More than mindless entertainment, video games often provide us with subtle lessons that the programmers and writers want us to learn. Today, I take a good look at a few lessons that you can learn from that fantastic video game, Grand Theft Auto 5:
Lesson 1- Learn how the stock market works BEFORE buying stock
The player is given the chance to buy stock from the stock market in game. This is, when played right, a great way to make easy money, allowing the player to buy better weapons, better cars, and more properties. But it is very easy to mess up in the stock market, to buy very bad stock that you thought was a safe bet because it had positive growth when you bought it. It is easy to end up losing thousands of in game dollars on the stock market, just like in real life.
Lesson 2- Don't piss off the police
In the game, the police are the most dangerous element, the one thing most likely to kill you. Perhaps the funniest way to incur the police's wrath is by flipping them off (done by using the fire weapon button while unarmed in a vehicle). Needless to say, this can get you in real trouble if you attempt to do it in real life. So, don't.
Lesson 3- Nothing is worth sacrificing others for
In the game, Michael de Santa, former bank robber and one of the three protagonists, betrayed his best friend and sold out his crew in order to provide his family with a clean slate and a fresh start. What did this get him? A pissed off psychopath bent on killing him, a boring life with no direction, and a broken family consisting of an adulterous wife, a slacker son who spends his days smoking weed, masturbating and playing video games, and a bratty teen daughter who does amateur porn. That's what Michael traded for the life of one of his crew members, and faked his death for.
Lesson 4- Be careful who you help
In the game, you often come across random events. Some are harmless enough, such as hitchhikers that want you to get them somewhere. But sometimes, you come across some people that mean you harm. Normally, it's a woman screaming for help, begging you to interfere in a case of domestic violence. She will lead you towards an alleyway, where you will be ambushed by three gun wielding men. If you don't react quickly, you will die. Be very careful out there, not everyone is who they show themselves to be. And if someone asks for help in a case of domestic violence, call the cops. Just, call the cops.
Lesson 5- No, it doesn't feel good to be a gangster
The game has three protagonists: Franklin Clinton, Michael de Santa, and Trevor Philips. Each is involved in a life of crime. Not ONCE is this kind of life ever presented as something you want for yourself. Franklin is often depicted as someone who is unhappy with his life because he's committing crimes, yet this lifestyle isn't getting him anywhere. He is stuck in the ghetto, and crime ain't getting him out anytime soon. Michael de Santa got rich robbing banks, so now he gets to spend his days smoking pot, watching TV, lounging by the pool. And he's miserable, because all the wealth in the world can't change the fact that his entire family is pretty much broken. Trevor is the only one shown to be enjoying his life of dealing meth and laundering weapons. He lives in a trailer that's absolutely filthy, in a town that's stricken with poverty in the middle of the desert, next to a salt lake that's polluted to the extreme. And also, Trevor is mentally unstable. His life is by no means ideal; in fact, it is not the kind of life any sane person would want. His life is one of constant violence and death (that he causes). A life of crime is exactly like that: unrewarding, dangerous, deadly, and even if you make it work and get a lot of money off of it, it won't be worth it
Lesson 6- The government is corrupt
In other news, we need air to breath.
Lesson 7- The entertainment industry is a horrible industry that will use you, mock you, then throw you away
In game, there is a TV show named "Fame or Shame", which is pretty much "Britain's Got Talent" mixed with "American Idol". In the show, there are several contestants vying for the grand prize: a little fame that will much too soon fizzle out. Among the contestants are: a group of mimes that set themselves on fire, Michael's daughter who sings a song called 'Daddy Issues', a pop music group called 'Shemale Bop' that is comprised entirely of transexuals (or maybe a few of them are transvestites, it isn't clear), a guy that does nothing but shout racial slurs at everyone, and three monkeys that masturbate. The monkeys win. Not one of these acts is treated by the show with anything resembling respect or dignity. And then, of course, there's the many celebrities that are being exploited by the media for our entertainment, such as Al Di Napoli, an actor whom you can kill and the in game media makes a point to establish that he will neither be mourned nor missed, or Poppy Mitchel, a young starlet whose career is ruined by a sex tape that you recorded and gave to a paparazzo who then went on to sell the tape to a website. This happens in real life, all the time. Look at how we treat, for example, Lindsay Lohan or Honey Boo Boo. The media presents them to us as people to abhor, to mock, like the freak shows of olden times. The entertainment industry is a horrible, wretched hive. Stay away from it.
Lesson 8- Torture is horrible
There is a mission in the game where you torture a guy in order to extract from him the description of someone you have to kill. I want to give you some perspective here. I love GTA, and I've played through some pretty hardcore missions. In Vice City, I laughed while killing Haitians by the dozens. In San Andreas, I would listen to some country music while mowing down hundreds of innocent pedestrians. I would shoot cops just for kicks in any of the GTA games I played. This one mission, though? I cringed. I was in emotional agony while I was doing it. It wasn't even a matter of torture being presented to me uncensored, no. I was controlling everything. It was me who yanked the guy's tooth out, me who smashed his leg with a spanner, and me who poured gasoline on his face while he lay on the floor tied up. I couldn't finish this mission fast enough, and the only reason I took so long was because the guy wasn't giving me enough details to help me identify the target. I had to yank his tooth out just to learn I was looking for someone middle eastern. I had to smash his leg just to find out the guy I was looking for had a beard and smoked. And I had to pour gasoline just to learn the target was left handed. I finished as fast as I could, saved, and then turned off the PS3. I was just so...I don't know how to describe it. There are some things you do in GTA because you know you would never do them in real life, and you know you'd never do them because you'd get killed if you did. This one thing, though, it was different. I felt awful, and I want you to know that few games ever made me feel this way. And then I remembered, there are people who do this in real life. The US government does it in real life. And I just felt sick. Torture is monstrous, and only a sick fuck would do such a thing.
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