Geek Gestalt

Uh-oh.

For all the champagne toasts that are no doubt going on over at Take-Two Interactive and its subsidiary Rockstar Games over the grand launch day of Grand Theft Auto IV, there's a bit of a dark cloud brewing.

According to a post on CNET News.com sister site GameSpot, there's a brouhaha afoot in GTA IV forums all over the Internet because of some players' complaints that the game is freezing up on them.

As GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair points out, it was only a month ago that another one of Rockstar's games, Bully had freezing-up problems. Now, with reports of crashes with GTA IV, mostly on the PlayStation 3, but also on the Xbox 360, one has to wonder if perhaps there's someone in Rockstar's QA department that's not doing their job.

Other recent hit games, of course, have also had quality problems. You might recall that some players of Guitar Hero III had problems with their guitar controllers.

So one thing that will certainly help Take-Two and Rockstar get through this relatively unscathed--assuming the reports of GTA IV freezing up are real--is if they react quickly and solve the problem and reach out to their users. If they don't, it won't look good.

'Grand Theft Auto IV' could break the all-time entertainment industry record for first-day sales. That record is currently held by 'Halo 3,' which earned $170 million in its first day last September.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Executives at Electronic Arts have to be kicking themselves right about now.

It appears that Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher EA has been trying to buy for the last couple of months, has a potentially record-breaking hit on its hands with Grand Theft Auto IV. And EA isn't pocketing the cash.

While it's too early to know exactly how many copies of GTA IV sold Tuesday, the game's launch day, anecdotal evidence suggests it will likely be one of the most successful launches in the entertainment industry's history--if not the most.

"We are saying that the launch of this game is tracking to be one of the top three best-selling games," said Chris Olivera, vice president of corporate communications for GameStop, "not of just this year, but the top three games in (our) company's history."

The latest title in what was already one of the most blockbuster game franchises of all time, GTA IV hit store shelves Tuesday morning with midnight madness events nationwide. The game had sparked controversy, with some politicians and critics calling for retailers to avoid selling it, but that didn't seem to dissuade consumers.

"Thirty-five hundred of our stores nationwide did midnight launch events," Olivera said. "One thing was constant through all of it, that there were lines around buildings and down mall corridors" wherever GameStop's stores were.

Last year, Microsoft took the unusual step of releasing first-day sales figures for its mega-hit Halo 3 because that game set the all-time entertainment industry record for launch day sales, $170 million.

'Halo 3' earned $170 million on its first day of sales. But Take-Two's 'GTA IV' looks poised to break that record and become the single highest-earning entertainment product in history, including movies.

(Credit: Bungie)

While we may not know if that's true until industry analyst firm The NPD Group reports April sales early next month, there's reason to believe the Halo 3 record will be short-lived.

Partly, that prediction stems from reports that GTA IV publisher Take-Two said it had worldwide preorder demand of 6 million copies of the game--or about $360 million worth at the game's $60 price tag.

There are also comments, like those expressed to CNET News.com sister site GameSpot by Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter: "There is no question that GTA will be huge. I think that the game will sell 11 (million) to 13 million copies by calendar year end, with probably 4 million the first week."

On the other hand, suggested NPD analyst Anita Frazier, if GTA IV breaks the Halo 3 record, Take-Two might find a reason to release the game's first-day sales numbers itself.

The console factor
One interesting difference between the launch of GTA IV--which was released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3--and its predecessor, the hugely popular GTA: San Andreas, is the install base of the consoles the games are available on.

Frazier said that when GTA: San Andreas was released in 2004, there was already an install base of 25 million PlayStation 2s, the only console that game was initially released on. By comparison, GTA IV is coming out earlier in the release cycles of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

"The combined install base of the PS3 and Xbox 360 now sits at 14 million," Frazier said, "and surely huge hardware numbers will be driven by the release of GTA IV.

Olivera concurred.

"This (game) is definitely drawing people into (GameStop) stores to also pick up hardware," Olivera said, "both the Xbox 360 and the PS3."

Another metric of the intense interest in GTA IV: statistics from Gamespot's Trax service, which measures site traffic for specific games.

According to Gamespot Trax, Gamespot users did 70,441 searches for "Grand Theft Auto IV" in the 30 days prior to its release, vs. 20,772 for Halo 3 and 10,598 for Guitar Hero III, another one of the best-selling games of all time.

So, as Take-Two's executives are no doubt popping champagne and toasting the massive initial success of their new game, one has to wonder what the thinking is over at EA and whether it will have to modify its $2 billion bid for Take-Two.

As Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian told me Monday, "The expectations for GTA were already justifiably very high. EA understood that when they made their bid...Every day that passes, they're (going to be) losing out on GTA revenues, so they're likely to lower their bid over time...But if GTA massively exceeds their expectations, that could be a scenario where EA might have to raise their bid."

In the meantime, stay tuned to see if Take-Two issues any press releases about GTA IV Wednesday. If it does, I'm willing to bet that will mean Halo 3's record will be history.

