A hooded man queuing to buy the new Grand Theft Auto IV, the notoriously violent computer game, stabbed a passer-by in the head and neck. Up to 100 people witnessed the attack.
Like dozens of video-game sellers across the country, Gamestation in Croydon, South London, opened at midnight yesterday for the launch of the game.
Onlookers thought initially that the stabbing was part of a stunt by the store to whip up excitement about the release of the 18-certificate title.
The victim is thought to have struggled home to fetch his own knife for a revenge attack but collapsed in the street and was taken to hospital.
Malcolm Critchell, who was at the shop with his nephew, Jordan, said: “While waiting outside the store, a man stood next to us and was covered from shoulder to belly in blood. Myself and others thought it was a show to promote the game but when we looked closer, he had been knifed repeatedly. It was unbelieveable – there was blood everywhere, all down the street. It was like something out of a nightmare. We were told he had been rude to some bloke [for] which he was knifed. He then went home, grabbed a kitchen knife and went looking for this person.”
The 23-year-old victim was walking past the queue at about 11pm when he was attacked. Witnesses said that he sustained stab wounds to his head and back. He was treated in hospital and later discharged.
Marcus Henderson, 24, who was in the queue, said: “It was a scene straight from the game itself. In Grand Theft Auto, when you attack someone but don’t finish them off they’ll come and get you.”
The Metropolitan Police said that the man involved in Monday’s stabbing “appeared to be in a queue of people who were waiting for [Gamesta-tion] to open for a special event”.
Keith Vaz, the Labour MP for Leices-ter East and a long-time campaigner against video games, told The Times: “[ Grand Theft Auto] is a violent and nasty video game and it doesn’t surprise me that some of those who play it behave in this way.”
More than half a million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV are expected to be sold in Britain in the next week, while more than six million copies will be sold worldwide, raking in more than £200 million.
Critics of the game, in which players can roam freely around a digital landscape murdering, pillaging and stealing, have long argued that it is a dangerous influence.
Since Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive Software, released the first Grand Theft Auto game in 1997, they have faced a series of lawsuits from the families of murder victims, claiming that the game inspired the killers.
Elsewhere, an 18-year-old from Ley-land, Lancashire, was reported to have suffered a broken jaw after being mugged by two older men. Lancashire police said that the motive for the attack was the victim’s new copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, which he had bought from his local Blockbuster store minutes earlier.
The bad publicity appeared to have little effect on sales. Play.com was taking up to 80 orders a minute and had to take on 90 extra staff to cope. Woolworths reported selling 200 copies a minute and said that it would be sold out by the end of the day.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Grand Theft Auto's anti-hero steals the show, by Asher Moses - The Sydney Morning Herald - 30th April 2008
He's the biggest name in entertainment but you won't find him striding down the red carpet or cavorting with Hollywood starlets under the watchful eye of the paparazzi.
No, Niko Bellic, set to become the most high profile Slav in entertainment since Borat Sagdiyev took the box office by storm 18 months ago.
He is among the new breed of entertainment personalities who, rather than being cast, are built from scratch by a team of programmers and graphic designers.
He's the protagonist in Grand Theft Auto IV and, just days after hitting the streets, is already giving flesh-and-blood Hollywood stars a run for their money.
Launched around the world at midnight on Monday, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is on track to become the biggest entertainment launch in history. Analysts have predicted the title, which has inspired near-perfect reviews from most gaming magazines, will sell at least 6 million copies in its first week.
And if the $US400 million ($428 million) first week sales estimates prove correct, GTA IV will earn as much as Pirates Of The Caribbean III earned in its opening weekend in May last year to become Hollywood's record holder.
It would also eclipse Spider-Man 3 and the previous video game king, Halo 3, which raked in $US300 million in its first week in September last year.
Steve Wilson, CEO of EBGames, which held midnight launch events around Australia for GTA IV, said the launch was "almost twice as big as Halo 3".
"It was very, very big, much bigger than we were expecting even, and we were expecting big - particularly for a Tuesday," he said.
The game's developer, Rockstar Games, and EBGames both refused to release first-day sales figures or the number of copies sold.
Bellic is expected to join a growing list of game stars - Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series and Master Chief from Halo, to name a few - that have become household names among anyone with even a passing interest in videos games.
Unlike the two-dimensional characters in movies, today's games allow players to become the character and completely immerse themselves in their world. And thanks to the power of the latest generation of games consoles, those worlds have become a lot richer, with virtually no limitations on where a player can travel, hundreds of characters to interact with and hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue.
Bellic inhabits Liberty City, modelled on present-day New York, and has recently arrived in the US from Eastern Europe in search of the American Dream. But instead of the riches promised by his cousin Ramon, the anti-hero quickly becomes wrapped up in crime and warring rival syndicates as he helps Roman clear his hefty debt.
