Everyone’s Two Favorite Topics: GTA IV and Pedophilia

No, I still haven’t played GTA IV, don’t ask me to explain why. Apparently, though, some guy who has, and seemingly doesn’t have a degree in Psychology, any experience in law enforcement, and has never read Johnathan Swift, was seriously offended by a joke in this adult-centric video game. The man theorizes that people will become pedophiles not by playing GTA IV, but by stumbling across a fake, FBI-seized porn website within the game called littlelacysurprisepageant.com, which isn’t any more suspicious than actual legitimate porn site URLs that I probably can’t list off here. Needless to say, the source of this story was a tabloid, Britain’s The Star.

Basically, what this boils down to is that video game controversy is selling papers and gathering web hits. The Star capitalized on a story that isn’t news-worthy and has no backing. Baseless journalism. Jason Deschoolmeester (that is a hell of a name), 23 (23 and with a daughter? Call me old fashioned…), of South Wales: “I was looking on the internet for cheats and the name of this caught my eye as my daughter is called Lacey. This crosses the line. The makers have obviously sat around and discussed putting this in, and it’s not on. What will they do next?” I’m no Sigmund Freud, but this guy’s problem seems to steam from the fact that he connected the name of his daughter with something sexual in nature.

Two weeks later, Jim Sterling also reported on something involving GTA IV and Pedophiles. This story actually has a legitimate bit of news behind it, though. Instead of people thinking that video games are going to TURN people into pedophiles, Michigan police have been using video games (including GTA IV) in order to identify dangerous individuals before they attack a child. These police realize that LOTS of different people play video games, and some of those are children and some of those are pedophiles. And, with live gaming giving them the ability to interact with each other, their decision is an intelligent one.