Rockstar has always wanted to be edgey without “being political” and I think this is unfortunately the natural end result of that being applied to an ever bigger and bigger business model, an empty mirror of the worst of US culture without any courage even to grapple with it.
The difference between Charlie Kirk and a Charlie Kirk community mission in GTA is Charlie Kirk advocated for real violence, harassment and oppression with his platform whereas GTA is a fantasy video game.
I think this has to do more with real world names. In both GTA V and GTA Online you kill the equivalent of big CEOs, with the original singleplayer having an early mission where you kill Temu Mark Zuckerberg with a phone bomb, and in Online during the Doomsday Heist you kill Temu Elon Musk with a jetpack armed with missiles.
Fair, that is an important difference I just think you would be much harder pressed to prove in court GTA has meaningfully increased hateful behavior, in comparison Charlie Kirk was entirely optimized for actuating that as a media persona.
I agree any kind of targeted media that uses real names is a different level ethically, but I can’t ignore the context that in terms of real world impact here Charlie Kirk did so much harm vs. GTA which has always been a silly video game series intent on entertaining people.
Rockstar has always wanted to be edgey without “being political” and I think this is unfortunately the natural end result of that being applied to an ever bigger and bigger business model, an empty mirror of the worst of US culture without any courage even to grapple with it.
The difference between Charlie Kirk and a Charlie Kirk community mission in GTA is Charlie Kirk advocated for real violence, harassment and oppression with his platform whereas GTA is a fantasy video game.
I think this has to do more with real world names. In both GTA V and GTA Online you kill the equivalent of big CEOs, with the original singleplayer having an early mission where you kill Temu Mark Zuckerberg with a phone bomb, and in Online during the Doomsday Heist you kill Temu Elon Musk with a jetpack armed with missiles.
Fair, that is an important difference I just think you would be much harder pressed to prove in court GTA has meaningfully increased hateful behavior, in comparison Charlie Kirk was entirely optimized for actuating that as a media persona.
I agree any kind of targeted media that uses real names is a different level ethically, but I can’t ignore the context that in terms of real world impact here Charlie Kirk did so much harm vs. GTA which has always been a silly video game series intent on entertaining people.