My friend and fellow Screengrabber Scott Von Doviak gets nervous when he watches me play Grand Theft Auto, since I tend to skip the missions and just barrel-ass around Rockstar Games’ big, fake virtual cities in a variety of stolen cars, tanks and cement-mixers, randomly killing as many pedestrians as possible until some Vice City or San Andreas S.W.A.T. sniper puts me down like a rabid dog.
While this kind of videogame behavior may demonstrate uncomfortably revealing things about the darker corners of my id, I’ve never been a proponent of the “video games lead to violence” argument for one simple reason: just like online porn is a release valve (so to speak) for those who don’t have the time, skills, money and/or moral inclination to go out and get some actual sex, violent video games strike me as a fairly harmless method for polite, law-abiding citizens like myself to unleash our pent-up road rage and fury at all the bad drivers, asshole co-workers and neo-conservative Executive Branch turd blossoms we have to suffer in real life. If I were an actual sociopath, I’d be out doing real crimes and/or running for higher office instead of sitting around playing with my computer.
But while the psychological impact of violent video games is debatable, the financial realities are not: with projected sales of $400 million in its first week (according to Nick Lewis of the Canwest News Service), the Suits in Hollywood are worried that all the computer-generated mayhem enthusiasts they’ve been counting on to make the May 2nd release of Iron Man a blockbuster event may instead just hunker down with their Xboxes for a bunch of CGI mayhem starring themselves instead of Robert Downey, Jr.
In his story for Canwest, Lewis quotes somebody named Victor Lucas from something called Electric Playground, who claims, “This will be the first major release in what is considered Hollywood's summer movie period, and if there's any title that could put a dent in box office for a major movie, it's Grand Theft Auto.”
As proof of gaming's potential to affect Hollywood box office, Lewis goes on to note that Ben Stiller’s The Heartbreak Kid may have been harmed in September 2007 by the release of Halo 3 (rather than just being, y’know, a crappy Ben Stiller movie).
And while the results of Iron Man’s bout with Grand Theft Auto IV may ultimately impact the release strategy of future Hollywood movies, we here at The Screengrab can guarantee with some confidence that, no matter the outcome, the preferences of 15-year-old boys will continue to be the firm, guiding force of mainstream American culture well into the foreseeable future.
Whew!