"We wanted someone who felt tough but also like an alien ... On the one hand he's an innocent, on the other hand he's battle hardened and world weary. A modern 'arriving in America' story felt very interesting to us," Rockstar co-founder and creative vice-president Dan Houser told Hollywood industry magazine Variety.
As players guide Bellic through the city's seedy criminal underbelly they can use breaks between missions to visit prostitutes and invite friends out for a drink, a round of pool or a game of darts. Bellic's phone can be used to dial up ambulances if he or friends become injured and players can even use the phone to buy and download tracks heard on the game's radio stations.
GTA IV is the ninth game in the Grand Theft Auto series, which has sold more than 70 million copies since its launch in 1997 and holds three of the top four spots on the list of best-selling games of all time. Unlike a typical movie, GTA IV takes 40 hours or more to get through and can be extended via the online multiplayer mode, making its $120 price tag somewhat easier to digest.
Variety reported that GTA IV's success could detract from film box office takings over the next few months as young males shy away from the cinema in favour of the couch. As far as heroes go, Bellic will be up against Indiana Jones and Batman when their latest outings debut in cinemas this year.
Rockstar is hoping GTA IV will be recognised alongside the great standout gangster movies, saying there hadn't been one over the past few years.
Metacritic, which aggregates reviews from all publications, lists 15 reviews for the PS3 version of GTA IV and 25 reviews for the Xbox 360 version. The average scores are 100 and 99 respectively.
"Grand Theft Auto IV is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun," read a review in The New York Times.
The game, which rewards players for mass killing, carjacking and gambling and also includes drink driving and simulated sex with prostitutes, has raised the ire of family lobby groups, who say it could influence the real-life behaviour of young players.
In Australia, because there is no R18+ rating for video games, Rockstar Games was forced to tone down some of the more extreme content before it could be sold here under the MA15+ rating.
"While there are some minor differences between the Australian and US/EU versions, they are not significant and we do not believe they take away from the level of scope and detail that make GTA IV such an incredible experience," Rockstar said in a statement.
Game reviewers at IGN were one of the first in Australia to play through the local version of the title and confirmed the censorship changes were minor.
Murderous rampages, picking up prostitutes, visiting strip clubs for private lap dances and drink driving are all present in the Australian release but the act of having sex with hookers in one's car has been toned down.
"While you can spin the camera 360 degrees around the car and see Niko and the hooker bumping and grinding in the US version, during the act of sex the camera remains locked at the rear of the car, focusing on the bumping car itself and the sound effects in the Aussie version," IGN said.
But in a reminder of how meaningless local censorship rulings have become in the internet age, the uncensored Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV for both PAL and NTSC regions were leaked to various BitTorrent file sharing websites days before the midnight launch.
No, Niko Bellic, set to become the most high profile Slav in entertainment since Borat Sagdiyev took the box office by storm 18 months ago.
He is among the new breed of entertainment personalities who, rather than being cast, are built from scratch by a team of programmers and graphic designers.
He's the protagonist in Grand Theft Auto IV and, just days after hitting the streets, is already giving flesh-and-blood Hollywood stars a run for their money.
Launched around the world at midnight on Monday, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is on track to become the biggest entertainment launch in history. Analysts have predicted the title, which has inspired near-perfect reviews from most gaming magazines, will sell at least 6 million copies in its first week.
And if the $US400 million ($428 million) first week sales estimates prove correct, GTA IV will earn as much as Pirates Of The Caribbean III earned in its opening weekend in May last year to become Hollywood's record holder.
It would also eclipse Spider-Man 3 and the previous video game king, Halo 3, which raked in $US300 million in its first week in September last year.
Steve Wilson, CEO of EBGames, which held midnight launch events around Australia for GTA IV, said the launch was "almost twice as big as Halo 3".
"It was very, very big, much bigger than we were expecting even, and we were expecting big - particularly for a Tuesday," he said.
The game's developer, Rockstar Games, and EBGames both refused to release first-day sales figures or the number of copies sold.
Bellic is expected to join a growing list of game stars - Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series and Master Chief from Halo, to name a few - that have become household names among anyone with even a passing interest in videos games.
Unlike the two-dimensional characters in movies, today's games allow players to become the character and completely immerse themselves in their world. And thanks to the power of the latest generation of games consoles, those worlds have become a lot richer, with virtually no limitations on where a player can travel, hundreds of characters to interact with and hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue.
Bellic inhabits Liberty City, modelled on present-day New York, and has recently arrived in the US from Eastern Europe in search of the American Dream. But instead of the riches promised by his cousin Ramon, the anti-hero quickly becomes wrapped up in crime and warring rival syndicates as he helps Roman clear his hefty debt.
"We wanted someone who felt tough but also like an alien ... On the one hand he's an innocent, on the other hand he's battle hardened and world weary. A modern 'arriving in America' story felt very interesting to us," Rockstar co-founder and creative vice-president Dan Houser told Hollywood industry magazine Variety.
