GTA 4 OUTRAGE!!!

Finally the highly anticipated game has arrived but why would one game bring such contraversy? Here is a post from Rory Cellen-Jones about how the industry seem to change their tone about the way they think about the new generation of gaming when they open thier minds just a tad.

GTA - the outrage fades
Rory Cellan-Jones
29 Apr 08, 09:08 GMT
May 1996, - and as a reporter on the BBC's business programme Working Lunch, I spend a morning filming at a games business in Dundee. The firm is called DMA and has made its name with a game called Lemmings, which has sold over 20 million copies. But the team of developers is now putting the finishing touches to a big new project, a game which involves car chases, robberies and assorted mayhem in a fictional American city.
We chat with the software developers, film the motion-capture team, and beam it all out live to a lunchtime audience. Then, as we drive our satellite truck away I take a call from a journalist on a tabloid newspaper. He's seen our broadcast and wants a contact number for DMA. The next day his paper features one of the first shock-horror stories about Grand Theft Auto, the forthcoming violent video game which encourages criminal behaviour by the young and must be banned.
Looking back at those pictures today, it seems extraordinary that the crude 2-D graphics of the original game could have been considered so dangerous - a bit like accusing Cluedo of causing a spate of murders in the library with lead piping. But, as we know, that was just the beginning. Throughout its history, GTA in its various manifestations has attracted controversy like no other game series - and that has probably done the franchise no harm at all.
But here's a funny thing. With the arrival of Grand Theft Auto IV, the mood seems to have changed. This is ten times more realistic, immersive and interactive than the original version - and so, if you believe that games can warp young minds, that much more dangerous. But the chorus of anger and accusation has faded. This launch is being seen more as an economic and cultural event rather than an opportunity for another row between the pro and anti-censorship campaigns.
Perhaps that's because, in the wake of the Byron review, we're all more aware of the video games ratings system - and there's an understanding that an 18 game like Grand Theft Auto is aimed at an adult gaming audience that might equally go out and buy 18-rated movies without anyone making a fuss.
But maybe it's also a sign that gaming is entering the mainstream. Until recently, most journalists knew little or nothing about video games, seeing them as something acne-scarred teenage boys did in darkened rooms between bouts of mugging and car-theft. Now a generation which grew up with games can take a more measured view. For the first time, many parents are themselves experienced gamers, and so the generation gap is closing.
Don't expect the arguments over video games content and its effect on young minds to disappear completely. But maybe the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV marks the moment when we can all be just a bit more grown-up about games.