This, from your own political lens

I think even Rock Star realized that GTA 5 was a boring game.

I know it sold truck loads of copies but it faded from the zeitgeist pretty quick.

They used to put out a new GTA game every 2 years. I haven't heard of any news on a GTA 6

GTA is great and anyone who says otherwise is a nigger
It's also legitimately Anti-Capitalist, and it's themes are explored both in the story and gameplay mechanics

Also this thread is filled with contrarian faggots

They tried to add maturity to the plot by saying the middle aged character had a strained relationship with his family.

Then out of nowhere the kids and his alienated wife realize they're all fucked up mentally and they form this solidarity around the fact they're all damaged. Even though most of their problems are due to the middle aged guys criminal past.

The kids start loving their dad again even though they were depicted as being selfish as fuck.

lol how

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he also save his family's life?

I'd say it's more anarcho-capitalist, letting the player characters get high on wealth made from killing people and stealing shit.

grand theft auto iv is the best grand theft auto

prove me wrong

They glamorized killing for capital through out the game. Any blow back is shrugged off by the characters.

I'll be honest I didn't finish GTA 5. But even if there was some huge comeuppance at the end where did you see anti capitalist messages.

GTA 4 was way more critical of consumerism with their fake shows about celebrities.

The Third Way pretty much spells out it's Anti-Capitalist message. Then there's the in-game movie Meltdown, which if you haven't watched go do so right now. Then there's the whole, I dunno, much more complex economy than any other GTA game. Money actually has uses in this game, and GTA 4 even had Anti-Capitalist themes. "Niko, in America you need money to do ANYTHING" - Roman

Goddamn you two can not be serious right?

You are correct but his returning back to a criminal lifestyle is what put them in danger in the first place and the wife knew it.

Also the way they go back to loving him was like within a few lines of dialogue.

I guess you could argue there was a Stockholm syndrome thing going on but the scene starts off with the wife just about ready to leave him and his kids alienated from him then in a snap they love him.

They killed people to get rich. They got away with it and the whole game is sympathetic to the criminals journey. Most crime movies glamorize crime just like war movies glamorize combat

It doesn't glamourize shit. Franklin literally ends the game by saying that the only reason that they're the good guys is becuase they are only slightly less shitty than the government and the other rich asshole.
This dialogue is after they kill this liberal billionaire who owns a private army and is all around a fucking annoying scumbag.
"We can get back to the type of capitalism we practice" -Trevor
"Shit I don't know how much better that is than Devin Westons kind" -Franklin
"Hypocrisy Franklin. Civilizations greatest virtue"- Michael

Vice City was pure 80's memcaine. Good for sandbox world type mayhem,.

Until I found out about Red Faction

doesn't every greedy asshole in every gta game end up dying horribly ?

Oh stop you're like one of those people that say Tupac wasn't mysgonist because he wrote one nice song honoring black women.

The whole game has you hopping from one crime to another so their pre teen fan base can play out their immature power fantasies and the game does lift a finger to make you feel bad about it.

Just because they tacked on something about moral relativity at the end doesn't mean anything

I don't know I didn't finish GTA 5. But come on the game is like 40 hours long. I finished most of it and the game is sympathetic to the criminals throughout.

Loved Vice City. But probably because it didn't take itself too seriously.

I finished Vice City. That game had a happy ending.

It's not just at the ending. The whole game is filled with shit like this. And what do you mean no comuppence? The game has 3 endings dude. 2 of them are pretty terrible for the protagonists, but no comuppence for the games villains. The third ending is the opposite. If you genuinely think that this game is glamorizing or endorsing being a bank robber or a criminal or some shit, then youre just wrong. If by "glamorizing" you just mean "make it entertaining" then you really are a fucking idiot, its designed to be entertaining. It's a video game.

CJ follows the middle aged character around like a puppy dog even after not getting any money after the first two heists.

