By Walker Christian Forrester. Posted by his family on his behalf.
I was playing GTA the other day, and the characters were talking about the dark web and drugs like it was ordinary business. Then came the police, the chase and the arrests. In a game like that it's all part of the ride. But it got me thinking about a question I don't hear asked much by the people who actually play these games: is this just entertainment, or can it shape the choices people make later on?
I've played games most of my life, from Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter to SOCOM and Call of Duty. I've also spent time on the other side of the screen, writing code. So I want to look at this honestly, as a player and as somebody who knows a little about how these worlds get built.
What the games actually show
Crime isn't a side detail in Grand Theft Auto. It's the setting. Rockstar's Los Santos Drug Wars update for GTA Online, which launched on December 13, 2022, sends players to Blaine County to team up with Nervous Ron and "a new band of out-of-state misfits" to "put their stamp on the Los Santos psychedelics trade." You make the product "in elaborate labs or out of your own massive rolling chemistry set." In The Cayo Perico Heist, you sneak onto the private island of "the ruthless drug lord El Rubio," a place Rockstar describes as full of "free-flowing drugs from the nearby crops."
None of this is hidden. Rockstar's own announcement for Drug Wars lists the rating descriptors right on the page: "Intense Violence," "Strong Language," "Use of Drugs and Alcohol" and more. The ESRB, which rates games in the US, defines "Use of Drugs" as "the consumption or use of illegal drugs," and its Mature 17+ rating means content "generally suitable for ages 17 and up." Those labels exist so players and parents know what they're getting into.
What the research says
People have argued about whether games make players violent for as long as I can remember. In 2020 the American Psychological Association updated its position and said plainly: "There is insufficient scientific evidence to support a causal link between violent video games and violent behavior." Its president at the time added that blaming violence on gaming "is not scientifically sound and draws attention away from other factors, such as a history of violence."
The APA didn't say games have zero effect. Its task force found "a small, reliable association between violent video game use and aggressive outcomes, such as yelling and pushing," but said those findings are "difficult to extend to more violent outcomes." A 2019 study in Royal Society Open Science looked at about 1,000 British teenagers aged 14 and 15, and their carers, and found no link between playing violent games and the teens' aggressive behavior.
But violence isn't the only question. A 2014 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology followed teenagers for four years. Among those who played games, playing mature-rated games that glorify risk-taking was linked to increases in drinking, smoking, aggression, delinquency and risky sex. The researchers' explanation stuck with me. Character-based games let you "practice being a different kind of person," and that can slowly shift what feels normal. The effects were strongest for heavy players and for games whose main characters "represent nonnormative and antisocial values."
Where I land, for now
I think both things are true. A game doesn't hand anybody a plan, and most people who spend a night in Los Santos turn it off and go to work the next morning. If games made criminals, there would be a lot more of them.
But games are very good at making things feel normal. As a coder, I look at a game as a system of rules and rewards (there's more on that in the piece about the classic games I grew up with). In a game like GTA, the system rewards the risk, and the bad stuff resets. You fail, you respawn, and you're back out. The game leaves out the parts of real life that are slow and permanent. In real life there's no respawn.
So I don't think the story itself is the danger. What matters more is who's playing and what's around them: their age, their friends, what's going on at home, and whether anybody ever talks with them about the difference between a story and a life. The ratings, the research and plain common sense all point in the same direction. Adults can handle adult stories. Kids need people around them who will help them see where the game ends.
I'd like to hear from you. If you play games like GTA, has a storyline ever changed how you saw something in real life, for better or worse? Or is it just a story you put down with the controller?