Children and/or Animals in the next GTA?

[Tiger Sora]

"So anyways there I was driving down the sidewalk in my tank and than, uhh, what"? Looking behind Slavoc sees the tidal wave of angry parents and animal rights protestors. "Muffin".

I love animals though so I say no to that. Children though..... thats bad on many levels. They'd never do it.

 

[Soviet Steve]

It would be a huge boost for me, and I hope for both, but I know that I will receive neither.

 

[Sixcess]

Putting children who could be killed in GTA would be incredibly stupid. The media would instantly paint it as a child murder simulator with pedophile overtones (regardless of the actual content) and in the UK at least I'd be astonished if the BBFC (our ratings board) would even pass it.

I don't think Rockstar are that stupid. Sure they'll flirt with notoriety to maintain their bad boy image, but these days I get the impression that they're just too big and established, even seeking respectability with the more serious direction the games have taken, to actually risk being banned.

 

[Bobzer77]

I don't think letting your players kill children in your games would be a very good PR move... and is probably morally ambiguous.

However there are a certain group of children in Fallout 3 that I would pay money for DLC to be allowed to go and bash their heads in.

 

[BennoVonArchimboldi]

For the people who are saying that the media backlash would be too great, media backlash is what Rockstar is all about. It's on the record that Rockstar hired evil soulless publicist Max Clifford to engineer media outrage in order to increase publicity for the first game, and they haven't exactly eased off in recent years.

And it's not as if Rockstar are the only people doing it; remember the terrorist level in Modern Warfare 2? If you think that was put in there for any reason other than to generate controversy (and thereby increase sales) then I admire your charming lack of cynicism.

It's all about marketing - if Rockstar thinks that running children over will get it headlines then they'll probably do it (although they'll explain it away as "making the virtual world more real" and will probably include an option to play the game without any children in it...you know, just to get around the censors).

 

[wtfsteam]

I know the thread is about GTA, but why not discuss the presence of children and animals in other video games as a justification for their inclusion in GTA?

Was there much of a outcry over the dogs and cats in Postal 2?
I believe House of the Dead allowed you to shoot children (they were innocent bystanders, as they would be in GTA)

While searching for other games containing children and animals, I found a lot of people talking about Bioshock 1 who were under the impression that killing children in video games was "illegal".
Why would killing children in video games be illegal if killing adults in video games wasn't?

Is killing children or animals any WORSE than running over innocent civilians in cold blood?
People who say they would protect the animals in video games seem kinda weird. They're not real. They're pixels, just like the other video game characters.
I would never hurt an animal in real life, nor kill any person. But killing animals/childen/adults in video games is fine, because it is not real.

Saying the in-game killing of animals is a slippery slope, because if ANYTHING done is a video game is "wrong", then pretty soon everything will be.
Admitting that you would feel bad killing an animal in a video game but not an adult gives anti-video-game-nuts a strong argument against all video game murder

Anyway, can anyone think of any existing games that allow you to kill children/animals?
Apart from military dogs, obviously.

Here's an opinion piece which talks about Fallout 3's decision to remove child-killing from the game: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20908


edit: haha, The Sims lets you kill children (your own characters, not bystanders) in a variety of interesting ways.
Deus Ex (2000) let you directly kill children.

Apparently, Red Dead Redemption lets you kill a single child [http://www.justpushstart.com/2010/05/23/killing-children-in-red-dead-redemption/], Rockstar are awesome.
You get a "game over" for doing it, but you would get a "game over" in real life too

 

[Jamieson 90]

I say go for it, its about time someone said hey media why don't you fuck off, its not like you wont make a shit load of controversy anyway so lets get it over and done with. Its not like Rockstar are known for being sensitive towards controversial issues, its only one more step.

 

[Tartarga]

If they're going to put children in then they might as well make them killable, and animals in the game actually sounds pretty fun. Finally i'll be able to show squirills (freaking hard to spell word) just what I think of them by running them over.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

it wouldn't *matter* if they put kids in the game, because in the US and many other countries, it is ILLEGAL to portray the killing of children in video games. so basically, the game will *still* suck, and there'll just be a bunch of immortal kids getting in your way.

 

[shootthebandit]

RDR animals really added alot to gameplay, it was just a shame you couldn't hogtie a bear and release it in town

children on the otherhand wont add much and itll just cause an uproar

more importantly id like the legal system to be updated, RDR legal system worked well. id also like to see more stupid things like in san andreas

 

[Sixcess]

I say go for it, its about time someone said hey media why don't you fuck off, its not like you wont make a shit load of controversy anyway so lets get it over and done with. Its not like Rockstar are known for being sensitive towards controversial issues, its only one more step.

Stirring up controversy is one thing, asking to be banned is another. GTA IV apparently cost around a hundred million dollars. No sane business is going to risk that kind of money just to make a very questionable point about media hysteria.

 

[Ashcrexl]

there never are any children walking around in big cities anyway. hardly any dogs either. their lack of inclusion doesnt really hurt the realism much at all.

although, what is with the lack of young adults, aged 18-25? i honestly couldnt find a single one of those in GTA, and cities are just jampacked with college students.