There are five reasons why I will not be buying GTA IV.

1. Niko Bellic is ethnic, and I am extremely uncomfortable playing as a swarthy foreign character.


There's a reason they're called immigrants...

I'm assuming we're all white here. You couldn't have found this website without knowing how to access the secret white people internet. If you're not white, then please return this stolen laptop to its rightful (white) owner.

It's unclear to me exactly what ethnicity Niko is, but he's darker than the back of a standard index card, which is my cut-off point for acquaintances. My fear is that the game might lead me to accidentally project myself into other non-white characters in real life. Perhaps at the next yacht club party, I might imagine what type of depressing hovel the caterer goes home to, the subsequent distaste rendering me unable to finish my vodka martini. No thank you, Rockstar. Let your heart bleed somewhere else.

2. The game degrades women, whereas I prefer to force women to degrade other women.


Yes, that's right. Now harder, with the other pillow!

I'm also assuming we're all men here, or at least people who like to degrade women. But what really steams my vegetables is when a company tries to take the power to degrade women away from me, and instead puts it directly in the game. I find this emasculating, and frankly, insulting. As noted above, there's nothing better than forcing women to degrade other women -- it's like going to the Oppression Ice Cream Shop and getting a free scoop of Heavenly Humiliation on top of my Passionfruit Powerlessness.

3. The open-sandbox approach promotes only sporadic violence instead of continuous violence.


I'm sorry Mr. Weathers, from now on I will only stop to reload.

When you give people the option to commit in-game violence, you are also giving them the option not to commit in-game violence. This is unacceptable. Listen, I paid* my hard-earned cash for a murder simulator, not a dating sim or bowling game. I'm already upset enough that fishing games artificially limit the amount of cruelty you can inflict on your bait and catch. There are millions of kids living cushy lives in the suburbs who will never know what it is like to take part in a street gang knife fight, or to kill a man solely out of boredom. If we teach them these things, we can reduce those numbers to a few hundred thousand children, all of whom are battle-ready.

*But see point 5.

4. It's popular, therefore it sucks.


... 6.7

I found this argument in an indie music publication, and it was also numbered four, so it seemed to fit here.

5. I plan to steal the game.


Just as I stole this image.

If Rockstar's game is as effective as everyone says at pulling me into a world of criminal activity, then the natural result is for me to become a criminal, and therefore the game will cause me to steal it. If Rockstar fails at making a game good enough to turn me into a criminal, I see no reason to reward them by purchasing the game. Since neither approach nets Rockstar any of my money, there's no reason to pay. But just to give Rockstar the benefit of the doubt, I'll try to ease into the criminal mindset with a simple smash-and-grab before settling into Liberty City.