Edition: U.S. / Global

With Games of Havoc, Men Will Be Boys

Published: May 12, 2002

WHAT I like to do is get in the car and drive around and do drive-by shootings,'' said Chris Trudeau of Norwalk, Conn. ''You can haul someone out of their car and beat on them and steal their money and their car. It's kind of amusing that you have that ability.''

Colin Smith, from Charlotte, N.C., said: ''The drive-by shootings of innocent pedestrians are always fun. It really does bring out the quote-unquote evil in you.''

These aren't journal entries from Rikers Island inmates. No, just the heartfelt testimonials of some die-hard fans of the best-selling and -- not coincidentally -- most violent video game in America: Grand Theft Auto 3, a wantonly antisocial carjacking escapade in which players are rewarded for having sex with a prostitute, killing her and stealing her money.



Rich Estrin, 24, a publicist from Long Island, says the game's allure comes down to ''just going on killing sprees.''

What is it about virtual carjacking and killing innocent pedestrians that's appealing to young men who are otherwise upstanding citizens? According to Eugene Provenzo, a University of Miami professor of education who has written extensively about video games, mature-rated games may be the adult equivalent of flashlight-under-the-covers reading. They satisfy the urge to be naughty. ''It allows us to enter a dangerous space in a new way and to explore something that's a bit forbidden,'' he said. ''Maybe it's not a space we want to go to in reality, but it's something we want to test out.'' It's this generation, which grew up on Atari and Pac-Man and now spends with credit cards instead of quarters, that has contributed to the incredible growth of the video-game industry in the last two years. Retail sales of video games totaled $9.4 billion last year, a 42 percent increase over the $6.6 billion in sales in 2000, and even more than Hollywood took in at the box office last year.



For some in their mid-20's to late 30's, shooting one another to virtual smithereens has replaced poker as the activity of choice for guys' night out. After work last Wednesday, Kevin Amter and five friends gathered around a refrigerator-size Panasonic television in a TriBeCa loft. They ordered some pizza, cracked open beers and after a pep talk from a fictional mission commander -- ''When we meet the enemy, we'll tear their skulls from their spines and laugh about it'' -- their thumbs started pumping like sewing-machine needles.


''Oh, no!''

''Get up so I can kill you some more!''

For a few harrowing, corpse-strewn minutes, the guys were lost in a world that looked and sounded like a futuristic version of the opening scene of ''Saving Private Ryan.'' Bullets and bodies flew to the relentless, metallic clackety-clack of reloading small arms. The virtual floors of the game were bathed in blood. In the apartment, a dog wet the floor and no one noticed.

Mr. Amter is 37 and his Halo buddies range in age from 25 to 38. ''We're not slackers or teen deviants,'' Mr. Amter said, chewing on a slice of pizza after the electronic smoke had cleared. ''We're just mature adults who aren't overly mature. The phrase 'grow up, not old' applies directly to us.''


''It's like a horror movie, but you're in it,'' Mr. Trudeau said of Resident Evil. ''You play it at home with the lights off, and it scares the bejesus out of you.''

One needn't actually play the games to appreciate their cinematic qualities. When Rick Barakat, 28, a sports marketing executive from Charlotte, plays Grand Theft Auto 3, his wife, he said, ''likes to sit there and watch like it's a TV show or a movie.'' The first time Mr. Barakat mowed down a pedestrian in the game, he said, ''we thought it was funny.'' ''If we're going to look at murder and prostitution and violence in movies,'' he continued, ''why shouldn't we be able to see them in video games?''

Although most research on violent video games has focused on their effect on children, some experts fear that the games may adversely affect adults.

''A violent game like Grand Theft Auto tends to be an amplifier of feelings that already exist,'' said David Walsh, a psychologist and president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, which has worked closely with Senator Lieberman to monitor the video game industry. ''Is it likely that someone as a result of playing the game will go out and copy the crimes? No. Might it have an effect of amplifying those violent attitudes in real-life situations? That very well may be.''

Mr. Walsh said that rather than simply testing a forbidden world, some adults might simply be inhabiting it. ''We're starting to see video- game addiction among adults -- neglecting relationships, neglecting responsibilities,'' he said. ''We don't know how widespread it is, but we know it's happening anecdotally.''

For the most part, the wives and girlfriends of hard-core adult gamers seem to view their significant others' fascination with video games as harmless if slightly annoying. ''It's ruined a couple of Sundays,'' said Jaime Ditzian, 25, the girlfriend of Julian McNab, a Manhattan Halo enthusiast who puts in daylong sessions with Mr. Amter's crowd. ''I was so surprised that they could spend so many hours playing.'' Mostly, Ms. Ditzian said, the game is simply loud.

''I hear stuff being blown up, and the subwoofer vibrates through the apartment,''' she said. ''Julian will always try to show me how to play, but I honestly have no interest.''

Eric Weinburg, a 28-year-old father from Atlanta and a Grand Theft Auto 3 fan, said the game had become a wedge between himself and his wife. ''She's appalled -- first of all that it's a video game; secondly, that I'm playing it,'' he said. ''It always seems like the times when my wife walked into the room, I was picking up a hooker.''

Wall Street's faith in the sales of the games was recently demonstrated when the publisher of Grand Theft Auto 3, New York-based Take-Two Interactive, became embroiled in an accounting scandal. Though trading of its stock was halted for three weeks and the stock's value dropped 24 percent, it closed Friday at $23.75, near its all-time high, $26.90.

The company plans to release a personal computer version of the game soon and is promoting the game aggressively on ''The Howard Stern Show,'' in the lad magazine Maxim and on MTV's ''Osbournes.'' In addition, the company is exploring film possibilities. In the view of Paul Eibeler, the president of Take-Two, video games and movies ''are moving closer and closer together.''

''It used to be that movies went to interactive products, now it's the other way around,'' he said. ''The older market drives that business.''

Photos: VICARIOUS THRILLS -- Kevin Amter, right, and his friends send bullets and bodies flying in a video game, as does a character in Grand Theft Auto 3, left. (Philip Greenberg for The New York Times)(pg. 1); BLASTING OUT -- A quieter moment in the video game Halo, for Microsoft's Xbox. Sixteen players can fire at once.; UGH -- ''It's like a horror movie, but you're in it,'' a fan said of Resident Evil. (pg. 4)