The Mexican drug lords wife falls in love with the crazy character even though the crazy character is far more violent and has less to offer.

It is not. Anti-Capitalism is about creating stuff that will replace Capitalism. Not blowing shit up.

I must say I never even noticed there were any. Though, for me GTA is 1&2 primarily.

The game is only "sympathetic", and I use that term loosley because the game is constantly pointing out how the protags are cunts, to the protagonists. Literally everyone else who is involved heavily in the story who is a criminal is portrayed as an asshole who deserves to die.

Game that is famous because it was the first of it's type and tries hard with muh social commentary. Shit tier ones to boot.

No anti capitalism is about being against capitalism. It doesn't need to endorse socialism or communism to be Anti-Capitalist.

I hate you so much. Be proud of it.

You have unregulated (or regulated undemocractically) industrial economy. This gives you Capitalism.

You have democratically regulated industrial economy. This gives you Socialism.

What is the third option you see here? Because being against Capitalism, but no for anything else, doesn't actually mean shit. If you aren't simultaneously for something, you are simply being against some elements of Capitalism. Not the whole of it.

CJ and his friend were the only ones I really remember.

The other two were such obvious frustrated self insert Mary Sues for the player to live through.

Saying something doesn't make it true. You don't have to be for anything to be against something else. You could just be for nothing.

I understand what you mean, how can you be against something if you have no alternative? But this game isn't a manifesto or anything. It doesn't have to say "Capitalism sucks and socialism is better" to be anti capitalist.

a sinful distraction

Let me spell it for you: I remember that in one of GTA 3d games PC might've been black. That's the extent of my awareness of GTA plots and characters. Also, somebody was annoyed about me stealing a tank and blowing up half of London - "I didn't ask you to start WWIII!".

Right. I forgot I was talking with Anarchist. There was an option of going back to Feudalism. Apologies. My brain tends to edit unspeakable horrors out of my perception of reality to protect my psyche.

IRL you have two three options: Capitalism, Socialism and Feudalism. IRL you have to choose one of those. If you are simply being against Capitalism …

Okay. For the purpose of this discussion, I must say that you are correct. But you are also making a very good case for shooting "anti-capitalists" in the head first and asking questions later. And I'm saying this as a radical socialist.

What, have you never met a liberal who fancies himself an anti-capitalist? Are you serious?

I mostly stay on other side of pond. Liberals here aren't fed mushrooms that make them think that they are Left.

Listen, the game is designed to be a parody/critique of nearly everything about American society.
Other Rockstar games have had leftist/Anti-Capitalist themes. Max Payne 3 is a good example. If I had the time I would write a fucking essay about all of the Anti-Capitalist stuff in GTA, but just take my word for it
It is. IMO the fact that it doesn't endorse any alternative to capitalism is part of the point. Hypocritical self-awareness literally PERMEATES GTA V, this is shown by the protagonists, who recognize how they are all horrible people but do nothing to change, and almost all of the businesses in the game admit to horrible practices upfront but act as if the mere acknowledgement of their problems makes up for the fact that they still have problems. For example, a strip club advertises in-game by saying "Vanilla Unicorn - Objectifying the female form since 1990" From my POV, the games message is that capitalism is shit, but that it's modern form avoids change by simply admitting it's problems as if that really means anything. It also puts on the façade that there is no alternative except other forms of capitalism, but slightly tweaked. Seriously, watch the in-game movie Meltdown. It kind of makes this point explicit.
"If we don't stop him, then good honest capitalism is dead!"
"Congratulations guys! You've saved capitalism from greed and excess!"

The understanding of capitalism inGTA V is about an inch deep. The closest they come to crtiquing it is by making fun of consumerism.

Even then they mostly blame the proles ignorance instead of contradictions of capitalism.

They explicitly make fun of environmentalists and labor organizers in their impotent rage man show.

