Videogames are a $33 billion global biz, and videogame sales are already larger than US box office cinema revenues. If you want to change society, you have to know what it's thinking and dreaming about.
> isn't Grand Theft Auto Vice City
> the game that "encourages" the player, an Italian Mafioso to pick up a
> prostitute, beat her up, kill her and steal her money and car?
No. It encourages you to make out with her (the car rocks discreetly) -- you get health points for this. If you steal, the cops come looking for you and make your life difficult; it's much easier to work as a legitimate taxi-driver or run through the missions. Noone really dies in the game; an ambulance comes and carries them off. It's just cartoonish fun.
> "encourages" the player to kill Black and Hispanic drug dealers as well as
> other Italian Mafia types.
No, you're a gun for hire, who works for various mobsters. Most of them meet a gory end, but the biggest villains of all are the white power elites. "Vice City" has some hilarious fake radio interviews, including one with a power-mad Governor who's a dead ringer for Jeb Bush.
-- DRR