In recent years, there was much dispute regarding a rather gruesome torture scene in the fifth installment in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series. GTA is infamous for revolving around various crimes in an urban setting such as theft, murder, and prostitution as if they are nothing and, consequently, critics enjoy bashing on it as much as its fans enjoy playing it. However, the addition of an unavoidable torture scene in which the player is made to electrocute a man and pull out his teeth in order to extract information made way for an even larger storm of dissention surrounding the fifth game.
Washington Post writer Hayley Tsukayama addresses the controversy in her article “Here’s what makes torture in video games worse than on TV” and touches on why torture in video games are given more of a bad rap than in movies and television, though it appears much more frequently in the latter. “The key may lie in what Freedom from Torture chief executive Keith Best told the British paper: ‘Rockstar North has crossed a line by effectively forcing people to take on the role of a torturer and perform a series of unspeakable acts if they want to achieve success in the game,’” Tsukayama starts. “The word to focus on there is ‘forcing.’ Because the scene is playable -- and a necessary plot point in the game -- some think it puts a different spin on the whole issue.”
“The media and the government would have us believe that torture is some necessary thing. We need it to get information, to assert ourselves,” your character says. “Did we get any information out of you?”
“I would have told you everything!” the man replies.
“Exactly!” says Trevor. “Torture’s for the torturer. Or the guy giving the order to the torturer. You torture for the good times! We should all admit that. It’s useless as a means of getting information.”
It is true - the entire scene is rather repugnant and most definitely inhumane. But, it drives home a point. It becomes apparent through the dialogue and the digression from the normal, chaotic style of gameplay involving quick, painless, deaths of NPCs on the streets that this scene is more of a social commentary on the U.S. government’s implementation of torture practices than “torture porn.” The fact that one of the torture options is waterboarding drives this point home even more. The scene is satire in terms of both game mechanics and narrative, and that is something that critics like Tsukayama would have to play the game to realize.