It's no secret that the media has often misrepresented video games in the past, however things have gotten much better in recent years. Mostly. Not every channel out there got beyond their conservative preconceptions and Australia's commercial Channel 7 decided that GTA 5 is a great scapegoat in 2017. Still.
The news piece recently aired showing off the extremely in-depth fan-made mod for GTA 5, Los Santos Police Department First Response. The mod, which we've covered extensively in the past, is a massive total conversion mod which entirely reworks GTA 5 into a police simulator with some RPG elements.
One of the biggest draws of the mod is it's modability - pretty meta, right? The community keeps churning out their own content to be used within the mod, such as realistic and accurate police uniforms from countless countries as well as their vehicles, new game mechanics, refinements, missions, activities and all kinds of props.
Among the many police uniforms available is the outfit worn by New South Wales' finest and their accompanying vehicles. Now, the goal in LSPDFR is to act like a proper cop, not a typical GTA character, so murderous rampages, killing sprees and wanton destruction is pretty much the opposite of what you should be doing.
Nonetheless, one particular channel operating in Australia decided to turn the mod into a witch hunt of a news story to satisfy their viewer base, which approximately consists of five hyper-conservatives in their late 70's. The reporters and individuals interviewed display such an inherent ignorance about the game, and pretty much everything else they wash into the topic, that it would be painful to watch if it weren't so bloody funny.
It's like they looked at every (US) Fox News broadcast from the past decade railing on GTA, and distilled the formula for this kind of thing. Enter a reporter setting up the game with a description that focuses solely on the violence, then cut in interviews from the authorities and a psychologist.
Footage is shown of someone streaming LSPDFR with a NSW police mod installed. There are a few scenes where the player shoots suspects as a cop, but the majority of the footage is just regular non-violent stuff. Naturally, the shooting scenes are replayed over and over.
These are New South Wales police officers as you've never seen them before. Crushing cars, shooting suspects and getting run over.
Now, the video eventually clarifies that this is a mod with a short explanation that is bound to go over the heads of their target audience, but a follow-up video with the most cringe-worth discussion between three people with no clue about the topic reading scripts written by other people with no clue about the topic go ahead and call it a "hack". Guys, terminology.
Phrases such as "underground computer geeks" are uttered without irony, and at one point the reporter claims that "the online world is virtually lawless". Well, yes, Mike, but maybe darknet drug exchanges are a better proof of that than a GTA mod.
The age old argument that violent video games cause violence in players is brought up again. While there have been some cases where individuals themselves named a game as their influence following a crime, such occurrences are very rare and far between, and in each case an unrelated underlying mental condition is also present, meaning a binge-watching a violent TV show would have triggered the same effect.
