Shira Chess, "Playing the Bad Guy: Grand Theft Auto in the Panopticon"

(In Digital Gameplay)

- GTA as a scapegoat for real-world violent crime
- Evidently not a game for kids, but is it causing adult violence?
- Player as both criminal and authority, "productive play that reinforces Western moral standards" (Foucault)
- Digital games discipline players using similar tactics to those Foucault describes (both in terms of game mastery and moral values)
- GTA teaches the futility of criminal behaviour by having players judge themselves
- Spatial environments, enclosure, testing in-game limits, space as a reward and a control
- Also the physical space of gameplay (sitting still in front of a screen)
- Temporal control (in-game timed events, real-world time investment/loss)
- Constant, precise movements, attention (repetition is key to producing docile bodies) -> console controller buttons
- McLuhan: games teach us to surrender to collective demands
- Ranking systems, rewards/punishments
- Delinquency as a necessary function of disciplined society
- Player is reminded constantly that criminal actions = harsh punishment
- Delinquency as necessary function of disciplined society
- Interplay of gazes in the Panopticon, invisible surveillance
- Players monitor themselves while playing (they are the invisible authority, watching, judging, even punishing) - the "little voice"
- "Grand Theft Auto," named for a legal term for crime
- Cartoon cover of the game, exaggeration, caricature
- Real vs imaginary (realistic details, exaggerated world)
- Player should not want GTA to be real (people shouldn't want Scarface, Taxi Driver or Fight Club to be real, either, but and they do... problem with anti-heroes, etc.)
- GTA both mocks and reinforces the values it represents
- Control over camera angle can create distance or identification, or both (internal vs external gazes)
- Difficulty condemns violence subtly (violent, extreme losses/punishments for failure)
- 'Crime doesn't pay!'
- Endless cycle of killing/being killed (downwardly cyclical nature of crime)
- Cheating acknowledges the rules (the "wrong" way to play)
- "supporting and reenacting the values of the Western legal system"
- Creates/supports self-monitoring, "inner penal system"