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Group Wants You To Stay Sober For Your Virtual Rape And Murder Spree

grand_theft_auto_character.jpg
YOU'D BETTER BE SOBER, COLLECTON OF PIXELS Fictional Character
The salvos against Grand Theft Auto IV, released on Tuesday, continue. Yet another organization has stepped forward to decry the game's lack of "social responsibility." But the issue this time isn't the prostitute-banging. Or the pimp-shooting. Or the dealer-stabbing. No, this concerns the menace of knocking back a few brews and getting behind the wheel. In a videogame:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an organization last heard from calling American soldiers as mindless juvenile killing machines, is (wait for it) "extremely disappointed." In a statement, MADD notes that "Drunk driving is not a game and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime, and it is also 100 percent preventable." They're asking the company to pull the game "out of respect for those who've been hurt or killed by drunk drivers." And while you might be tempted to mock the group's contention that a videogame might somehow glamorize dangerous activities to the point where easily-influenced youngsters attempt to duplicate them in real life, you'd be forgetting the lesson of the early eighties, when thousands of kids turned themselves into tiny yellow balls and terrorized our cities with waves of dot-eating and ghost-chasing. [Via]

By Alex Balk   05/01/08 11:40 AM
Related: Grand Theft Auto IV, Madd, Pop
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