First they conflate bourgeois liberals with leftist and social activists. And even then they don't that right by saying if we do anything to stop porky from exploiting we'll all be wiping our asses with leaves. Or that labor unions are just full of lazy workers and imped porkies ability to do anything productive.

Impotent rage in particular could've been written by Rush Limbaugh.

Cool look at the ways in which the lumpenproletariat and petit bourgeoisie resemble each other.

I get the impression that the creators are social liberal, fiscal conservative :^) porkies. But it is what it is.

You must love bowling

Amazing satire of american culture and the capitalist system, which highlights the crimes of out-of-luck Michael, the futility of the persuit of money to give meaning to ones life and the situation of the poor black neighbourhoods and their hopelessness.

Trevor is just fucking insane, that's probably the best part in the game. Trevor is objectively the most woke character.

I never completed the mission of any of the games, I choose instead to forgo the forced capitalist mantra of "make more money", which it the game stalls at at some point. I made it a point to instead opt in for mission such as helping Roman out with his bussiness, rather than stealing cars or doing jobs for some faggot mafioso.

In GTA5 I opted to instead explore the wonders that the game had to offer, such as the vast landscapes, the amazing vehicles which you can drive, the planes which to fly with, the hidden bits spread around the map.

I stopped playing GTA 4 after I was going on a meaningless rampage next to a hospital and i shot a cop who was trying to protect the civilians. After I shot him, he started saying to himself that "Don't worry, you're going to make it". After that I never picked up the game, having been pulled back into the (in character) reality of having murdered many many people, only having to buy off the cops and having my guns confiscated.

Also, check out this youtube series, its fucking amazing, its a pacifist approach to gta online.

youtube.com/watch?v=nDRKbYNjRic&list=PL1tAmAFSc-YS63RrFMwkG0GuPVN70ku_G

You thought Trevor was woke?

I thought that was the most insufferable character of all. That character just reeked of Holla Forums.

And he was a Mary Sue. None of the characters will hesitate to shoot anyone but they all have this hushed reverence for Trevor because he's CRA-ZAY.

He was such a self insert character for their sheltered pre teen white suburban fan base

Never thought about it this way. I must ponder on this a bit.

I really didn't like Trevor as a character but I appreciate that he's kind of a representation of most GTA players.

Personally I play more like Micheal or Franklin, I do the missions and goals required but I (perhaps hypocritically) try to avoid killing civilians and causing general devastation. So perhaps I'm the moral criminal type.

A good game series full of liberal social commentary.

That's not really anti-capitalist in its tone.

The tone is more like, "life under capitalism is rough. But its the rough life for me, yo".

There's a trend where people will "respect" a certain lifestyle BECAUSE it is a rough lifestyle to be a part of. Seems to be mostly a modern trend, but its the reason why apolitical skater kids have respect for thug culture (at least at my school district they did.)

(self-reply) you see, people can then feel like they're being "edgy" by identifying with the "rough, tough" lifestyle in question.

This is why most people support capitalism. They support it BECAUSE life under capitalism is inherantly shittier than life under socialism.

They WANT to make life as miserable and shitty as possible so that they can "struggle" and gain strength through that struggle. This way their lives can have "moar meaning", whatever that means.

It makes any rebellion or change feel hopeless when people are going out of their way to make their own lives as shitty as possible because of "muh strength…muh 'life needs struggles to have meaning' ".

People in large groups will inveriably pick whichever is against their own best interest, out of an irrational fear that working in their OWN interest will make life "too easy" for them, and their lives will thus not have any "meaning".

I really don't think that's true. Most people's opinions on socialism are either 'well it's nice in theory but doesn't work' or 'socialism is bad because spooks'. I don't think people think 'socialism is actually good, but it's too good!'

One of those spooks is "we need challenges in life to give life meaning", or so I thought. Maybe I'm imagining it.

Someone above mentioned Tupac.

