If I remember rightly, and in fairness it has been a very long time since I checked, a lot of Amnesty's work centers on assisting political prisoners with everything like healthcare to helping them communicate with their families to offering legal assistance. Much of their ability to achieve anything relies on their being perceived as politically neutral.
I think that's the point. Next time they ask a dictator to lay off the dissident-maiming, they can point to this and say "we're not singling you out, we criticize western culture too!" It's annoying from our perspective, to be sure, but I'm perfectly willing to suffer through a "vidya gamez r evul!" press release now and then if it means a guy who made the mistake of saying Kim Jong Un isn't perfect gets to keep his balls.
The first paragraph of the article is " Grand Theft Auto V, one of the most expensive computer games ever made, has caused outrage among human rights groups for including a torture scene in which the player must pull teeth and electrocute an unarmed man."
Now this outright says they haven't played it or even fact checked it since it's not and no where near close to pc at the time of writing so whats to say anything else is even remotely correct in it.
By the sounds of it, yeah. That one didn't include outright (and realistic) mutilation from what I remember.
And in fairness to Far Cry 3, there was some rather critical context there in that you were trying to save the victim's life by pretending, and it psychologically fucks the player character up - it's one of the last events before the player character goes completely postal, and it's strongly implied to be one of the most significant ones leading to it.
I haven't and won't be playing GTA V so I can't really judge whether it's all some kind of satirical parody after all, but I would say that with such excessive and realistic[footnote]In that it mirrors Guantanamo Bay both in setting and technique, for example[/footnote] violence and whatnot there should be a very good reason for it.
Just using it as the setup for a relatively tame satire about the FBI and the CIA not liking each other, or a boring S&M reference, probably doesn't cut it.
That's not to say it should be banned (though you shouldn't be letting kids play it), merely that I wouldn't regard it as an effective narrative device, in the same way that the gore in 'Saw #27 ' is ultimately pointless and lazy.
Then after the torture scene there is a huge speech from the protanist about how the torture was unnecessary, wrong, and not a a reliable means of getting information.
This kind of confirms my suspicions that GTA is taking itself too seriously now.
Whilst I can understand that the torture scene was included to make a statement of current-day, real life immoralities I do think that it has very little place in a game that was supposed to be "fun" and not Spec Ops: The Line.
And this whole thing with Amnesty is one thing that I feel should be talked to about them; they are a reasonable organisation, not the fear-mongerers such as Fox News and I do feel that they can understand why Rockstar would implement such a scene.
But I still think that it is not GTA's place to provide such commentary.
...And I think that I will get shit for saying this.
For those who haven't played the game but want context:
The mission takes place in a storyline where the protagonists have to help the FIB extract an informant from the IAA (CIA) because the FIB feels that they are being shortchanged. In the two missions leading up to the torture you are basically told outright that the prisoner is an innocent man who's been abducted by the IAA because he's Azerbaijani and works with electronics (as a stereo/home movie installer).
During the torture sequence it is made amply clear that the prisoner is ready to talk if the interrogator would just ask any proper questions and that it is an overzealous FIB agent and a sadistic protagonist that tortures him anyway. He eventually gives you the information you need and you shoot a guy with the other protagonist in the mission. After the torture mission the news on the radio will inform you that the police and community are baffled why anyone would shoot the target that was singled out under torture (and was singled out as "that guy I installed a stereo system for") since he was a known philanthropist and pillar of the community.
Essentially, the entire mission chain is a big take that at both the US intelligence agencies rivalry, their confirmation bias in singling out people of specific ethnicities and the unreliable methods of getting "information" that they use. The torture scene is visceral and I found it pretty disturbing, which I think was the entire point of it.
As a final note: during the entire torture the victim has a huge crucifix around his neck, as if to further drive home just how misguided the entire thing is.
See this is actually a good thing. It's sending a message and is essentially agreeing with Amnesty in that torture does not provide reliable information. By the sounds of it, a lot of people missed the point (I myself have not actually played the game yet).
Disclaimer: I haven't played the game, but have read the descriptions of the scene given here.
The Guardian article is kind of a mess, as it mixes a lot of different criticisms (violence, torture, misogyny) by a lot of different people or organizations. And frankly most of the criticisms come down to interpretations of events and depictions that seem between subjective (e.g. Jeff Gerstmann: "hardly the biting satire that it felt like in past outings") and plain wrong (e.g. Freedom from Torture: GTA "glamorizes" torture). Basically there seem to be people who interpret the game or parts of it as serious instead of satirical, while i think we can all agree that the game at least is intended as satirical (and understood that way by many players and reviewers). So the question is whether the problem is Rockstar not making the satire clear enough or whether some people are just incapable of seeing the satire that's obviously there. Opinions by people who played the game?
About the scene itself: i wouldn't want to play it, but i don't think that including it is wrong, as it clearly seems to be critical of torture, not endorsing it. Perhaps a warning that very graphic torture controlled by the player is necessary to complete the game would be nice. If anything, it's more honest than games like CoD, as you actually have to confront the horrible details of what's happening and can't just ignore it as it happens in the background.
