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ccampb31's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC)
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| [September 28, 2011 06:17:53 AM]
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Today I played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the last time. While there are many more modern sandbox-style games on the market, San Andreas will remain a classic. It is perhaps the most well-known and iconic game in a series that prides itself on pushing the limits of open-world gameplay.
Overall it’s a good game, but it’s easy to see why there is so much controversy surrounding the series. Grand Theft Auto will always draw negative attention to itself, and perhaps that is part of its allure. It provides a consequence-free environment for us to experiment with our moral boundaries and explore what could almost be termed sick curiosities. I don’t believe that this has any meaningful connection to our actions in real life, as it doesn’t require a high degree of maturity to realize the game is just that – a game. It seems almost laughable to say that someone killing police and military personnel in a game is suddenly going to become a serial killer in real life.
However, one point that is somewhat more valid is that such games desensitize us to real violence. I think that this is true, but only to a certain extent. Over the years, killing hundreds of thousands of virtual characters probably has some effect on the way we react to such acts in real life. This isn’t to say that people stop caring, but it tends to reduce the amount of shock and disgust we experience upon hearing of similar crimes in the news. I don’t think we become majorly desensitized though, as people retain their morals even if their tolerance threshold when they hear about these crimes is raised slightly. Even if the initial revulsion is not as strong as it may have been without prolonged exposure to this material, any decisions made in real life are unlikely to be negatively influenced by virtual violence.
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| [September 27, 2011 03:32:28 PM]
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I played for a few hours today, and I started off by going through some more of the story missions. After a while though, I started to get a bit bored of the story and decided to spend some time just messing around in the classic GTA style. After getting into a few massive police chases, I looked up some cheat codes for the game.
As I suspected, there was a fairly long list of codes that could do anything from make me invincible to spawn whatever vehicle I could possibly want. I quickly became unstoppable and was able to wreak havoc on a ridiculous scale.
It soon became clear that while they were already at a disadvantage, the in-game characters stood absolutely no chance against me when I used cheat codes. This led me to wonder what the ethical ramifications of using these codes were, since it is undeniably cheating. I came to the conclusion that since I wasn’t playing against a real person, it didn’t matter. I don't think that cheating against a virtual character is morally wrong because even though you are cheating, you aren't cheating against anyone so no one gets hurt.
Also, the codes were purposely included in the game and the developers expect players to make use of them at least occasionally. However, if I had been playing the game online against at least one human opponent, I couldn't morally justify the use of cheat codes.
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| [September 26, 2011 11:49:37 AM]
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While I have played GTA: San Andreas briefly in the past, but never looked at it in the context of an ethics class. After the game started up, I saw the airport scene and was promptly told to steal a bike. I guess that’s one way to get rid of any questions as to what type of game this is. Something which I found interesting is that even though I know it’s ethically wrong to just steal someone’s bike, I instantly did it once I was told to. It seems like the game’s mission log is almost an authority figure which absolves me from any guilt I would feel. Not that there’s much guild to feel in a virtual world, but that’s debatable.
About fifteen minutes into the game, the basic story and game-play had been outlined for me and it seemed time to explore the game world. Even without the mission log to guide me, it seemed that the things which were most fun were completely illegal and morally wrong in real life. Perhaps this is due to the fact that in the game world, I can try things which I would never do in real life. Either way, it will be interesting to see if my decisions change as I progress through the game.
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