It is a video game that transcends its medium to become a bona fide cultural behemoth, attracting the kind of mainstream attention usually reserved for only the biggest cinematic or literary releases. Set in Los Santos, a twisted vision of Los Angeles, V is Grand Theft Auto at its most barbaric; torture, cannibalism and murder featuring in its nihilistic milieu. There are three lead characters that players can control in the game: all male. The women characters are often leered at or cast as nags. I commented to a friend that I was concerned about the treatment of women within the game, that there were few female characters drawn with any depth and that it felt a deliberate decision to avoid an attempt to do so. As I continued on in the game, I started to make my mind up on that reason. As you may have noticed from the byline picture, I am a white bloke. What, you may reasonably ask, do I have to say of any worth on this issue? But what I do know is how wretched I felt as the game often coerced me into actions that degraded women. I felt dirty driving around that paparazzo; the idea of a mini-game that effectively asks you to grope a stripper repels me, I began to feel suffocated by a testosterone-addled life of deviancy. And that, I think, was the point. Grand Theft Auto V is relentlessly misanthropic, holding up a skewed mirror to our entertainment and industries and asking us to peer into the ugly reflection. Nearly all the characters in Los Santos are portrayed as awful people, women are shallow and sidelined, and the men front-and-centre are heartless, psychotic, money-obsessed, philandering bastards. And, no, I'm not comfortable with it. However, perhaps the great tragedy of GTAV is that too much of its audience is comfortable with it. The satirical barbs at its target demographic are too heavy-handed, the industry too much in its adolescence, which leads to many of its male players to revel in its frat-boy humour, rather than feel repelled by it. The video games industry is one that struggles deeply with the treatment of women. Just a brief glance at the Twitter hashtag , which details the struggles women have had in breaking through in the industry, will give you an idea. Though prepare to be thoroughly depressed. The simple fact seems to be that many video game players are simply not ready to be part of that discussion. This was greeted by over 20,000 user comments, a large proportion of which were unequivocally misogynistic and abusive themselves. Their input is worthless. How sad that many people playing video games are desperate to try and shut critical discussion of this type down. This is a vibrant, exciting, emerging interactive medium, yet all too often is stifled by the idiotic braying of its more vocal audience. Games will not be able to take its much coveted place in mainstream culture while these type of people get to dictate anything. Good riddance to them when they are finally cast off. However, I still believe that it would have been an even better game had one of the main characters been a woman. It would have offered another fascinating viewpoint on the brilliantly awful world Rockstar has built and made a statement in the process. One of the wonderful things about modern video games is that new stories can be told through downloadable content. I hope they take it.
