Can video games help youngsters understand politics?

Where do you start with a game like Grand Theft Auto V? Do you begin with how much it cost to make – £165m (more than your average Hollywood blockbuster)? Or how much it made in its first three days of sales – a staggering £600m? Perhaps we should begin by discussing the game’s explicit content, its use of racial language, its portrayal of women and the fact, despite it being officially rated 18, a lot of people under that age will already be playing it.

For those who do not know, GTA V is the latest incarnation in a long-running franchise which began life in 1997 as a relatively simple cops and robbers caper. Since then, however, it has shed any sense of innocence it may have had, opting instead for gritty realism.

The computer-generated world of GTA V is the closest gaming has come to something which not just looks but feels like the real world. The level of detail is certainly impressive. The sun rises and sets on a fully animated world some 140 sq miles in size.

In the make-believe city of Los Santos, birds fly in the sky and cast shadows on the floor, the wind blows, it rains, at night lights go on in buildings. It’s possible to interact with almost every object in the game, which as its name implies, frequently delves into the more nefarious nature of urban life, whether it’s stealing cars, fighting people in the street, or negotiating drunks on the sidewalk and daytime strip clubs.

GTA V is like a playable episode of The Sopranos but even that doesn’t do it justice. The virtual world comprises a city with skyscrapers and overpasses, a working underground, rivers, airports, beaches, mountains and rural towns. Moreover, it’s full of people, dogs and other animals, all waiting to be explored as you drive, fly, parachute, jet-ski or just walk around either listening to the many radio stations with their satirical chatter or making a call on your iFruit phone.

Make no mistake, GTA V is a playground but it’s one aimed squarely at adults. However, critics are concerned that a lot of children will also become part-time residents of Los Santos.

Professor Nicholas Robinson, lecturer in politics and video games at Leeds University, says the problem lies in our perception of the genre. “It’s a sad fact that if you go around most school classrooms and ask a bunch of 13-year-olds if they play Call of Duty, most will say ‘yes’ and I think it’s regrettable that some people [by which he means parents] absolve themselves of responsibility in that way. There is a grey area in that if a child goes into a shop to buy such games, they should be refused, but what if an adult goes in with a child? If the shop suspects the game is being bought for the child, they are within their rights to refuse a sale.

“I think there is an interesting point to be made here and it’s about computer games being a generational thing. Computer games have moved on so much now that I do not think the older generation understands what they are, or how real they are and how much of an impression they can make on children. You wouldn’t, for example, give you child an inappropriate film to watch, so why a game?”

The 43-year-old father-of-two, whose children are 13 and 15, says: “Would I let my children play games like GTA and CoD? No, but over and above the violence I would be more concerned about them having an understanding of the politics and the satire which runs throughout. Some of the satire on the radio stations is very sharp but unless you are of a certain age, you are bound to miss those references and it’s important to understand things like that.

“A computer game like GTA V tells you a lot about the political situation of the world. A good example is the main characters of the previous GTA games, all of whom have been immigrants of some kind. In the game, the only way the character can succeed is by committing crime, the inference being that if you are a young male immigrant in America, that’s what you have to do.

“Unlike films, which offer a very narrow view controlled by the director, in a game like GTA V you can do what you want but there are limits and it’s these limits which tell us a lot about society. Does it matter that someone takes part in these online games? We just do not know yet.

“A lot of people claim there is a link between violent video games and real life crime. But there is also research that violent video games do the opposite and in fact, reduce crime, the idea being people are venting their frustrations in the virtual world.” It’s a debate that looks set to continue.