The publisher of Grand Theft Auto has been awarded 'substantial' damages after taking the Daily Star to court over an inaccurate news story. Will this prove a benchmark moment?
As blogged by Roy Greenslade earlier today, Take 2 Inc has accepted substantial undisclosed libel damages from the Daily Star in relation to the paper's 'entirely false' story about Grand Theft Auto. On July 21, the tabloid alleged that Rockstar was planning to release a new version of the hit action adventure game, based around the life of Raoul Moat, who earlier this year shot three people, wounding his ex-girlfriend and a policeman, and killing his ex-girlfriend's new partner.
But of course, no such game existed. The reporter responsible for the piece (which can be viewed here) appears to have seen a crudely mocked-up cover of an imaginary game entitled Grand Theft Auto Rothbury – no doubt posted on a chat forum by some sneering teenager with a crude sense of humour and limited Photoshop skills. Without contacting Rockstar for clarification, it seems the decision was swiftly reached that this was a legitimate source.
When it became abundantly clear that the story was nonsense, however, the piece was quickly removed from the Star's website, and replaced with a grovelling apology, which included the following confession: 'We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. We also did not question why a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event.'
Quite. But the question is, how could a national newspaper believe that such a bizarre development project was possible in the first place?
In part, what the story typifies is a doggedly persistent belief that the games business is some sort of shadowy black market operation, rather than a major entertainment industry that contributes many millions to the UK economy. It is tempting to believe that, thanks to the rise of the family-friendly Wii console and the gigantic explosion in social titles like FarmVille, games are no longer demonised as essentially evil and corrupting in nature. But this fear and loathing appears to exist to this day, at least in the agendas of media purveyors who are happy to exploit the perceived technophobia of their audience if it means an easy scare story.
The article appeared a couple of months after a notorious edition of The Alan Titchmarsh Show in which Tim Ingham, editor of game news site CVG was harangued and insulted by a panel of 'experts' including ex-Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie and actress Julie Peasgood, while attempting to defend video games that contain violence. Titchmarsh himself seemed to be labouring under the belief that the games industry has no age rating system, and was backed by a braying studio audience who gave Ingham's reasoned arguments short shrift.
'I'd be lying if I said at any stage I thought I was walking into a fair and balanced debate,' says Ingham. 'But I wasn't quite ready for something so one-sided and, to be frank, aggressive. There was one deliberate antagonist in the shape of Julie Peasgood, and it was pointless to get into a firefight with her. Her accusation that somehow games are racist was something I could sit down and think about for hours on end. But then there was MacKenzie who appeared to be there as a middleman – until he brought up the Bulger case... The point that annoyed me most though was when the presenter got involved. It felt as though he was deliberately painting me as an enemy of the programme.
'I mean, I can't be sure of this, but before the section, there was a floor manager who told the audience that if anyone on stage made a point they agreed with, they should applaud, but if someone said anything they didn't like, they should let him know – and he did seem to be gesturing toward me...'
With the Daily Star story, the reporter's alleged response to the controversy also spoke volumes about the contempt often felt toward the industry and gamers in general. According to MCV and other sources, the writer answered the growing controversy by posting the following on his Facebook page:
'Baffled by the fury of adult gamers. These are grown (?!?) men who sit around all day playing computer games with one another who've today chosen to enter the real world just long enough to complain about my story slamming a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto! You would think I'd denied the Holocaust!!!'
It would seem from this outburst, as odd as it was, that the journalist at least believed in the story – he did, after all, source a comment from a grieving relative of one of the victims. It is hard to imagine the monstrous apathy this would have required if the article was knowingly false.
The question, though, is whether the ludicrous GTA Rothbury case will provide a turning point for tabloid coverage of games. Certainly, there are less 'ban this sick filth' splashes now than there were in the mid-90s, when the likes of Doom, Duke Nukem and GTA were being routinely blamed for the collapse of western society. And with the daily newspapers now competing for lucrative advertising from the games industry, while writing for a growing audience of game-literate readers, such stories are surely unlikely to have the desired impact in the future.
'There seems to be a blind arrogance in the tabloid media,' says Ingham. 'They assume that their audience will see that games are something to fear, that their only knowledge of them will be from prior reporting in The Star, The Mail and others. But I don't think that's the case. The majority of non-game playing mothers are aware of what Xbox 360s are, and they think about it far more sensibly than tabloid editors would assume.
'After the Alan Titchmarsh show I had several emails from people who explained that they weren't gamers but felt I had been treated poorly - that said a lot, really. We've reached a point where you can't just fictionalise these stories anymore – there's a wider public understanding of, and a respect for, video games. And because of that understanding, game publishers aren't as scared to defend themselves anymore. In the mid-90s, if Rockstar had tried to sue a tabloid, it would have been, 'look at these monsters, they're corrupting our kids, and now they're coming after your dear old newspaper!''
Then again, if page impressions can be boosted massively by an international community of gamers, all blogging and tweeting about your articles while posting handy links to the source material, the motivations are certainly going to be muddied. Perhaps the Daily Star took a calculated risk, and maybe that risk paid off. But maybe it spectacularly didn't.
Anyway, what do you think? Might this case bring about a new era of respect and caution when it comes to video game news stories? Or, as the games industry grows in terms of mainstream interest, is it just as likely to pull in ever more salacious attention? Today, it's the world famous football players, filmstars and pop singers who have to fend off intrusions into their lives. Tomorrow, could it be the biggest game designers?
No comments:
Post a Comment