Huh. So it seems everyone's fine with this, but when another 18+ rated game uses a (fake) rape scene everyone's in uproar asking for it to be taken out. You can't have your "games should be free-speech" cake and eat it too.
What the hell happened to the community? Why are people calling for censorship?
Seriously, I'm all for opposing glorification of torture in media, but the scene in GTA5 is multilayered satire of the current American policy (pointing out how useless it is anyway, the racism in the system, the in-fighting between various agencies etc etc). There isn't anything to oppose here, unless you're a supporter of torture I suppose.
It's not like that movie about the Osama kill-team where it it's subtly suggesting torture is acceptable. It's a take-down.
It's fiction. Bad things are allowed to happen in fiction. Fiction is allowed to misrepresent reality.
I haven't seen the scene, so I don't know if it can be said to glorify or approve of torture, but that's hard to prove at the best of times. There's always someone ready to say, "Oh, it's ironic", (remember Far Cry 3?) then the argument just bogs down into semantics and meaninglessness.
As for protecting the kids from... oh fuck it, not even going to bother. It's an adult rated game. Join the bloody dots.
This is the same argument we've seen a hundred times. Although it's worth noting that here they specifically mention that they are merely expressing disapproval, not calling for censorship or the like.
It's pretty brutal though. Not so much as to what's happening on screen, but to who it's happening to.
You're realistically torturing a guy who not to long ago you snatched away from federal agents who were torturing him themselves. All the while he's begging and pleading. And after a certain point he gives all the info you need, yet still Trevor pulls out his tooth or breaks his kneecap.
During that whole section I tried to pick the "least" painful methods of torture. I'm really not squeamish at all when it comes to videogame violence, but this was definitely one of those "not cool, game" moments, like the slave girl section in GoW3.
Honestly, I think the only reason it's in there is just because Rockstar felt it needed to raise the bar.
Having just played the scene in question, I can tell you the mission is obviously not taking the side of torture. You torture a man who says probably eight times that he would answer any questions if he were actually asked. He helps identify a man who you shoot. That man has done literally nothing. The guy you're torturing just installed his cable and knows what he looks like. The entire thing is clearly supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. The game does this a lot.
Can it really be argued that the depiction (not advocation, as it isn't advocating torture in this case, far as I'm aware) of torture in a videogame is somehow a certain degree more thorny an issue than depicting torture in a passive medium i.e. television, or indeed even literature?
I suppose the interactivity is a relevant element, but ultimately assuming that the above is true also assumes that every scripted event is entirely concurrent with the player's personal ethics or moral compass.
There's nothing wrong with portraying controversial or upsetting events in any creative medium, even an interactive one. However, if your presentation is sloppy, or crude, or exploitative, or ugly, then there's nothing wrong with people vocally criticizing you for it, either. Having not played GTA V, I can't comment on which camp this torture scene falls into. As it's getting so much shit, I suspect it walks the line at best.
They got into trouble because the data was on the retail disk and Rockstar did not disclose its existence to the censor. There was a lot of media fuss over not much, but Rockstar did break the rules.
The torture scene was disclosed to the censor, so Rockstar haven't broken any rules by including it.
There's nothing wrong with portraying controversial or upsetting events in any creative medium, even an interactive one. However, if your presentation is sloppy, or crude, or exploitative, or ugly, then there's nothing wrong with people vocally criticizing you for it, either. Having not played GTA V, I can't comment on which camp this torture scene falls into. As it's getting so much shit, I suspect it walks the line at best.
I think the problem is that it obviously tries to have a message, but it's too blunt in how it handles it. And it could've been way more effective if it chose a slightly different route.
You see, you play this section in two parts; One as the torturer, and the other as the guy who needs to get a job done based on the info provided by the torturer, all of which is happening simultaniously while in contact by phone. As the latter, the longer you hold of finishing the job due to uncertainty, the more this one guy gets tortured. And I remember feeling really bad at what was happening on the other end of the phone due to me not being sure whether I had the right target. But once you switch over to the torturer it just becomes grisly SAW action with little to no meaningful context.
It would've been really effective if they had simply cut out the interactivity of the actual torture and expanded on the other section.
An interesting article here about a mandatory torture scene in GTA V:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/18/grand-theft-auto-5-under-fire-for-graphic-torture-scene
What do you think? I have to say I'm with Amnesty here (apart from the obligatory 'children may see it' nonsense - seriously, why don't they get called out about that? You wouldn't let your 5-year old watch Scarface). I think it's pretty bad to not only put the player in the position of a torturing protagonist, but also to imply that information obtained under torture is reliable.
I stopped watching 24 after it started getting ridiculously torture-happy, and this pretty much decides me on not getting GTA V (not that I was particularly bothered in the first place, I've never enjoyed them much despite the amazing world-building)
Shooting random people in the game is fine, but it's morally wrong for them to have a torture scene?
Yeah they "imply that the information is reliable" even though the ride back he outright says that torture is only for the torturer and that it's not a good way to get reliable information.
It's good that you side with Amnesty, you seem incapable of educating yourself and forming your own opinion so why not latch onto someone that seems to know more than you.
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