Many critics started complaining about the violence and sexual content in Rockstar Games' 'Grand Theft Auto IV' before even seeing the game.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

To many in the video game industry, the two words "Jack" and "Thompson" engender horror and disgust.

Thompson, a self-appointed uber-critic of the industry, has spent the last few years railing away at games he deems too full of sex or violence. Never was he out in more force than during 2005's so-called "Hot Coffee" scandal, in which the monster hit Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was discovered to have hidden, but easily uncoverable, animations that mimicked sexual activity.

In the lead-up to the midnight Tuesday release of Rockstar Games' follow-up game, Grand Theft Auto IV, Thompson was at it again. (See GameSpot's review here: Grand Theft Auto IV (PlayStation 3).)

According to online technology news site Softpedia, Thompson wrote an e-mail to Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick's mother (Take-Two is Rockstar's parent company).

"Your son last week was reported to have said the following about Grand Theft Auto IV," the letter allegedly began. "'We've already received numerous reviews, and to a one, they are perfect scores. My mom couldn't write better reviews...' Taking your son's thought, I would encourage you either to play this game or have an adroit video gamer play it for you. Some of the latter gamers are on death row, so try to find one out in the civilian population who hasn't killed someone yet."

In an e-mail to CNET News.com Monday, Thompson confirmed that he wrote the letter, but said he sent it to Strauss' attorney and not to his mother.

"I sent it to Strauss' attorney to make the point that if you drag your mother into your porn business pimping," Thompson told me by e-mail, "you had better be prepared for blowback."

There can be little doubt that the release of GTA IV will be one of the biggest events of the year in video games, both from a business and entertainment standpoint--and from the perspective of politicians, organizations, and individuals like Thompson seeking to derail the game due to what they expect to be an overabundance of violence and sex.

For example, California state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), recently put out a press release in which he exhorted parents not to buy GTA IV for their kids.

"Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games," Yee said in the statement.

Indeed, Take-Two and Rockstar got into pretty serious trouble over the "Hot Coffee" scandal because Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was originally rated "M," meaning 17-year-olds could buy it. After the scandal broke, the publishers were forced to re-rate the game as "AO" for adults only. And in June 2006, Take-Two reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission promising to accurately depict the contents of its games.

Last week, the Parents Television Council issued a release demanding that retailers not sell GTA IV or, at least, not make it available to children.

Some say that even the violence in 'GTA IV' comes with an accompanying message: commit the crime, do the time.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

But after sifting through all these press releases, e-mails, statements, and demands that the world's retailers and parents run screaming from GTA IV, it's striking that none of the people behind these missives has seen the game, and thus couldn't possibly know its full contents.

Part of the problem, said Aaron Muszalski, a visual effects artist formerly with Industrial Light & Magic who teaches at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, is that critics of games like those in the GTA series pass judgment on a very small sample of the whole game.

"When it was reported that, in earlier GTA games, it was possible to have sex with prostitutes and then beat them to death," Muszalski said, "people who lacked a grasp of 'sandbox' gameplay were likely to have interpreted that news to have meant that to 'win' at GTA, one had to perform such tasks, perhaps even that they were a recurring stage in the gameplay.

"Of course, such a perception is grossly flawed, as anyone who has actually played GTA...will quickly tell you," Muszalski continued. "Many of the aspects of GTA that were most covered in the press were things that, in the actual course of gameplay, many people would never need nor choose to do."

Of course, no one denies that there is sexually suggestive or violent content in GTA and other games. And Rockstar Games didn't help its cause in its slow response to the "Hot Coffee" scandal, nor does it now with its reaction to critics who accuse it of serving up games that are harmful to children.

"We don't have any comment on that," Rockstar spokesman Steve Hahnel told me Monday.

Sen. Clinton takes a bye
But perhaps the more measured approach to the GTA situation evinced even by some of the series' more vocal critics might be a more fair way to go.

For example, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was one of the loudest members of the anti-GTA: San Andreas coalition in 2005, has decided to sit this round out.

"We are not planning to issue a statement at this point," Clinton spokeswoman Sarah Gegenheimer wrote in an e-mail.

And the National Organization for Women, which, according to the International Game Developers Association took GTA III to task for "encourag(ing) violence toward and the degradation of women (and) glorifies violence and degrades women," has also decided to remain calm. For now.

"We would really like to see the actual game before we comment on it," said Mai Shiozaki, NOW's press secretary. "But it's not like we're going to go out and buy it."

To be sure, there's little doubt that the controversy over the release of GTA IV is music to Rockstar Games' ears, no matter how shrill the criticism from the likes of Thompson, Yee, the Parents Television Council, and others.

Promotional screenshots for 'GTA IV' are dominated by scenes of one character or another wielding guns or being near explosions. But is this game any worse than dozens of other titles that go unnoticed by critics?

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

After all, as they say, any publicity is good publicity.

"It's their leading franchise, and it's the driver of the vast majority of their profits," said Colin Sebastian, a senior video game analyst at Lazard Capital Partners, "and so the game needs to sell very well, and I think it will. It's one of the few blockbuster franchises you can count on, in terms of sequels and follow-ons."

