The 'Grand Theft Auto' question

“I have a 12-year-old,” said Brian Crecente, a video game journalist and news editor for Polygon, a video game news website. 

“There is no way I would let him play this game just like I would never let him watch ‘Scarface,’” he added.

Crecente said the very aspects of the game that make it “genius” are the same components that make the game unsuitable for kids.

“It deals with serious topics, and I think if you look at the satire for instance, that’s the sort of stuff that’s going to go right over a kid’s head,” he said. 

“There’s a lot of violence in the game, but there’s also a compelling message that is sort of an undertone to that violence, and I think children would completely miss that.”

The game takes place in a fictional city called Los Santos. Anyone who has ever been to the Santa Monica Pier or the Hollywood Hills can see Los Santos looks a lot like the greater Los Angeles area.

“They’ve created this entire world that is absolutely a satirical look at the United States and at politics and at everything that people are into right now,” said Crecente, describing how most characters in the game have cell phones and the ability to take “selfies.” 

In the game, a social-networking site called Lifeinvader mimics Facebook. Players can even invest in the stock market.

Throughout the course of the video game, the player can either choose to participate in a developing plot, by embarking on a slew of violent missions, or the player can explore the virtual city by choosing “free play.”

Conceivably, the player could choose to completely avoid violence, Crecente said.

“You can, for instance, go to the pier and go on a roller coaster ride or go bicycling on the beach or just drive around the town and just kind of cruise,” said Crecente. “The ability to do whatever you want in this game is something people aren’t used to.”

What’s really interesting, he said is that “you can’t deliver an experience to gamers that allows them to decide what they want to do unless you allow them to decide what they want to do. So if they decide they want to be violent, this is a game that – unlike a lot of games – says, ‘Okay. Be violent.’”

“There are two types of violence in the game,” said Crecente. “There’s the narratively driven violence – which I think is dealt with in a smart way – and then there is this violence that is essentially allowed to happen. It’s not prevented, and in my mind, I think that violence – when it occurs – is more a reflection of the player than it is the game.”

In the “free play” segment of the game, players can choose various weapons, including a golf club or a gun, to randomly hurt bystanders in the game. A player’s violent behavior can trigger a response from virtual police officers – including a virtual stand-off that could result in the player’s death.

America Tonight asked Dr. Michael Fraser, a clinical psychologist who specializes in video game addiction, to explain how a child’s interaction with such violence could impact that person’s reality.

“We don’t have any clear-cut research that shows that there is a cause or a causal relationship between violent video games and the actions that people take,” he said. “There are so many factors involved – personality, psychiatric history, parenting style, any potential for a learning disorder – it’s really difficult to do sound research,” he said.

Children who are experiencing stressful situations in their lives, however, could turn to an immersive, engaging video game as an escape from reality, he said. Those actions could lead to video game addiction and other aggressive behaviors.

“There are certain groups of children that are at a higher risk for not being able to manage playing these video games,” he said. Parents should monitor those kids, he advised.

“There are some children who are prone to impulsive behavior, who are prone to more angry outbursts, who are more oppositional and defiant and who have varying degrees of difficulty managing their emotions,” he explained. “Those are the children who are at higher risk.”

Regardless of the type of video game, Fraser said parents should make sure their children are living balanced lives that include activities other than playing video games.

“If everyone in the room can say there’s a balance, I would say there is no problem, and the video game is a healthy part of this person’s life,” he said.