Yes, and that's your point of view. And mine is the opposite of that view. That's the freedom of speech…

I don't really understand why you're bringing ethics into this. You don't HAVE to lasso the woman and tie her to the traintracks you CHOOSE to do it and if you do then the law comes after you. The ethics are already there, you perform a bad act and you get punished for it.

Also it might be worth noting that the idea of the achievement itself is a reference to the stereotypical bad guy act from old silent movies. It's just a funny little thing to do in game, remember all you're doing is interacting with algorithms.

terbas said:

@JCMoorehead:However, I don't have much to say about game ethics anymore because whenever someone speaks about it, he faces ferocious critics (not everyone speaks about the issue with a moderate tone like yours).

I have to do a radio piece and the guy I work with is very against violent video games, even soldier vs soldier ones so I do try to approach the whole thing maturely. As you can probably gather I have no issue with violent video games like GTA but my belief is they should be played by mature people and parents need to be educated more on ratings systems. One of the things I try to do in my radio piece and my own website is include sections for parents so they understand why a game is rated as such so they can make an informed judgement on whether or not to buy the game for their children.

Most people (fanboys) become angry and begin to swear and I believe that even this fact is the proof of violent games making people more violent than they usually are. And immediately, some other -more moderate- people begin to talk about democratic rights and oppression.

Those people do have a tendancy to ruin the debate because it gets into an endless cycle. There is a point though and you make it below. What is the limit to what we can really do? We mention the violence in games like Red Dead and GTA but what about a game like Oblivion? Or games where morality is a heavy feature like Mass Effect, Fable or Knights Of The Old Republic? Where if you want to be bad you can but there are consequences? This is the same as in Red Dead or GTA but the consequences are more severe in those games or it has more of an effect.

However, soldiers fighting against soldiers is understandable to a great extent, but, smashing the brains of an old lady with a pipe, stabbing or shooting her can't be OK. I understand, you have a choice of not doing it. But most kids and youngsters do it with pleasure. And repeating images become more and more natural for a person as time goes by. In the end, people with a low perception of reality may even end up as criminals.

The issue here is there is no real proof of this. We don't actually know if the repeating of those images will cause them to make that jump, and if they are going to carry out those acts who is to say they wouldn't have done so anyway without the video game to prompt them. Without jumping into using historical figures to justify the argument some people are immature from the beginning and are likely to turn out bad whether or not they play a GTA, Call Of Duty, Battlefield or no video games at all.

Of course, people like you, like us, will never be affected by those images, but a generation who likes movies like Kick-ass or Wanted for they are just bloody and gory is on the way (those movies were not good as "movies", and that's my opinion). And companies like Rockstar have their considerable consideration in this picture. Today, violence sells. Tomorrow, it becomes a part of the daily life.

Is it not true though that violence has always sold? We see things like Kick-Ass which yes has violence and foul language and is recent but we go back through the years and we see this is hardly a new thing. We only need to go back to the video nasties of the 70s to see that, hell have a look at something like A Clockwork Orange as an example.

I think unfortunately this debate can go on and on and on, we can argue freedoms, rights, maturity, whatever until the end of time but one thing is clear that me and you will agree on and I hope gamers in general can agree on. Games such as Red Dead Redemption are for a mature audience. It is important for parents if they're buying a mature game for their child to be informed about the game and its rating. I don't think they should be restricted because that causes more trouble then good but there needs to be more awareness, more information and education surrounding the rating systems worldwide.

@JCMoorehead: Thank you for your detailed reply. Yeah, I also think that parents should be aware of which games their children are playing, a point that we both agree on. I wish we were living in such a world. But I often see kids aged about 10 to 15 years playing GTA, Killzone, Battlefield. Responsible parents? They are so scarce in this world. Anyway, I hope this will change someday and M rated games will only be played by mature people.