Tupac represents the "enlightened thug" culture. A lot of kids at my school listened to Tupac and got the idea in their heads that "thugs" should EXPLICITLY be respected over other people because to do otherwise is "judging" those thugs, and having solidarity with them "in spite of the fact that they make mistakes" was a way to show off their own open-mindedness.

Treating me like a good guy since I was would have been too mainstream and not edgy enough.

They do this with songs too. Like "I Love the Way You Lie". Ohhhhhh so edgy *pukes*.

IV had some decent moments storywise, probably the one that hit closest to home in terms of satire as well.

all of the other ones are shit, even SA although I still kinda like it because of my inner wigger

V was complete garbage

its not a modern trend you autistic sheltered yuppie, people have always respected someone that faces "adversity", that pretty much what every story has been about since the dawn of man

Yeah it boggles my mind how much reverence Tupac gets.

His music is bourgeois as all fuck. It glamorizes this almost cartoon depiction of gang lifestyle. It only sold be cause it was an exciting peek for sheltered suburbanite children of alienated from their petite bourgeois parents.

His music with only a handful of exceptions undermines Hip Hops roots in the injustices and oppression faced by poor black people through this country.

At least the legacy of 90's gansta rap seems to be a laughable product of its time to most people.

Yeah it's pretty much the main theme of most stories from the dawn of civilization. What a fucking idiot.

No not really. There was a time when it was ASSUMED that human beings defended themselves. Even rich kings at one time fought other kings, directly, with swords.

In older movies, TV shows, and from older people, I hear the idea "its not about what life throws at you, its what you do with it that counts" (Bourgie AF I know).

The obsession with "You have to respect X group of people because struggle" only seems to have become such an obsession around the late 90s/early 2000s era.

Modern day urban youth have gone back to the disco era now and are obsessed with SUVs and clothing labels. In spite of the fact that they're poor AF, the obsession with "struggle" as the "main" focus point through which people should be "respected" (and not a component of it) seems to be foreign to them, as well as other aspects of 1990s "thug" culture.

People have always respected "struggle", but usually as a side to those people actually doing something worth respecting.

The obsession with "struggle" as a condition of UNCONDITIONAL respect seems to be a product of late 1990s, late-era thug culture attempting to give meaning to itself before fading away along with all the other fads that people swore were not fads.

Some people really did die for it.

Doesn't make it any less of a fad. Neurotypicals are pretty dumb.

Its not just "bourgeois". I call it "thug privlege" and I think it was a huge part of the culture of the 1990s and 2000s decades.

Google Al Sharpton Dunbar Rape.

Al Sharpton sided with black male rapists over the black females that they raped. At some point, a cultural "thing" occured where people got it into their heads that showing forgiveness and love toward people who live the "thug life" was the thing to do.

It was done with a spirit of open-mindedness and tolerance and forgiveness. And also total ignorance of all the black/poor people who aren't thugs.

Gang violence victims, mostly poor and black, were shrugged off as collateral damage in the "war against racism".

This isn't your conventional bully shoving you into a locker and saying "haha". This is a culture that demands its members be respected, like warriors, for their struggles, while literally NOONE ELSE gets this respect, merely for having a hard life.

Homeless people didn't get this respect. Neither did the average black guy. Neither did parapalegic people.

You have to realize, gangs aren't charities. Gangs are desperate people doing what they feel is necessary, BUT THEY ARE THE STRONGEST AND MOST POPULAR *AMONG* THE DESPERATE IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD.

A gang is like a family. You can't just WALTZ IN to someone's family and say, "I'm poor and desperate, let me join your gang!"

You have to be socially skilled so you can make the gang look respectable. You have to have good fistfighting skills. Being desperate and willing to die for the gang, in itself, isn't enough for membership.

So to say that every single "gang member" is infinitely oppressed and every single non-"gang member" is infinitely privilieged simply isn't true. Besides they don't even really have "gangs" anymore because its not 1996. Nowadays its all small sets.