As players guide Bellic through the city's seedy criminal underbelly they can use breaks between missions to visit prostitutes and invite friends out for a drink, a round of pool or a game of darts. Bellic's phone can be used to dial up ambulances if he or friends become injured and players can even use the phone to buy and download tracks heard on the game's radio stations.
GTA IV is the ninth game in the Grand Theft Auto series, which has sold more than 70 million copies since its launch in 1997 and holds three of the top four spots on the list of best-selling games of all time. Unlike a typical movie, GTA IV takes 40 hours or more to get through and can be extended via the online multiplayer mode, making its $120 price tag somewhat easier to digest.
Variety reported that GTA IV's success could detract from film box office takings over the next few months as young males shy away from the cinema in favour of the couch. As far as heroes go, Bellic will be up against Indiana Jones and Batman when their latest outings debut in cinemas this year.
Rockstar is hoping GTA IV will be recognised alongside the great standout gangster movies, saying there hadn't been one over the past few years.
Metacritic, which aggregates reviews from all publications, lists 15 reviews for the PS3 version of GTA IV and 25 reviews for the Xbox 360 version. The average scores are 100 and 99 respectively.
"Grand Theft Auto IV is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun," read a review in The New York Times.
The game, which rewards players for mass killing, carjacking and gambling and also includes drink driving and simulated sex with prostitutes, has raised the ire of family lobby groups, who say it could influence the real-life behaviour of young players.
In Australia, because there is no R18+ rating for video games, Rockstar Games was forced to tone down some of the more extreme content before it could be sold here under the MA15+ rating.
"While there are some minor differences between the Australian and US/EU versions, they are not significant and we do not believe they take away from the level of scope and detail that make GTA IV such an incredible experience," Rockstar said in a statement.
Game reviewers at IGN were one of the first in Australia to play through the local version of the title and confirmed the censorship changes were minor.
Murderous rampages, picking up prostitutes, visiting strip clubs for private lap dances and drink driving are all present in the Australian release but the act of having sex with hookers in one's car has been toned down.
"While you can spin the camera 360 degrees around the car and see Niko and the hooker bumping and grinding in the US version, during the act of sex the camera remains locked at the rear of the car, focusing on the bumping car itself and the sound effects in the Aussie version," IGN said.
But in a reminder of how meaningless local censorship rulings have become in the internet age, the uncensored Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV for both PAL and NTSC regions were leaked to various BitTorrent file sharing websites days before the midnight launch.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Underbelly to go global - The Sydney Morning Herald - 8th April 2008
Controversial Melbourne gangland drama Underbelly will be seen by audiences around the world in Europe, Asia and Africa after the Nine Network signed an international distribution deal.
Nine today announced it had signed a deal with Fox International Channels and British-based distributor Portman Film & Television to broadcast the 13-episode series.
Underbelly will be screened across most Fox International Channel feeds, including Britain, Italy, the Balkans, Korea, Pan-Asia, Portugal, Russia, South Africa and Turkey.
Nine's chief executive David Gyngell said the deal was testament to the production quality of Underbelly.
"To say we are pleased is an understatement - we are delighted that the series will gain international audiences and global recognition."
Underbelly focuses on the story behind Melbourne's infamous gangland killings - a 10-year war between rival factions of the city's criminal underworld.
The program has not been shown in Victoria because of a court order suppressing its broadcast in that state.
Nine's head of drama, Jo Horsburgh said the series had been a "terrific creative challenge".
"We are hugely proud of this outcome," Horsburgh said.
The show's premiere was the most successful Australian drama launch in Sydney and nationally in the 25-54 year old demographic since the OzTam ratings system was introduced.
It was also the No.1 program on its premiere night for all people in all the markets in which it aired - Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
AAP
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Network Nine Australia
Nine today announced it had signed a deal with Fox International Channels and British-based distributor Portman Film & Television to broadcast the 13-episode series.
Underbelly will be screened across most Fox International Channel feeds, including Britain, Italy, the Balkans, Korea, Pan-Asia, Portugal, Russia, South Africa and Turkey.
Nine's chief executive David Gyngell said the deal was testament to the production quality of Underbelly.
"To say we are pleased is an understatement - we are delighted that the series will gain international audiences and global recognition."
Underbelly focuses on the story behind Melbourne's infamous gangland killings - a 10-year war between rival factions of the city's criminal underworld.
The program has not been shown in Victoria because of a court order suppressing its broadcast in that state.
Nine's head of drama, Jo Horsburgh said the series had been a "terrific creative challenge".
"We are hugely proud of this outcome," Horsburgh said.
The show's premiere was the most successful Australian drama launch in Sydney and nationally in the 25-54 year old demographic since the OzTam ratings system was introduced.
It was also the No.1 program on its premiere night for all people in all the markets in which it aired - Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
AAP
Media Man Australia Profiles
Underbelly
Network Nine Australia
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