5 controversies that the GTA series is renowned for

Rockstar Games' GTA series did not become a cultural sensation just because of what the titles had to offer to the gaming world, but also due to the creative liberties they took.

Thus, many of these choices have caused a lot of controversy and censorship, which, in turn, has led them to gain notoriety among many groups of people.

Another reason for this infamy has to be the amount of moral ambiguity spread through every installment in this series, as players have the freedom to do virtually whatever they want. Thus, Rockstar Games has had to tackle many accusations and defend almost all of the GTA games since the beginning.

So, to shed some more light on this topic, this article will present five controversies that the GTA series is renowned for.

Note: This article reflects the writer's subjective opinion.

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5 popular controversies surrounding the GTA series

1) New York officials vs GTA 4

When the first trailer for GTA 4 was revealed to the public, New York officials particularly took offense to the portrayal of Liberty City when they figured out that Rockstar Games had based it on New York.

The main reason was that the game did not reflect the amount of crimes that were actually happening in New York with accuracy. Additionally, a spokesperson for New York's mayor at the time even released a statement saying:

"The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers."

However, in reality, GTA 4 never had any mechanics that would give any kind of points to the players for eliminating police officers in the game, so many fans questioned the authenticity of this accusation.

Finally, Jason Della Rocca, who was the executive director of the International Game Developers Association during the controversy, called out New York officials for their hypocrisy as they hadn't criticized any other form of media that portrayed the city in a similar way.

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2) Drunk driving in GTA 4

American non-profit organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) heavily criticized the feature in GTA 4 that lets players drive cars in the game while the main protagonist Niko Bellic is drunk. As a result, MADD demanded that ESRB raise GTA 4's from M (Mature) to AO (Adults Only).

They also questioned Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games' intentions with this feature and said that they should have a sense of responsibility as drunk driving is a real issue that takes the lives of many people.

Rockstar Games soon responded to MADD's concerns by acknowledging their work and supporting their initiative. However, they also highlighted that when players in GTA 4 choose to drive when drunk, Niko Bellic vocally states that he should not do this and should call a taxi instead.

Furthermore, driving when drunk in Grand Theft Auto 4 is really hard to do, and Rockstar Games believes that their audience is sophisticated and mature enough to recognize the action they are taking part in the game is wrong.

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3) By the Book

By the Book is the most controversial mission present in Grand Theft Auto 5 because of its brutal and visceral depiction of torture that players perform on a character.

However, many fans have pointed out that this scene can be seen as satire and social commentary on real cases of torture and human rights violations.

In any case, this mission was so plainly miserable to play that it was hard for many critics to ignore its impact and they expressed that it was done in poor taste.

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4) Prostitution in Vice City

Grand Theft Auto Vice City provides players with the ability to pick up prostitutes in the game. This feature was seen as s*xually explicit and many authorities responded with strict censorship.

This was the case for Australia, where Grand Theft Auto Vice City was released with this ability disabled along with many pre-edits, and was given the MA15+ classification.

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5) Hot Coffee mod

The most popular controversy surrounding the series has to be the Hot Coffee Mod incident that happened in 2005, just a year after the release of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.

Basically, one modder found out that Grand Theft Auto San Andreas contains a fully simulated s*x scene within the game that has been disabled but not completely removed. So, he created a mod called Hot Coffee that enables this feature, with players even getting control of CJ during the scene.

This caused a lot of outrage and many national and international news outlets covered this discovery. As a result, the production of GTA San Andreas was suspended and the ERSB reevaluated its rating by giving it an AO (Adults Only) rating.

Many sellers even refused to sell the game in their stores as it violated their personal store policies. Rockstar Games managed to curb some damage by releasing the "Cold Coffee" patch that removed this scene entirely from the title.