Also, any opposition to gang culture was portrayed as an old, conservative, white, muh privileged, redneck or an neffeminate, soft "little rich boy from one o dem sub-urbs".

Gran Torino, yeah protagonist was an alright guy, but being an old angry white conservative was a major part of his character. Why not a movie about a black kid in Detroit rebelling against gangs and cops at the same time?

Because its Hollywood and they have an agenda, that's why. And no, I'm not talking about "j00z".

Is that some kind of reddit speak for normies?

There was a movie about a nerdy black kid outsmarting some gang members that came out like a year ago called Dope. You should check out. I really wouldn't call that Hollywood stuff an agenda. They're just trying to follow trends that they think we'll make them good returns.

I say it tongue-in-cheek. Like haha, I'm saying something that's OBVIOUSLY a bigoted blanket statement and not true, which makes it kinda funny, but not really,

Because there are some things about the wiring of alistic people that is a bit off. Its not the fact that they follow fads, but the fact that they won't ADMIT to it. All the kids that were "willing to die" for the thug life and screamed in my face about how super serious it was and how I was failing to "respect" their "struggle"…

I message them on FB now…"Hey what the fuck was that all about? Everybody screaming at me about how I'm a spoiled little bitch and I don't understand the struggle?"

"Oh you're still on that old shit? Thuggin is old shit its all about making money now."

Fuck their struggle, most of these "thug" kids had it way better than I did.

They're pretty much just copying whatever hip hop music tells them to. Its so blatent and its not "just middle class white kids" or "just poor black kids" its both, which is why these degenerate messages are so dangerous to society. Its BOTH cultures.

Then again most of us autistic people say our first words at age 15, so eh. Also there's a subset of autistic people who are obsessed with rules and laws and they have to "cawl the poliiiice" any time someone goes 3 mph over the speed limit…gulag THOSE ass burgers.

Thank you for giving me a link to "Dope".

This might be some really good shit.

We need a movie about a loner, and an outcast…that we we can have someone who has no kids and wife…someone who can be desperate and idealistic at the same time, willing to die for what's right.

Ok guys I'm going to quote from an essay I never got around to finish:

Then it convinces those affected by this that not making it is their fault and not something that's systemic. This is very likely to foster resentment, and it does.

That is good stuff. Mention how most gang violence victims are poor people if you didn't already. How can we spread these ideas through the internet and irl outlets?

Will do

My original plan was to get it published on bunkermag (their article on Crazy Taxi is what inspired me to write this) but the essay is still a jumbled mess in need of editing.

I would absolutely adore something like that. I hate the family shit that Hollywood throws into movies as a half-assed way to get us invested in characters. Hollywood just isn't interested in that sorta of thing. They don't think it would sell.

Sounds edgy

Seems like a good essay. But could you maybe speak it a little more plainly. Kinda struggled with following your points.

It ties in with the idea that "having kids and getting married" is unavoidable. Thus encouraging lumpen behavior from those who can't feed their kids and robbing from members of their own social class.

That's why people who have mutliple genetic disorders often have 4, 5 kids who are wheelchair-bound by age 12 and very few critisize them. Society is extremely judgemental in all the wrong ways.

In this case, I don't even think its class, I think its social status.

People who are socially popular assume that everyone "gets married and has kids" when their in their 20s, since that's what they did and that's what all their friends did.

So when I refuse to have sympathy for a gangbanger who robs people to feed his 5 kids, the upper middle class folks are like, "Well, what would YOU do if you were poor and desperate and couldn't feed your kids?"

The idea that I don't have kids never hits them.

Childlessness is seen as a muh privilege, whereas being a "family man" is supposed to make you some type of Scarface "enlightened thug" daddy figure.

