GTA 5 Torture Mission (debate inside and no big spoilers hopefully)

[Kafein]

So there has been a lot of noise about this lately. I personally played this mission and I have to say this was probably the most uncomfortable a game has ever managed to get me. Lots of anti-torture associations such as Amnesty have heavily condemned the game for this, but I really can't understand their reasons. To me, the whole point of this mission is that it shows how disgusting torture is as close as real life as possible. The player is forced to play as Trevor and carry out various kinds of torture "techniques" through slow QTEs while visibly enjoying it (Trevor I mean). The player knows that the person being tortured is innocent and doesn't know anything useful (abducted for being Azerbaidjani and installing home cinemas), just to get a description of a guy that hasn't done anything wrong either. The guy is also willing to talk from the beginning but you torture him anyway. There is zero reason not to feel empathy for "Mr. K" being tortured, and it seems that fact just gets ignored in the heated discussions and articles about it. It seems the understanding of non-gamers is that everything you do in a videogame is enjoyable in a primary and direct form, because they seem to think players will automatically enjoy torturing virtual people when they are forced to do so, thus banalizing torture. Trust me, this mission isn't enjoyable at all.

To me it is mind-boggling that the reaction to it is basically "Showing torture is bad" instead of being "Hell this could legally happen to me tomorrow and nobody would say anything". Especially for American citizens. If anti-torture associations wanted to raise awareness about the very real huge issues with torture, I don't know how it could be done better than with this mission in GTA 5.

[Vibe]

Up next from the media: Tortures are caused by video games

[BASNAK]

Haven't played GTV V yet. But I remember playing Getaway as a kid and it had some torture scenes which was really disturbing.

[Molly]

Which CoD part was it where you made the guy eat glass from a broken window or something...

Sure as hell didn't enjoy that part and tbh... I could easily play games without those kind of scenes, no matter the game.

[zagibu]

Media: Torture cool in Tarantino movies, but evil in computer games.

[Nightmare798]

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[Xant]

That thinking is deeply flawed. "Murderer" is not a profession. Playing a fighting game can make you want to go out and fight, playing an NFL game can make you want to go out and play football, playing a surgeon game can make you want to become a surgeon, playing a cooking game can make you want to cook...

Following that logic, GTA is indeed very bad. It's a good thing, then, that the logic is also flawed.

[Bittersteel]

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When has anyone ever said it would make you a murderer?

That thinking is deeply flawed. "Murderer" is not a profession. Playing a fighting game can make you want to go out and fight, playing an NFL game can make you want to go out and play football, playing a surgeon game can make you want to become a surgeon, playing a cooking game can make you want to cook...

Following that logic, GTA is indeed very bad. It's a good thing, then, that the logic is also flawed.

I know it was a kid in america that killed her grandmother or something cause he played GTA. It's a game for 18+ and it's the parents fault for buying it. If you could provide some information about someone that is over 18 and has gone out on a killing spree because of GTA please do so, would be interesting to read. If you are so sick so you go out killing people because of a game you should sit in lockdown 24/7.

[Nightmare798]

When has anyone ever said it would make you a murderer?

the point is that some people think that this could make some people torturers, when infact it is same bullshit as when jack thompson said that gta franchise can make you a murderer.

[Bittersteel]

Yeah i noticed on recent comment ^^

[Nightmare798]

When has anyone ever said it would make you a murderer?


I know it was a kid in america that killed her grandmother or something cause he played GTA. It's a game for 18+ and it's the parents fault for buying it. If you could provide some information about someone that is over 18 and has gone out on a killing spree because of GTA please do so, would be interesting to read. If you are so sick so you go out killing people because of a game you should sit in lockdown 24/7.

there is no real evidence that the kid murdered his gm because he was playing gta. its same as if microsoft was deemed guilty for WTC because their simulator lets people crash into buildings.

[Bittersteel]

*facepalm*

There is so much wrong in that comment.

First of all, i never said GTA was to blame. And to compare GTA with a freaking simulator is just stupid. The kid murdered his grandmother after he had played GTA, all his fault. But GTA contains violence and people shooting eachother, does microsofts simulators do that? No. Quite the big different, so don't compare it as microsoft would be guilty cause i never said rockstar was.

[Nightmare798]

That thinking is deeply flawed. "Murderer" is not a profession. Playing a fighting game can make you want to go out and fight, playing an NFL game can make you want to go out and play football, playing a surgeon game can make you want to become a surgeon, playing a cooking game can make you want to cook...

Following that logic, GTA is indeed very bad. It's a good thing, then, that the logic is also flawed.

you say that my logic is flawed because murderer is not a proffesion and that these games can make people go out and become those who they play as in these games.

the problem is that most players play games so they can have fun at competing and completing objectives, and not because they enjoy cooking or murdering.
i for example not play games to see gallons of blood or guts, i play games to have fun competing or to be creative.

ofc some people will play those games so they can murder people, but they are psychopaths to begin with, and not because they are playing those games.

if anything, your logic is flawed.

[Bittersteel]

you say that my logic is flawed because murderer is not a proffesion and that these games can make people go out and become those who they play as in these games.

the problem is that most players play games so they can have fun at competing and completing objectives, and not because they enjoy cooking or murdering.
i for example not play games to see gallons of blood or guts, i play games to have fun competing or to be creative.

ofc some people will play those games so they can murder people, but they are psychopaths to begin with, and not because they are playing those games.

if anything, your logic is flawed.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Lt_Anders]

That thinking is deeply flawed. "Murderer" is not a profession. Playing a fighting game can make you want to go out and fight, playing an NFL game can make you want to go out and play football, playing a surgeon game can make you want to become a surgeon, playing a cooking game can make you want to cook...

Following that logic, GTA is indeed very bad. It's a good thing, then, that the logic is also flawed.

Going to step in here. Recently, most research on video games and their pyschosocial health has been thrown out by several goverments in the world. The US supreme court, said in 2007, most of what the media and research says concerning the likelihood of committing an act based on video games is completely false, and a large majority of data is biased to approve an agenda of restricting video games.

Look it up, it's very intersting. There is close to 25 scholarly journals relating to this(before the supreme court tossed most of it aside) and even then the data was very inconclusive in some, and misleading in others.

So. Any time you hear: X plays games therefore X will likely do Y cause of games, ignore the commentator immediately. In most instances, the people who represent other facets of the crime(In America, the NRA is a BIG proponent of Games = Violence mentality) try to spin it on another type of media/thing to draw attention from theirs.(Like I said, This is American Centric, as you see this happen a lot more in America than elsewhere, and I only have my data from American sources.)

Had to do a write up on the stuff recently(IE data Aggregation). Was hell to do, but interesting what I learned.

If you wish to learn yourself(I took all my refrences read/used, only 25% are related to subject at hand. Rest are about other health effects of games):

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All this was done as part of my Masters Program.