GTA V - Amnesty condemns torture scene

[vectormage]

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)

@Flatfrog & Rockstar...I've been a huge fan of GTA and Rockstar ever since the very first one with the top down view on ps1 (I believe it was)! As much as I hate to say it, I must agree as well with Amnesty with regard to the 'mandatory player controlled torture scene'. The game in general is what it is...and watching a CG of that would have been accepted as the 'norm' for GTA at this stage of the game-no pun intended, but being forced to "DIY" the deed of torture was in this gamer's opinion "going just a bit too far".

It is indeed a 'mature' rated game which is known (and so successful) for its violence, sexual content and nudity but even the guys at Rockstar should be better judges of what's out of bounds! While previous versions had explicit content this one is by far the "King of the Hill"!! The warnings do not mention FULL FRONTAL NUDITY nor PLAYABLE GRAPHIC TORTURE VIOLENCE. They might as well have made the "paparazzi anal sex" scene and Trevor's opening sex scene playable as well! Add to that a stripper taking you "to her place" is TOTALLY CENSORED!!! WHAT THE HELL- Did the developer on THAT PORTION suddenly grow a conscience??

Interesting to have "torture" playable in such detail, but have only 1 strip club (when there were actually two in San Andreas) with FULLY CLOTHED strippers (unless you pay for a private dance)! Somewhere in the creation of this overall great game, somebody lost site of what really should (or shouldn't) be an ADDED OBSCENITY. Hell, even the hookers are more protected from violent actions in this one than in any previous version! Here's a hint - more nudity, not so bad - whether cut scene or player controlled; but over the top torture, glorified rape, child porn, incest, (and since animals are in the game now) beastiality.... that's kindof OFF LIMITS GUYS!!! Get a Grip!!

P.S. All that being said....I still love GTA and Rockstar, but make better choices on content guys!

 

[vectormage]

the fact people are debating this is extremely entertaining, more entertaining than the mild torture scene. if you think Trevor is bad, you don't want to know what I would have done being gifted an undocumented and told to just make sure he disappears pretty much, let alone after said undocumented tells me that he has a family and where they live while I have his conditioned trust.

This is a questionable response, not to mention it expresses strong racist undertone. You seem to be a troubled individual, the exact fuel for the arguments Amnesty and "liberals" are posing. That statement alone makes you a perfect candidate for psychiatric evaluation. Not meant as an insult, full respect for your freedom of speech - but that opinion is definitely suspect!

As for whether the torture was mild or not is not what I feel the concern or outrage is about. I feel it's more focused on the specificity and detail put into THAT portion as a PLAYABLE scene, versus say making the Helicopters a little easier to fly while SHOOTING at something! (Lord knows that needs adjustment) Just a thought...

 

[Saelune]

You're playing a bad guy. Hell, even PETA understood that with Overlord II's seal beating. "You're supposed to be evil, so clubbing seals is saying its an evil thing to do"

 

[Arina Love]

i enjoyed torture scene really highlights character of Trevor.

 

[Ty Woodard]

You're playing a bad guy. Hell, even PETA understood that with Overlord II's seal beating. "You're supposed to be evil, so clubbing seals is saying its an evil thing to do"

obviously you took what I wrote too seriously. it's a video game, meant to be crazy, and not so serious. it's like being able to interact with an over the top 80's action flick, that's what the games are to me. I don't have bodies in my basement. lol. not yet anyways. (don't take that seriously). If as you mentioned though in one of your posts, there is cp & bestiality (which I have not seen yet int he game, no sheep effing and the daughter is clearly a lazy stay-at-home 18 to 20er same with the son) then that is a bit over the top. unless the shiz is not shown, and even trevor beats down on somebody. and the bestiality would be hilarious if done like the stripper or ursala scenes, and not having the player involved in it only the sounds of happy rednecks. otherwise, a bit effed. I've yet to see either of that stuff in it, but if i do, that will have been pushing it unless there is relevance to the plot and some beatdowns involved possibly. when dealing with the government, the torture was exaggerated to lampoon all the war on terrorism stuff stuff. the nothing-gained-from-it at the end of the sequence was to excuse the player's involvement, sort of a GI JOE PBA of sorts, GTA Style.

 

[Addertellstales]

Snip

I think we've found our psychopath.

Anyway, not a lot of deep input from me, but... Everyone keeps saying you break his kneecaps. I could have sworn you swing the wrench into a far more delicate area that then bleeds horribly. Is this a difference in the UK version or am I misremembering?