It all goes back to this bullshit about respecting "the struggle" just for the sake of respecting "struggle" regardless of what a person's net contribution to human culture is. Even self imposed struggles.

lol holy shit that's some spooked up shit boyo

how the fuck do you possibly measure the "net contribution to human culture" of an individual

Hitler has been a meme-star since the internet began. Is his value as an individual enhanced by this contribution to human culture?

Yeah like the latest capeshit Sucide Squa. We're suppose to be sympathetic to Dead Shot because he has a daughter. I'm also tried of the worship of single parents that seem to go in popular media or the way society puts mothers on a pedestal like a woman birthing a child automatically makes her worthy of respect. I agree that it's incredibly annoying but I don't blame the media. The media is just a reflection of societal norms and values even when it's creators try to be subversive.

Yeah lets treat serial rapists the same as we would treat a war hero who dies fighting porkies because believing in hierarchy makes you Literally Hitler.

"Thug privlege".

The "popular kid" in a poor neighborhood has 5 kids in his teens and early 20s, then kills 4 store clerks in a robbery to "feed his kids". 90% of society wishes him death, but the other 10% idolizes him. This is someone who owns a $300 pair of sneakers and drives a huge SUV to show that he's a "hustla".

Then, a nerdy kid who gets WAY less respect than the typical "urban thug" kills 3 in a school shooting. 100% of society wishes for his death, as opposed to the 90% of society who wished death on the "thug" above.

Since "nerd" stereotypes are imposed onto the dominant racial class (white people), the muh privilege held by "thugs" over "nerds" is extremely difficult to prove.

Also, notice how RICH white men are excluded from the "Only black dudes can be tough/strong/manly" message seen in some TV shows and movie references.

Middle class white guys are constantly selectively-emasculated, but not rich white guys. Rich white guys get the same "street smart/tough guy" status that black guys do.

some highschool-tier analysis going on itt

Also, there's the rule that "low income white people can NOT exist in urban areas…

…unless they're blue collar NYC Italians. Also, all construction workers are New Yorkers."

That's the rules for TV and movies.

For some reason whenever "Cleveland" is mentioned it refers to suit-and-tie wearing white people living in the downtown sections. "The hood" only exists in NYC and LA.

The petit bourgeois have an obsession with separating "ghetto" black people and "trailer trash" whites. There's SOME racial division between our cultures, but the petit bourgeois definitely exaggerate those differences.

Oh yeah no doubt about that. Look at the Ghostbusters movie. Paul Fieg is a wealthy white man that grow up upper-middle class decided to created a movie that essential bashes the working class dynamic of the original films and it's primary audience. That kind of thing is super common in the entertainment industry now and I see libertarians and reactionaries taking advantage of it to recruit disenfranchised men. It's a real shit show.

Good points. GTA is a mix of narcissism and nihilism, where GTA wallows in the meaningless of modern life and the only goals it presents are rooted in the self-gratification of the protagonist any by extension the player. Even when GTA tries to be deep like the with CJ and Niko,with all the whining about not really wanting to be criminals they are nothing but pawns doing jobs that benefit whoever they current are doing missions for.

Every GTA is literally a tale where you make it with hard work.

CJ literally went from gangbanger to casino owner and corporate shareholder.

I really enjoyed it.

With none of the power that comes with being lumpen bourgeoisie, CJ is still doing the grunt work for the final missions and the game never really address how any of that power CJ had amassed helps the hoods.

How is L.A. Noire? I heard that was kind of leftist.

CJ literally does all that shit because his family asks him to do so.
Well, his hood effectively control all the areas of Los Santos after the faction war.

That gotta helps in amassing huge amount of money.

And no, CJ becomes a fucking porky after Las Venturas.

I mean, goddamn, he can effectively rest and gain money doing nothing.

He becomes a porky after San Fierro.

The car business, remember?

Completely agree, it was made for the south park audience

Gta 4 was fun up until the last 30 mins or so, and the post game was boring but it had many great characters that you actually grew somewhat attached to.

Stirnerism: The Video Game