Is GTA satire?

It fits the definition of satire. The target audience of the satire has nothing to do with the definition. There's no mention of thinking, just general mockery of some sort.

GTA is filled to the brim with irony and exaggeration that criticizes the real world. You can argue that it isn't very good. You can argue that it isn't very clever or new. You can't argue that it isn't there.

I don't find them very good, they just pick the easiest routes into humour without REALLY putting effort into Satirizing anything. I love the world-building they do (Saints Row 3 felt like a MASSIVELY fake city whereas GTA5 feels very real) but I'm immediately taken out whenever I see a sign or name like GetALife, LifeInvader, BAWSAQ or Pisswasser (I can't type that german B). It's trying so hard to make everything a crude reference it just feels lazy, and that's not even getting into story elements.
Yeah, we get it. Americans are lazy, consumerist and stupid. That joke's been played out so many times it's beyond cliche. Something like the aforementioned Saints Row can get away with it because it's flat out ridiculous, but GTA is trying to create this grand satire of American life while also being a SUPER SERIOUS story.

One thing though that's funny is since Rockstar North (people who make the GTA series) is based in my hometown of Edinburgh, they keep sneaking in weird Scottish references like Bawsack (see above), or this weird radio advert in GTA5 complaining about trams (there was a huge f*ckup with the new trams being implemented in Edinburgh)

Oh hey you're from Britain. Listen to the soccer/football commercials.

I don't actually own 5, though my brother has it on 360. I also completely ruined my GTA4 installation

Check page 1.

The problem with GTA is the same as with most video games: the writing is trash. And the reason for that is the same as with blockbuster movies: it is targeted towards a lowest common denominator audience, which is a young male audience. Anything that would raise questions or be actually interesting would lower sales because thinking is hard. Which is why most big budget games are just a power fantasy of violence and sex. That in itself is pretty questionable in many ways, but most of all it is boring.

Nope sorry. I'm not paying any attention to your criticisms of GTA V's writing when by your own admission you've barely played it at all.

I haven't played GTA V. I have played through the single player campaign of GTA IV. And from what I've seen so far, I am not exactly expecting a major shift in the quality of the writing.

Irrelevant. You can't judge material you haven't experienced.

Feel free to enlighten me about the differences between IV and V if they are so drastically different.

Heh, even if the games focus on the lowest common denominator, I don't see the issue.

Even teenage boys are customers, pure and simple.

And many, many games are based around a 'power' fantasy, and it's one of the most basic fantasy's that people go for, who doesn't like power.


As for the writing, sure it's probably not great, but 90% of people really don't care about the strength of the writing like some people do, and many people actually really like it, even if it doesn't make sense.

There isn't a problem here, think the games are good or bad is fine, but a problem? No they aren't.

Why are you insinuating that I think ALL games are 'just' games? GTA just happens to be one of those games. You have a lot of freedom and you can virtually run around and do whatever you want without experiencing any of the narrative. Sandbox games have very little cultural context per definition since the player itself defines what happens.

GTA series is one of the video games that happens to most closely resemble our real world, on purpose. You could say the game is all about cultural context. The game being sandbox or not has nothing to do with that.

Dude, that wasn't me.

Yeah power fantasies and such are not problematic necessarily, but you can do them in many ways.

Many people (myself included) try to ignore story and writing in most video games, precisely because it is garbage 90% of the time.

I see a problem with writing for the lowest common denominator because it just results in boring entertainment. Also shrugging of entertainment as 'just entertainment' is like saying 'ads are just ads'. It does matter what we expose ourselves to.

Forums glitched out apparently.

Actually IV's writing (And more I'd say) was boring and terrible, V was quite a bit better in my opinion.

Glad to hear.. I think GTA has great potential when it comes to video game story telling, or world building which is more what games are all about in my opinion.

But that's why you can choose what it is to expose yourself too.

If you don't like adds, get add blocker, if you don't like GTA then don't get GTA.

Yeah.. but I want a better GTA.