As a parent, I would be very happy with GTA 5 – Reader’s Feature being banned

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GTA 5 screenshot of Trevor
GTA 5 – not for kids (Rockstar Games)

After Major theft car is banned in one country, one reader admits he wouldn’t be upset if the same thing happened here, to protect his son.

Earlier this week there was a news report about the country of Tajikistan Ban Grand Theft Autoas well as Counterattack. This got a lot of patronizing comments from a lot of gamers, but I have to say it doesn’t sound that incomprehensible to me. I don’t know why they banned it, maybe their reasons weren’t good, but as a father of a seven year old son I can totally understand why people would be concerned about the video games their children play.

A reader commented last week on what the average age of players is like Call of duty used to be in my teens. That was certainly my experience and if so now moved on Unpleasant Fortnite and other free-to-play games, then I imagine it’s a completely different and more fun experience. It’s certainly true that most people on GTA Online appear much younger than they should be, judging by the age rating.

As a child you mainly want to be treated as an adult and do all the forbidden things that adults do. Sex and violence in movies and video games is usually a child’s first introduction to many concepts for which he is too young, and I’m not going to say this is completely unhealthy, but there is a line somewhere and in my opinion Grand Theft Auto crosses it .

My son isn’t allowed to play GTA 5, but I’m sure he does with friends and probably behind my back at home. What worries me is that while adults may see it as a parody of the worst of Americana, for a child all that parody and satire goes completely over their heads and they make fun of everything.

The language is as strong as it gets, the treatment of women is horrible (it makes sense that the men are all horrible people, but still) and the violence is brutal and treated as fun and entertaining. Criminal activity, including stealing and drug dealing, is treated as normal and has no moral consequence if there is even a story context when playing GTA Online.

I don’t think I’m prudish when I say I don’t want my seven-year-old to play those kinds of games.

But like I said, he did it. Despite my best attempts to stop him. It’s not even that I want a ban, and I certainly wouldn’t campaign for one, but if it happened I would be perfectly happy. I would immediately sacrifice the ability for me to play the game if it meant kids couldn’t. I don’t think that’s unreasonable and I’m sure many parents would agree.

In today’s world there is virtually no way to stop a child from accessing every form of sex and violence you can imagine, and I don’t even want to think about what kind of porn he might have already seen.

Of course, I’m sure many people will say, ‘It never did me any harm,’ but when parents read this as kids, we had no idea of ​​the sophistication and complexity of GTA 5. Neither did the internet.” It doesn’t exist or only just existed, and extreme content wasn’t nearly as easy to come by.

I have been watching the news over the past few months and it has been made very clear to me that as a society we are not becoming more peaceful or understanding, but quite the opposite. Are video games part of the problem? I don’t know, but I know they don’t help. Especially not GTA 5.

By reader Bors

GTA 5 screenshot

GTA 5 has an age rating of 18 years for a reason (Rockstar Games)

Reader characteristics do not necessarily represent the opinions of GameCentral or Metro.

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