{"id":1944,"date":"2008-05-13T11:00:28","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html"},"modified":"2008-05-13T11:00:28","modified_gmt":"2008-05-13T11:00:28","slug":"grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Grand Theft Auto IV&#8217; May Be Robbing Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"gta4pic.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/gta4pic.jpg\" width=\"220\" height=\"184\" style=\"float:right;margin: 5px\">There&#8217;s a new release out that piled up well over $500 million\u2014that&#8217;s &#8220;Fiiiive Hundred Meeeellion Dollarzzz&#8221;\u2014in its first week of release, including a whopping $310 million in it&#8217;s opening day. What a blockbuster!<br \/>\nBut it wasn&#8217;t the new Indiana Jones movie. It wasn&#8217;t a Star Wars sequel. In fact, it wasn&#8217;t a movie at all.<br \/>\nIt wasn&#8217;t a new U2 Release, or Sting, or Beyonce or Bruce Springsteen. In fact, it wasn&#8217;t even a song or an album.<br \/>\nIt wasn&#8217;t the newest &#8220;Harry Potter&#8221; story or a Michael Crichton thriller. In fact, it wasn&#8217;t even a book.<br \/>\nWhat then, you ask, could possibly gross more that $500 million?<br \/>\nIn a summer packed with sequels, the sequel that grossed the big number was none other than &#8220;Grand Theft Auto IV.&#8221;<br \/>\nThat&#8217;s right, a video game!<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nTake-Two Interactive Software, Inc., &#8220;Grand Theft Auto IV&#8217;s&#8221; publisher, reported that &#8220;the video game has surpassed all-time entertainment records for Day 1 and Week 1 sales by dollar value,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/canadianpress.google.com\/article\/ALeqM5hI6IgymmkdgTVxvK9YJVGRjNqiRw\" target=\"_blank\">according to The Canadian Press. <\/a><br \/>\nAnd, it&#8217;s getting rave reviews from just about everyone except parents and watchdog groups. &#8220;Grand Theft Auto IV&#8221; is rated M (mature), primary due to the strong presence of murder, carjacking, and assault.<br \/>\nThis signifies how giant the gap is between what young people are buying and being influenced by as compared to their parents. Granted, a good video game can run well over $50 while a movie ticket is only $12, but the numbers are nevertheless impressive and revealing. The investment alone ($100 million to produce, advertise, and distribute) should tell us that advertisers and marketers know where the audience is and it sure ain&#8217;t where it was when we grew up!<br \/>\nIf you have kids and\/or support their video game habit, I suggest you review their games as thoroughly as you do their TV watching, movies, and computer access. The interactive stuff may someday become more appealing than the 2-dimensional flat screen. There&#8217;s an old adage that teachers know about our learning process: &#8220;Tell me and I&#8217;ll hear; Show me and I&#8217;ll know; Engage me, and I&#8217;ll remember?&#8221; Kids are disengaging from parents who talk at them while gravitating to video games.  Parents are disengaging from their kids who&#8217;re off playing games as opposed to visiting buddies playing on teams. I&#8217;m not sure it&#8217;s good for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a new release out that piled up well over $500 million\u2014that&#8217;s &#8220;Fiiiive Hundred Meeeellion Dollarzzz&#8221;\u2014in its first week of release, including a whopping $310 million in it&#8217;s opening day. What a blockbuster! But it wasn&#8217;t the new Indiana Jones movie. It wasn&#8217;t a Star Wars sequel. In fact, it wasn&#8217;t a movie at all.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Grand Theft Auto IV&#039; May Be Robbing Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Grand Theft Auto IV&#039; May Be Robbing Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There&#8217;s a new release out that piled up well over $500 million\u2014that&#8217;s &#8220;Fiiiive Hundred Meeeellion Dollarzzz&#8221;\u2014in its first week of release, including a whopping $310 million in it&#8217;s opening day. What a blockbuster! But it wasn&#8217;t the new Indiana Jones movie. It wasn&#8217;t a Star Wars sequel. In fact, it wasn&#8217;t a movie at all.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-05-13T11:00:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/gta4pic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Douglas Howe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'Grand Theft Auto IV' May Be Robbing Us","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'Grand Theft Auto IV' May Be Robbing Us","og_description":"There&#8217;s a new release out that piled up well over $500 million\u2014that&#8217;s &#8220;Fiiiive Hundred Meeeellion Dollarzzz&#8221;\u2014in its first week of release, including a whopping $310 million in it&#8217;s opening day. What a blockbuster! But it wasn&#8217;t the new Indiana Jones movie. It wasn&#8217;t a Star Wars sequel. In fact, it wasn&#8217;t a movie at all.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2008-05-13T11:00:28+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/gta4pic.jpg"}],"author":"Douglas Howe","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html","name":"'Grand Theft Auto IV' May Be Robbing Us","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/gta4pic.jpg","datePublished":"2008-05-13T11:00:28+00:00","dateModified":"2008-05-13T11:00:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/a05dabea7186e9c2898a41a6713aa98a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/gta4pic.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/gta4pic.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/05\/grand-theft-auto-iv-may-be-rob.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8216;Grand Theft Auto IV&#8217; May Be Robbing Us"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/a05dabea7186e9c2898a41a6713aa98a","name":"Douglas Howe","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e3\/7e32c99b36f419c4c074635d65150806x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e3\/7e32c99b36f419c4c074635d65150806x96.jpg","caption":"Douglas Howe"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/dhowe"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}