Thecase of a murdered Thai cabbiewith spurious links toGrand Theft Autorefuses to leave the press, and is generatinga wave of hysteriaworldwide. The fear mongering hasnow reached Spain, where cab drivers are calling for a ban of the game, along with any other title that displays excessive violence or “celebrates” drug trafficking and prostitution.
Josep Maria Goñi, secretary general of the Catalan Taxi Federation is leading the charge, asking the Spanish government to yankGrand Theft Autofrom store shelves. If the translated story is correct, he has used the Thai murder case as the basis for this request, as ifGrand Theft Autois actively encouraging a wave of cabbie murders in the world. Another day, another absurd panic.
I won’t lie. As someone who works with taxi drivers in real life, I relish the opportunity to bash their virtual heads in, but that’s because Ialreadyknow and loathe most of them, andGTAcan be a great catharsis for that. Does it work vice versa? Highly doubtful — nobody’s going to develop a murderous hatred of cab drivers from a videogame. I can state with authority that cab drivers do a good job of makingthemselvesdetestable, and don’t need a game to help them.
This whole thing is ridiculous.GTAhas been on store shelves for months, and so far we have had onlyonemurder case with flimsy and questionable links to it. That it has caused such fear and panic demonstates how truly frightened and confused as a species we human beings are.