Sebastian said that because of the game's huge existing fan base, plus solid early reviews and the fact that it's coming out initially on two platforms--Xbox and PlayStation 3--he expects GTA IV to live up to or even exceed the sales numbers of its hit predecessors.

Analysts predict that GTA IV could break Halo 3's entertainment industry record of $170 million for first-day sales.

What GTA means to EA's takeover bid
One major component to the GTA saga is the game's role in the ongoing merger discussions between would-be buyer Electronic Arts and Take-Two.

What's clear in that dynamic, especially now that the game is being released, is that its success could impact the amount that EA is willing to pay for Take-Two.

"The expectations for GTA were already justifiably very high," Sebastian said. "EA understood that when they made their bid....Every day that passes, they're (going to be) losing out on GTA revenues, so they're likely to lower their bid over time....But if GTA massively exceeds their expectations, that could be a scenario where EA might have to raise their bid."

None of this, of course, matters to critics like Yee or the Parents Television Council, both of which cited the oft-reported history of violence in GTA as reason behind their statements.

"We've seen a number of clips of the game," said Yee spokesperson Adam Keigwin. "From the clips alone, and based on GTA and Rockstar's history, (Yee) thought it very appropriate to issue a statement urging parents not to purchase the game for their children."

Similarly, Gavin McKiernan, the national grassroots director for the Parents Television Council, said that despite not having seen the game yet, "You can't necessarily wait until the cat's out of the bag...There's a huge (GTA) marketing and release push, and I'm sure this game will sell lots and lots of copies, so you can't wait."

Plus, McKiernan added, "this is a pretty established, known quantity. If there was going to be a significant change in style and tenor, that would be well known."

To which Muszalski might say, "So what?"

"GTA has always been memorable for the degree to which it succeeds at dramatizing the narrative, and contextually supporting the players actions," he said. "This is not crime for crime's sake, as anyone who has really played the game will tell you, but which, sadly, may not be apparent to anyone who has merely had the game presented to them, mid-gameplay."

It's fun for me to think about a room full of Target executives sitting around and making a decision about whether a video game is too violent for it to sell.

According to ABCNews.com, the giant retailer has decided not to carry the recent Rockstar Games gorefest, Manhunt 2, almost certainly because it has been at the center of the latest kerfuffle over the content of one of the publisher's titles.

"All video games and computer software sold at Target currently carry ratings by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board--from early childhood through mature audiences," ABC quoted a statement from Target as saying. "While Manhunt 2 was given a 'Mature' rating by the ESRB, we received additional information that players can potentially view previously filtered content by altering the game code. As a result, we have decided not the carry the game."

Rockstar Games' new title, 'Manhunt 2' has been the focus of a great deal of controversy because of its highly violent content. As a result, Target has decided not to carry the game.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

Now, this is not a new dynamic for Rockstar. You may well remember that in 2005, the company got into a disastrous scandal over vaguely explicit sexual content that was easily unlocked in the "M"-rated game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

And after that episode, Rockstar agreed that it would never, ever again hide objectionable material in the code of its games.

So here we are, two years later, and according to ABC, Rockstar decided to blur out some of the most violent parts of Manhunt 2 in search of an "M" rating, much as it locked away the explicit content in GTA: SA. But this time, the ESRB said it was satisfied that things were OK.

ABC reported that ESRB president Patricia Vance had no problem with its rating, stating that it was "still valid, and we stand behind it."

Yet, likely because of hype and controversy, Target decided that the game was too violent. Never mind that the retailer also sells such not-quite-pacifist fare as Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War, and Ace Combat 6--which by the way features, on its cover, an exploding airplane and the implication of an instantly killed pilot.

No, Manhunt 2 is too violent. Now, I've never seen the game, and so I certainly cannot comment on how much more violent it is than the titles I just mentioned. But I do know that, for example, Wired writer Clive Thompson has been using Halo 3 as his own personal experiment in exploring the psychology of suicide bombers, and that Call of Duty 4, like most big-name war video games, is pretty much wall-to-wall carnage.

So my question is: When the Target executives were sitting in that room, trying to decide whether Manhunt 2 was too violent, what criteria did they use? It certainly couldn't be the inclusion of blood and guts. Nor of the concept of players or characters getting killed. Because all of that is readily available in the games it is happy to sell.

Rather, it is pointing to the fact that players can unlock the blurred-out elements of the game that Rockstar locked down in order to get an "M" rating instead of "Adults Only," the rating kiss of death when it comes to big-box retailers.

Well, fair enough, I suppose. I think it's short-sighted and random, but I guess Target gets to do whatever it wants. Even when the ratings board itself says it is satisfied that the game is suitable for 17-year-olds.

To my mind, the retailer is running scared from controversy. I know that a lot of parents are unhappy with violent video games because they think the games lead to real-world violence. And that may or may not be true. But I think the retailers either need to pull the plug on all these blood-filled gunfests or carry them all. Singling one out the way they did with Manhunt 2 seems to me to be a sign that these executives are rolling more with the tide of parental outrage than any particularly coherent or sincere policy. And that's a shame.