Outrage over 'Grand Theft Auto IV' seems exceedingly overblown

The video game "Grand Theft Auto IV" arrived in stores April 29, accompanied by the usual outrage. The new game is part of a series in which players control a villain and guide him through a life of crime. Players are rewarded for stealing cars, murdering civilians, killing police officers, and other acts of mayhem.

The games are not designed around a linear story: Players are given access to large virtual cities and are encouraged to poke around, exploring, manipulating a cast of characters. Which gives players an enormous amount of free will. For instance, you may approach a prostitute and purchase her services. It is then possible to kill the prostitute to recover your money.

All of which is to acknowledge that "Grand Theft Auto" is not an exercise in enlightenment.

The latest installment, "GTA IV," is reportedly filled with more — much more — of the same. Slate's Chris Barker reports that the "violence is no longer cartoonish. Shoot an innocent bystander, and you see his face contort in agony. He'll clutch at the wound and begin to stagger away, desperately seeking safety. ... The physics of death feel shockingly real — bodies can't be blown apart or torn to pieces, but they react convincingly to explosions and severe impacts."

Other early testers have registered similar amazement at the realism of the violence.

I haven't yet been able to fiddle with the new game, but I've spent more than a little time with its predecessors. And while the concerns about the pernicious effects of "GTA" are not ridiculous, they do seem misplaced.

There are two reasons to worry about games such as "Grand Theft Auto": (1) They're a reflection of something rotten in the culture; and (2) they're a harmful influence on the same. On the surface, both charges seem like slam dunks. But when they're examined more closely, they don't hold up.

Popular culture is pretty rotten. But that's hardly new. Like everything else, culture is subject to the second law of thermodynamics: It tends inexorably toward lesser levels of sophistication. This was true before "Grand Theft Auto," and it will be true 20 years from now when "GTA" is regarded as a quaint bit of nostalgia, like Ms. Pac-Man.

Yet leaving the constant decline of culture aside, there's a practical reason "Grand Theft Auto IV" features graphic depictions of death and the wanton killing of prostitutes: Moore's Law.