Grand Theft Auto V Diary: #1: Cougargate

There is something I saw in my playing of Grand Theft Auto V today that stands out as a point of concern for me. As I was riding a dirtbike through one of the large hills in the game, I saw a cougar.

No, not that kind of cougar.

No, not that kind of cougar.

What the fuck is that?

Yes, that kind of cougar. In Grand Theft Auto V there are cougars. Now, in my first encounter with the cougar, I tried to avoid it, mostly because I didn't know if it would want to kill me or if I could defend myself against it. But, the very presence of a cougar in Grand Theft Auto V is concerning to me.


Back in 2006, I wrote a satirical post about a guy getting away with clubbing baby seals by saying he was influenced to do it by Grand Theft Auto. In this post, my argument was that it's people that people could start to get away with things by claiming they were influenced by a video game. I could make a similar argument today. As we have seen in the wake of the shootings on Monday, as well as in the weeks leading up to the release of Grand Theft Auto V, video games can be blamed for everything. Video games are becoming the scapegoat of the current day.  If some sick deranged guy tortures a cat, and it turns out that he owns a copy of Grand Theft Auto V, we will see the media blaming that sick deranged guy's sick deranged actions on Grand Theft Auto V because Grand Theft Auto V has cougars in it.

And yes, I know what some of you are saying right now. 

"Hey! Red Dead Redemption and Assassins Creed 3 had cougars in it that you could kill and were given an incentive to kill them, and those games weren't blamed for animal abuse." 

You are correct, but Red Dead Redemption and Assassins Creed 3 are not the magnet of criticism that the Grand Theft Auto series is. Even if they don't know of what they are talking about, pundits will blame Grand Theft Auto for violence because those pundits know that their audience knows that name and knows of the alleged link to violence. Red Dead Redemption and Assassins Creed aren't that well known or that well recognized, so therefore those games don't get blamed for everything the way Grand Theft Auto is.