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Snip

I think we've found our psychopath.

Anyway, not a lot of deep input from me, but... Everyone keeps saying you break his kneecaps. I could have sworn you swing the wrench into a far more delicate area that then bleeds horribly. Is this a difference in the UK version or am I misremembering?

Heh. I remember it being the leg, and I'm in the UK. Memory is funny. The article says "sledgehammer", I don't remember seeing a sledgehammer. Did I miss it? Or was it just not there?

What? The entire mission, the other characters are questioning how shaky the info is.

And then after, there's a little rant about how great and effective torture is by the crazy character which is so openly satirical and conveying to the (paying attention, thinking) player that its useless, that I feel like Amnesty are just making fun of us by suggesting otherwise.

I agree. I think the satire is obvious. As I remember it, the agents are willing to execute someone based on so little information that it even makes the career criminals uncomfortable (except for Trevor... obviously).

I agree that children shouldn't see this, but I don't think the satire misses the mark. I thought it was openly very damning of the whole process.

 

[SSJBlastoise]

The information wasn't reliable since it was just a vague description of a guy. For all I know, I shot the wrong person afterwards.

Well, assuming you followed the given descriptions of the guy you shoot the "correct" person, well the person who was named by the torture victim. This is because listening to the radio after the mission says "whatever his name was, was killed at a house party yesterday". While it doesn't mean you actually killed an enemy of the state you did technically kill the right guy, given the name.

Sorry GTA, I'm squeamish and pulling a man's teeth out is not something I signed on for.

While I'm not 100% sure, I don't think you need to do all of the methods, you could choose the wrench (or whatever you believed to be the lowest impact method) for all the times needed if you are only squeamish about pulling out a tooth. This is just a guess though because I chose to use all of them to see what happened.

Amnesty International is pretty much like PETA: whatever they say, they do it for publicity. But they only choose easy targets that are already controversial anyway. Like video games.

I'm not sure if this is implying PETA don't do this but if it is, you're wrong. PETA made a pretty big fuss about Pokémon being a game about breeding animals to fight and only fight. They even made a game where the Pokémon end up fighting Ash and some other characters. I think they may have complained about the possibility of there being whaling in Assassin's Creed 4 (though, this one might have been people predicting PETA would).

Anyway, not a lot of deep input from me, but... Everyone keeps saying you break his kneecaps. I could have sworn you swing the wrench into a far more delicate area that then bleeds horribly. Is this a difference in the UK version or am I misremembering?

Heh. I remember it being the leg, and I'm in the UK. Memory is funny. The article says "sledgehammer", I don't remember seeing a sledgehammer. Did I miss it? Or was it just not there?

Seems like it changes where you hit depending on when you choose to do it. I remember hitting him in the groin and I looked it up and the video that came up showed Trevor hitting his arm.

OT: Seems like people are quick to make judgments without watching the whole mission or without context which certainly helps.

 

[SSJBlastoise]

Actually, I said that PETA and Amnesty are pretty alike in the way they work.

They only choose targets that are certain to gather attention and don't pose any risk for backlash.

Attacking video games and whale hunters is easy, there are no powerful lobbies that dissect their accusations. You can bash them like crazy and there's no risk an angry mob will riot in front of your headquarter.

Taking on barbaric religious slaughter rituals that consist of cutting the throats of fully concious animals and let them bleed to death hanging upside down would be something worth the time of people demanding the ethical treatment of animals. But they don't touch that topic with a stick because they'd have to deal with the jewish and islamic lobbies.

The persecution of christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East is no secret, yet Amnesty doesn't do shit about it. In fact they deny it even happens, despite thousands of videos and reports proving it. I guess taking on powerful theocratic countries isn't as easy than complaining about international terrorists not being cuddled enough in US prisons.

So yeah, these "organizations" are nothing but feel-good-clubs for wealthy people that want to calm their conscience.

Thought so, didn't mean to sound condescending or anything. I completely agree with you though. You can also just look at how PETA promote themselves, they always show the cute animals being hurt but I haven't really heard about them promoting ways to remove a snake or something from your backyard (though I don't really see PETA doing anything because there isn't much, if any, presence in Australia lol).

Anyway, seems like I just misinterpreted your first comment.

 

[orangeban]

I'm not really sure why Rockstar included that scene. I mean, it's probably going to ruin a lot of people's fun, right? You go from wacky zany antics to torture, that's pretty jarring. Rockstar is way too proud of their satire honestly.

