Race in videogames

I was doing research for my thesis, reading the forums on Afropunk.com when I came across an interesting thread that had a connection to our readings on videogames this week. People were talking about an article about racism in videogames, and specifically the Grand Theft Auto series. While most people agreed with the article (which condemned games like these for perpetuating racist stereotypes), a couple of poster were avid players of the game and felt that since there were stereotypes or everyone in the game, that made it okay.

Personally, I find the games very problematic, in particular “San Andreas”, which is the one I’ve seen the most/heard the most about. If games are a form of cyberdrama and powerful new storytelling tool, it seems that when it comes to representations of people of color in mainstream media, the form may have changed but it’s the same old story. I wonder who the intended audience for these games are. What does it mean for a white surburban kid to play as a black inner-city gangbanger? It will be interesting to see how larger systems of domination continue to affect (and limit) what kinds of stories games will tell.

Does anyone play the GTA games? I'm curious to see what you think of all this.

Here a link to the article that sparked the discussion on Afropunk.com: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3494&Itemid=2