Is GTA satire?

I think it's a bit premature to say if you don't like something, don't play it.
I like parts of GTA, I thing the world building is phenomenal, the sense of scale and freedom is just right (particularly in 5). But I don't like the cringey satire or unlikeable characters.

It's an issue for people who aren't teenage boys or the lowest common denominator. People shouldn't have to put up with everything being made for one specific demographic.

Then don't buy and complain about products that aren't made for you?

Why is it seriously a problem? Don't play games you feel are not meant for your demographic.

Or are you seriously complaining about how you are not the target demographic and that offends you?

So long as teenage boys are a large market, most games are going to be made for them, because that makes money.


That really is the most entitled bull-**** I have ever herd a person say, its ludicrous.

I'm saying it's ludicrous that you should defend the idea of "oh, but Teenage boys need their games". And I don't think that people should be complacent with "most games [being] made for them", because that leads to stagnation in the industry. People need to stop being "okay" with games having poor writing, because it can be done better, and people need to stop targeting "Only" the 16-25y/o male demographic because that's not been the sole definition of gamer since... ever, and severely limits your stories.

I'm also not saying GTA should be totally overhauled, it just needs better writing direction. I'm a transgender woman, most games -aren't- made for me, but that doesn't hold me off playing - I don't even find GTA remotely offensive, just cheap and lazy. Which is a shame because as said before I feel particularly with the PC/NxtGen versions they really nailed it from a technical and visual point of view.

Teenage boys don't need the games, no, but they are willing to pay for games, thus making them a good chunck of the market.

Yes the writing could be better, as well as another million things about the game could be this and that.

And being ok with 'bad writing' has got to be a joke hasn't it? Some people really love the story in these games, and play it just for that, to say it has bad writing is to say that YOU don't like the writing, not that the writing is bad entirely.

The way games are made for a mass audience is because that mass audience will pay for it, not because that all there is, there are hundreds of games released every month, and just because GTA is one of the largest out there right now, it's the reason why the gaming industry needs to change to, for some reason, make games for a smaller audience because they don't appeal directly to you?

That is retarded, we are capitalists, we make products as cheaply and shitty as we can until people don't buy them any more, and THEN we improve them. Because that how it works, businesses make the cheapest product they can for the most profits.

The reason why GTA might not live up to your standards of writing is because the GTA games don't need it, they will sell millions of copys based on the gameplay alone, and based on the series prestige.

This doesn't need to be marked out as a witch hunt against games that are directed towards teenagers, who are as valid a audience as you or me, this needs to be a discussion on why people would even bother making games in the large markets for anything other then their largest demographic customers.

Yeah, im sure they could make a 20 times better game, but why bloody bother? That won't make a profit, that isn't capitalist.


Am I ok with GTA's supposedly shitty writing? You bet your *** I am, I think the storys are nice and fun, always have been, and if anything they are actually getting more serious and real as the series goes on.

Ultimately, GTA will likely never focus on the things like story and writing so long as it's as popular as it is right now, because right now, the majority of people why buy the game are people who don't care about the story, only the looks and gameplay.

And there is never and will never be anything wrong with that.

4 was a new engine. It was a good engine, just too "new", they had to strip functionality from older ones to add graphics and physics.

I am sure Uber knows the likes of that with their understanding of game design. Every other Assassin's Creed does the same thing. Newer engine, strips some older gameplay mechanics. Unity is supposed to be one of those "generations", but it sounds like it still kicks ***, and I bet it's predecessors will kick *** too.

GTA = most definitely satire

The column Rich Stanton wrote about this is complete garbage full of invalid reasoning, but lets just focus on the bit that was quoted in the first post of this thread

1. So if you don't actually go after a specific person, it can't be satire? I call Bullshit on this one.
2.GTA sure as hell satirizes movements and / or social problems, it just does it in a very in your face kind of way, satire can be very subtle, but it can also be quite obvious. The danger with something being that obvious however, is that there will always be 'self-declared intellectuals' who mistake it for teenage humour.
3. And here mr Stanton exposes his own flaw, HE doesn't or cannot think about what happens in GTA so it cannot be satire. He is a ' professional writer' on a 'professional site', gets paid to write this garbage, and yet..... he can't think of the most obvious thing in GTA V which could make you think.

And I'm talking about the torture mission here people, in this mission you are the jury, judge and executioner of a suspected terrorist. All the information on which this suspicion is based, is aquired by torturing someone.
And before you take the shot, Micheal (the character who takes the shot) clearly states something like; " o.k. so you want me to kill someone because he is tanned, has a beard, smokes and is left handed"
Just for comparison, in the first drone strike ever, they assassinated someone who they suspected to be Bin Laden because 'due to his height being similar to Bin Laden' (Fact, because John Oliver said so ))
Looks like pretty damn good satire to me.

This is fine as far as it goes, but it's why I take issue with the frequently applied 'gamers website' label, gamer websites should be about informing their readers about games.
Eurogamer isn't a gamer website so much as stupid. It just writes the same old GTA colums with a new lick of paint, so that their teenage demographic will click on it.

You guys should listen to those radio ads, especially the ones for Righteous Slaughter and Pride: Not Prejudice.

They're friggin' gold.

That's pretty harsh to say that the Eurogamer column is "complete garbage", all the guy is saying is that GTA isn't all that great as a satire, he's not denying it isn't one. (Or trying to be one to be more accurate.)

I think it is an interesting discussion to be had.. I find it ironic that some people defend all the crazy stuff in GTA by saying "it's just a video game/entertainment".. because it kinda goes against the satire thing in some ways.

Does it? I mean I'd think that was the point of satire.

Satire is entertainment, sure, but the whole point of it is that it is not mindless, or "just entertainment". It is trying to tell us something.

I'm more under the impression that it's entertaining because it says something, not the other way around.

Whether or not you already know what it's saying is irrelevant.