Controversy

Even though the game's release is still months away, the controversy surrounding it is already starting to come to a boil. It's become almost impossible to bring Grand Theft Auto up in conversation without phrases like “murder simulator” and “hot coffee.” Although it goes without saying that the notorious Jack Thompson has come out of his office to rally against Rockstar, there seem to have been different detractors to the game since the first trailer.

New York City officials were up in arms with the release of “Things Will Be Different” because of its obviously NYC inspired locale. A representative of Mayor Bloomberg went on record as saying that, "The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers."

In response to the outrage in New York, the Executive Director of the International Games Developer Association, Jason Della Rocca had objection to the reaction in lieu of other locations taking opposition to game settings being in their cities such as Las Vegas and the country of Venezuela.

"There is just a mismatch in terms of reaction, based on the perception of games," said Della Rocca. "In this particular case with New York, it doesn't seem like it's politically motivated, like, 'Let's beat up on this game to benefit our political campaign.' Instead, it seems they're genuinely unhappy. But that just shows a lack of understanding about games as an entertainment form."

Della Rocca ultimately went on to state that it's a little bit contradictory to not allow games to take place in those locations when other forms of media that can be violent like movies and television has free reign to take place there.

Yet not all of the controversy has originated from men in suits and disgruntled lawyers. When Rockstar announced that the game would be pushed back due to development problems, the gaming world let out both a collective sigh and anguished moan as more time in development is always a good thing, yet the lack of the game on shelves in time for the holiday season wasn't too great for the consumer.

What made the delay so troublesome was the rumors that were floating around saying that a certain black gaming box was the reason the game had been delayed for so long. After some time of speculation, Rockstar's product development vice president Jeronimo Barerra told MTV, "It's really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to that. Now, we're neck and neck. That's not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account."