The game also led the trend of mature video games; Dan Houser felt that it allowed other developers to create violent shooters. Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, described "Grand Theft Auto III" as the "lightning rod for the violence-in-games debate". "Metro"s Roger Hargreaves wrote that it "emboldened a whole new wave of games that were ... fixated with violence, gang culture". Greg Ford of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" felt that the game allowed the medium to handle mature subject matter in a more serious manner than previously perceived, and noted the improvement of video game classification as a result of the game's controversy.