Tribune: Is 'Grand Theft Auto IV' the greatest writing of the century?

[theRepublic]

Words Of Wisdom said:

I talk to roughly 20 of them daily.  I bet that's more than the number of newspapers you read daily.

In the end, it just seemed pretty ignorant of you to call a lot of people you've likely never even met morons.

Take a look at this article for instance.  All it really consists of is a basic overview of GTAIV, some sales figures, a bit of information on the company that created the game, and a sensationalist title.  In fact, there's very little in the article even related to the headline at all.  It's a pretty normal article all things considered but with the headline, it has managed to suck in a variety of readers and get copy/pasted on several websites.

Whether or not you like the title or even the article contents, the author has successfully managed to get hundreds of people who don't even normally read the Tribune to read his article.  I can think of many adjectives for it, but moronic is not one of them.

A few points:

--You seem to be arguing that sensationalist journalism is a good thing.  That's dangerous territory, my friend.

--According to Godot, the basic background information in this article is wrong anyway. (see below)

Godot said:

Also, the Housers didn't create GTA nor did they create the studio behind GTA: DMA Design (Rockstar North).

 

--The article tries to compare the game with the twelve labors of Hercules and opera. The writer then uses quotes to compare the game with Iron Man and Speed Racer.  That's just ridiculous.  The writer has completely lost his original point, if he ever had one.

--Many posters here seem to think that the actual plot has trouble standing up to other pop culture movies and games.  That's pretty damning for something that is supposed to be the greatest writing of the century.

--The article sort of weakly makes the point that the city itself is a commentary on our own culture.  I think that actually has some merit.  If only that was fleshed out more.

In other words, I think this was poor writing and poor journalism.  It could have been a much stonger article.