 

[GoaThief]

but also to imply that information obtained under torture is reliable.

I've just come away from playing that scene, it's pretty shocking and brutal (my other half absolutely hated it and almost left the room) - but I didn't see the part where it's implied that the information obtained is reliable. The running joke was that the information was sketchy at best and directly afterwards even the player character who conducted the torture says as much and lets the man live even after he was ordered to kill him.

The double standard that gets me is the sex. If it were as graphic as the violence was I'd put a shedload of money on it being condemned to a greater degree by many more people.

 

[Hazy]

What? The entire mission, the other characters are questioning how shaky the info is.

And then after, there's a little rant about how great and effective torture is by the crazy character which is so openly satirical and conveying to the (paying attention, thinking) player that its useless, that I feel like Amnesty are just making fun of us by suggesting otherwise.

^ Bingo. Did you people miss the tirade Trevor spews afterwards? It's satirical as fuck, highlighting just how terrible of a method torture really is when it comes to extrapolating information.

Also, aren't you able to use nothing but the same torture method the entire time? So, it's as brutal as you want it to be. Shame on you if you decide to pull a man's tooth out.

 

[Tony2077]

You're playing a bad guy. Hell, even PETA understood that with Overlord II's seal beating. "You're supposed to be evil, so clubbing seals is saying its an evil thing to do"

considering some of the things i've heard about peta that seem hypocritical

 

[white_wolf]

I'm fine with me as the player being tortured like in MGS but when they want you to torture a character in order to get a story across I hate it even if its emotional torture and toying to get it done I hate it. I will admit I haven't seen this games potrayl of it but I made the mistake of going to see Saw without knowing all that much about it beyond two guys trapped in a room thinking there would be some gore and scare tactics but not all the torture and boy that was a mistake! I don't buy the video game of saw either and I hope games never strive to reach that type of unnecessary violence. If that's what some publishes want to do then go the Japanese route and make a new genre for it over there they've got twisted freak games so if the game developers want violence porn games make it be a genre and away from normal action titles.

I also wish they'd make torture apart of the games warnings like gore, nudity, and drug use already are if they aren't going to make a new genere for it this way no buyer surprise as the term extreme violence and gore is open to each player's and non gamer's interpretation of this broad word. Maybe make the rating in two forms so G-Torture (game) = Torture done to the main lead by game npcs. Games like MGS fall here or P-Torture (plot) = Torture done by the main character so as to advance the plot in this way the plot will not continue until the torture is done by the player on the npc by hearing of it only I think GTAV falls into this category.

 

[LetalisK]

For those who haven't played the game but want context:

Why did they call it IAA? I get FIB as a sucker punch, but IAA doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

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)

Why not go... You know condemning real torture. You would think that with Syria, and Egypt, they would have better things to do.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

For those who haven't played the game but want context:

Why did they call it IAA? I get FIB as a sucker punch, but IAA doesn't make sense to me.

International Affairs Agency, apparently. If you say it fast enough it sounds kind of like CIA I suppose. I don't entirely get it either.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I saw the scene on YouTube, It was painful to watch. It made me hate Trevor even more.

 

[FoxKitsune]

In the current story I'm writing a character tortures another, and I couldn't bring myself to write the scene, but rather did the before and after cop out. The thing is, without looking up any examples I feel confident in saying we've seen torture and similar dark themes explored in other mediums before. It really does seem like GTAV is getting condemned because-

A) It's GTA, a series that makes itself a target based on it's content and general premise, and
B) It's a videogame, which despite the industry's best efforts is still looked down on by some as a lesser artistic medium, and therefore less deserving of tackling these issues.

Cards on the table, I've not played the torture scene yet. I'm not far in, literally just got Michael but am taking it slow while trying to get work done. That said, I'm fairly certain the scene's going to disturb me, and I darn well hope it does. That's what I want from a GTA game in the same way that I want to be scared when I watch a horror movie, or I want a comedy to make me laugh. GTA is a game you should be able to go into with the expectation that it's going to make you feel really uncomfortable at some point, because at it's very core it's supposed to be a hideous, over the top parody of all humanity's worst qualities.

 

[TheKrigeron]

Here's an idea, Everytime you comment post *PLAYED THAT PART* or *DIDN'T PLAY THAT PART* at the beginning of the post, to not get the wrong idea