Sorry, for yet another GTA IV post. 

http://www.psu.com/Parental-group-targets-GTA-IV-News--a0003526-p0.php 

 They're all pissed off you can drive drunk in the game and want the game's rating raised to AO and other crap like that.  Typical.

 I had this talk with my parents over the game, because they saw something on Oprah about GTA last gen and just thought that it was the worst game ever.  I explained to them, yeah, you can do all this stuff in the game, but you can do it in real life too and thats what the game is trying to simulate, a real life city where possibilities are endless.  and just like in real life, there are negative consequences to actions such as driving drunk, murder, car accidents, and duh! Grand Theft Auto.  Maybe your GF doesn't think as highly of you for driving drunk, maybe you get busted by the cops and lose your weapons and money, maybe you die, maybe you get the sh1t beaten out of you, its not like the point of the game is to drive around drunk and kill ho's.  Also, its a mature game, don't buy it for your 12 year old. Anyways, my parents got it, I don't know why other people can't grasp it, oh wait yeah i do, they never played the game and have no clue what they are talking about.

This all comes down to parenting. Kids can help by sitting the parents down and discussing the game, like you did.

I would love it if Rockstar just released a version of the game that could only be ordered online via credit card (for age verification) that would contain code not available in the retail version and this code could include all sorts of things that should never be in the hands of youths (the option to have more hardcore sexual references, drunk driving, etc).

Can you blame MADD? I mean a good portion are Mothers who have lost someone due to Drunk Driving... Would you want a game on the market that make DD seem like a game and fun?

Are these people really called MADD? If so, it must be the most fitting name for an organisation ever.

or you can say the game gives kids a hands on experience of how driving impaired isn't the same as driving sober and that it usually leads to accidents and running people over on the side of the road. 

ah sh1t who am I kidding drinking and driving is fun in GTA IV.

From what I've experienced in GTA IV so far, the game actually encourages you to take a cab home after you've been out drinking with someone.

This is one of my biggest problems with GTA IV. Sure, you can do all this crazy stuff in-game, which I appreciate, but the consequences aren't really there. By the time you're five hours into the game, you're rich enough to do pretty much anything and walk away unscathed.

The consequences are pathetic in the game, just like the previous editions. Which pretty much invalidates any claims that the game is somehow a simulator of anything other than mayhem.

If Rockstar wanted to deal with mature themes, it would have been nice to see them actually deal with them maturely. I would have been happy with a simple "Consequence" mode that upped the ante for criminal behavior. Not only would it up the difficulty level (which is pathetically low thus far for me), it would have required real strategy and intelligence on the player's part to get through some tough segments of the game.

 It stands for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Or Mothers Against Destructive Decisions. I can never remember. There's also SADD, which is Students Against Drunk Driving (or Destructive Decisions).

The only problem I have with them saying it should be AO is that it's already M, and AO only ups the age limit by a year. But I think you're second sentence is a bit uncalled for. 

 here is the thing, unlike Jack Thompson's claim IT IS NOT A SIMULATOR OF ANY SORT, IT IS A GAME.