Interpretation of San Andreas

Raessens explanation of interpretation in video games relates to cultural understandings and cultural studies. Basically in relation to video games, the platform is an open text that different groups of viewers interpret differently, depending on social, cultural, and other contexts (Raessens, 2005, pp:375)

I’d like to focus on one game in particular that has gone down as one of the best video games ever made (in my opinion)  – Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar, 2004). The notion of having a game where you as a player are completely free to do basically whatever you want (more specifically what you can’t do in real life) without any consequences. Without waffling on it too much - basically the protagonist, CJ, is a middle aged black male. He is involved in gang warfare and does crime influenced missions playable by the consumer to progress through the game.

 

 

The different cultures who played this game would be so wide that the video game itself would have reached quite a large audience. As of march 2008, 21.5 million copies of San Andreas were sold worldwide (wikia.com, 2012). Let’s assume that people in America got copies, people in Australia got copies, people in England got copies and people in Africa got some too. We’re not going to sugar-coat this, the term “nigger” was used a total of 36 times in the game (kgbanswers.com, 2013) and to the people living in America playing this, yeah it might be funny. To the people playing it in Australia, hey it might raise an alarm here or there. However, the people in Africa who have a copy of this game might not like it at all.

It’s the cultural interpretation of any media form that can either make something great or completely wrong in a certain culture.

 

 

Reference List:

http://www.kgbanswers.com/how-many-times-is-the-word-nigger-said-in-the-game-grand-theft-auto-san-andreas/4186046

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto)

Raessens, J. 2005, ‘Computer games as participatory media culture’, Handbook of Computer Game Studies, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 373-388