The Gamechangers Page #4

'Rockstar Games gave him

a cranial menu that popped up

'and offered him the option

to kill the police officers,

'shoot them in the head

'and flee in a police car.

'What we're saying is that

Devin Moore, in effect,

'was trained to do what he did.

'He bought a murder simulator and

he played it for hundreds of hours.

'He's primarily a cop-killing...'

That's just f***ing whack.

I'll call you later, Terry.

A game does not make

someone a criminal.

If he hadn't played Vice,

he'd have played something else.

If it's the cop-killing in the game

that's the problem,

maybe we should tone it

down for San Andreas.

A bit. No way, Jamie,

this is a free country.

We're allowed to make

the game we want to make.

We can't go around curtailing

people's artistic freedoms

because of one lunatic.

'If you tell the tales,

you define the culture.

'Rockstar Games are telling tales

full of violence and depravity.'

Parents have no idea

what their kids are playing.

That's the problem. Yeah, but that's

not our fault, is it? It's theirs!

They don't understand games

and they want to blame

someone for these deaths,

but rather than blame this kid's

parents or failed education

or zero job prospects,

this man wants to blame us.

I'm not changing a single

thing about GTA.

OK, I agree,

I just don't think any of us like

being accused of making

a murder simulator.

Well, that's good, because we don't,

we make entertainment.

'How do you want to make a game

that suggests, even for a moment,

'that it's OK to kill police

officers?

'Why do you want to do that?'

'As he fled,

Moore stole a bunch of car keys.

'He climbed into

a police car out front

'and hit the road.

'It was over within seconds.

'Inside, three people

had been murdered.'

I'll be in Baton Rouge - I've got

to debate Louisiana Law School.

Up against a bunch of nightmare

Southern liberals.

And Friday, I'm set up to be

on The Today Show again.

I got a client dinner that night.

Mm-hm.

Hello?

'I'm going to kill you f***ers.'

What is it?

Oh, it's gay boy!

It's just kids being stupid.

Oh, I know.

People who really wanna kill you,

they don't phone you up

and warn you, they just do it.

Yes, I know.

We can't let things

like this stop us.

What sort of message would that send?

I agree, Jack.

How about, as you burn the grass,

you get high,

so it becomes harder to do.

Controls get harder.

That's really funny.

Jamie! How was Vienna?

Good. Tiring.

I need you to go

to Edinburgh tomorrow

to talk to the animators

of the Truth mission, OK?

They need to be better. I was

supposed to have this weekend off.

I've got that stag party, remember?

You're just going

to have to skip it.

Yeah, it's crunch time,

I need people to dig deep.

That's how I dig. We're six months

off delivering this game now

and whole chunks of it

are still sh*t and boring.

There's animation glitches

in the street scenes still,

the mo-cap's terrible. Terry,

we need to hire more QA people.

Take-Two won't let you

hire anyone else.

At this rate, the game's going

to be six months later

than we said it would be when we

said it would be six months late.

I'm not going to release a sh*t

product into the world, guys.

I'm sorry about that.

If we can't hire more people, fine -

we'll just have to take people off

Manhunt and Warriors.

Jamie, go to Edinburgh,

then go to Toronto

and get people working on GTA.

Also, I've just heard there are 63

tracks you still haven't licensed?

I'm on it. They take time.

You gave us 160 to do.

Oh, and by the way,

James Brown's publishers said they

definitely won't let us use Payback.

Go back to them, persuade them,

you're really good at that

and that's a really important

track for the game.

Come on, mate! You're Mr Wolf!

Hi, honey, good game?

Uh-huh.

Hey! You OK?

Slow down!

What's the matter?

Someone took my lacrosse stick,

I think.

What do you mean, "took"?

On purpose?

I don't know. Maybe I lost it.

It doesn't matter. Hey!

What's going on?

Everything OK at school?

Yeah. You'd tell me if there was

something wrong, wouldn't you?

Look, I know you think these games

hurt people, Dad, but, you know,

not every kid's about to pull

a Columbine, Dad, you know?

What's wrong?

He's having a tough time.

This is all my fault.

No, it's not.

He'll be fine.

I won't let him be bullied.

I'll go to the school.

I'll talk to the kids.

Do a convocation.

Is that a good idea?

We don't want to make it worse.

I won't.

I'll make them understand.

...those sunglasses

look like goggles.

But this one's perfect,

that's good. OK. Hey!

What?

We've been looking at how we can

incorporate the sexual content

you want in San Andreas

without hurting sales.

We'll do this later. OK.

It's a question of how far we

can push the creative envelope

in this area and still

get a mature rating.

If we get an adults-only rating,

about 80% of shops and distributors

in the US, particularly Wal-Mart,

won't stock the game.

I've always been clear about this -

this stuff is not gratuitous.

It's done within context

and it's been linked to the story.

What's acceptable as sexual content

is different in different countries.

I can send you a full list

of the various dos and don'ts.

It'll depress you.

Broadly, male nudity is acceptable

as long as the penis isn't erect.

No erect c*cks? That's right.

The US is the most sensitive

country by miles.

No penises, no vaginas, no nipples.

So that scene you've got animated

of Carl having sex with Denise,

that will get us an instant

adults-only label here

and needs removing.

That's ridiculous.

We don't all live in a virtual Utah.

I know, I wish we could include

that stuff, but it's not feasible.

What's wrong with this country?

I can walk down the road

and get an Uzi if I want to,

they're sending kids off

to kill people in Iraq

and heaven for-f***ing-bid

anyone sees a woman's nipple!

That's America. The Jack Thompsons

of this world won't have it.

I don't care what he thinks.

I'm not going to bend to this.

Sex is a perfectly acceptable thing

to have in a piece

of adult entertainment

and we are not pushing

boundaries without it.

Maybe we should just be an AO game.

We're a game for adults -

fine, let's just be that.

That would be retail suicide.

Who cares!

So we sell half of what we hoped -

at least we get to make our game.

I'm not having the content

of my game dictated to me

by a bunch of moronic shopkeepers!

Don Simpson wouldn't

settle for it, would he?

What would he do?

He'd hire an aircraft carrier,

fill it with prostitutes,

take 15 different types of class-A

drugs and then, I think,

he'd accept the power

of the marketplace.

Fine, take the scene out.

There's no time, the game's due.

Happy?

Blank Rome has been confirmed

as the defence counsel

for Rockstar and Take-Two.

That is a big, serious law firm.

They're going to fight you

every step of the way. Good!

You know what? I want this fight.

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