the game unfurl it seemed harmless enough, yes it is violent but both my boyfriend and I are aware that you can’t actually steal random cars and run-down pedestrians and to be fair if you are too reckless in the game you do have to escape the police.
However, I was horrified when one of the tasks that you are required to carry out, as Niko the main character of the game, was to arrange a date with a gay man and shoot him. It was bizarre, the player was given no reason to shoot this guy and literally the only thing we knew about him was his sexuality. I couldn’t believe that this had made it through the regulators. It turned out that later on in the game Niko has a friend who is also gay. I believe that this was put in so that the makers of the game could deny any kind of homophobic accusations.
This kind of gay-hate breeding material is shocking to me. The fact that I always used to back this game up in arguments of its morality makes me feel almost betrayed. To me, explicit violence and car stealing in this game does not have a direct effect on our society, criminals are likely to be that way for other reasons, not just because they played a game, otherwise we’d all be doing it. However, a homophobic attack on a character is a whole different matter. It seems to give the message that it is okay to hate gay people and although I don’t think that my boyfriend is now going to become a homophobic bastard, people who are already inclined to think that way would only be encouraged that they are correct and that is what is so worrying.
