Spilling Hot Coffee? Grand Theft Auto as Contested Cultural Product.

Grand Theft Auto (GTA) games are highly successful, in terms of sales, and their content is part of an explicit business strategy which aims to exploit the latest technologies and platforms to develop content aimed at adult game players in certain markets. By all accounts this has been a highly successful strategy with the GTA franchise selling more than 30 million units across platforms by 2004, even before Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA SA) was launched in late 2004 (Take Two Interactive 2004). The latter was the top selling console game in the USA and in the top 10 in the UK in 2005. At the same time the GTA series are arguably the most maligned of game products in many markets attracting much negative commentary and numerous legal actions in the USA. This paper examines the structure of the games industry and the culture of modding, the global production network of GTA games and public reaction to GTA:SA in the USA, Europe and Australia. This paper concludes that despite the widespread rhetoric of globalisation and the dismantling of state sanctioned censorship systems the censorship of cultural products continues in a less overt, but nonetheless, highly political, socially negotiated and nationally contingent way. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]