Ann McDonald had no idea her 17-year-old son was driving prostitutes to "work" and brokering drug deals. She never would have guessed he laughed while beating hookers to death or breaking into homes late at night. Then again, he never left the family's living room.

McDonald's son is playing the 2004 best-selling video game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Game sales, statistics and reports from Valley students indicate he's one of thousands of Valley minors now playing the 17-and-older, M-rated game to pass the hot summer days. With sales approaching $2 billion, more than 35 million copies of Grand Theft Auto have sold worldwide.

Like many parents, McDonald knew the game was controversial, but she says she simply couldn't have imagined the things the game encourages her son to do.

It's Just a Game

Eighteen-year-old Devin Moore had never been to jail when an Alabama police officer arrested the Grand Theft Auto game-addict on real-life auto theft charges. After entering the police station Moore wrestled a .40 caliber Glock pistol away from an officer and shot him twice. He killed another officer and a 911 dispatcher, shooting each in the head on his way to the police cruiser that he drove away in.

"Life is like a video game. Everybody's got to die sometime," Moore said after his second arrest. Now the families of the slain officers are suing the game maker and distributors, claiming Moore acted out an exact Grand Theft Auto scenario with fatal precision.

The case is one of a growing number in which lawyers say violent games actually train teens to be more efficient killing machines more likely to pull the trigger. Game makers say the teen shooters are simply blaming these games for their personal choices.

"All the violent games are harmful," says Thompson, the attorney representing the slain officers' families. "Vice City and other Grand Theft Auto games are particularly pernicious because they're sociopath. You're killing innocent people."

Thompson has been battling video game makers since 1997. He tells The Times he can link similar games to teen shootings across the nation: Columbine, Jonesborough and Paducah.

"But for the shooting technique Michael Carneal learned in Doom he wouldn't have been able to kill so many people so efficiently," Thompson says of the Paducah school shooting. He adds that authorities found about 15 first-person-shooter games at the home of the German student who mowed down 18 students and teachers in the deadliest school shooting to date.

Video Games don't kill people. People kill people.

In his Tucson home, 51-year-old Vince Desiderio stands in a bathrobe, boxers and slippers, preparing hamburgers in the kitchen of his mountainside home. "Guys like Thompson are corporate ambulance chasers. Why doesn't he spend his time on something worthwhile?" Desiderio says.

"Jack Thompson sent Desiderio an email saying it was his personal crusade to put us out of business," adds Steve Wik, 39. Desiderio and Wik are the core of Running With Scissors, the Tucson-based company that produces the game series Postal, a PC game known for its brutality. New Zealand and at least 13 other countries have outlawed the game.

Postal players choose a variety of weapons to decapitate and denigrate whomever they choose. "I thought the gasoline was going to be everyone's favorite weapon," Desiderio says of the ability to light people on fire.

"But out of 100 emails about weapons, 94 were about the shovel," he adds of the garden shovel used to strike or decapitate opponents and bystanders. The most recent Postal upgrade lets players urinate as well, on corpses, fires, whatever they choose.

Today, Postal's lead designers and co-founders have gathered at Desiderio's home to discuss a proposal for Postal the movie. They'd like to see a movie, but the filmmaker would have to agree not to tone down the violence. They also have some thoughts about Postal3, their next version of the game, the first to run on Xbox.

"Legally I'm guessing we can't put [attorney Jack] Thompson in Postal 3 by name, but oh yeah, there's going to be somebody in there who plays that role," Wik says of the anti-gaming lawyer.

"To me it's really offensive to see somebody go on to talk shows and hold up pictures of dead kids and say, 'video games are causing the death of kids.' Video games aren't causing the death of kids. People who are killing kids are causing the death of kids."

Impressionable Minds

But what if violent games decrease a teenager's inhibition to kill, asks Thompson. "This is why the military uses virtual-reality killing simulators to break down soldiers' inhibition to kill," he says.

Thompson points to real-life violence and a recent Harvard medical study as proof that minors who play violent video games can pose a danger to society.

"The neurobiology coming out of Harvard and Indiana University shows that kids literally process these games in a different part of the brain," he says. "Adults process video games in the frontal brain, where there is a distinction between reality and fiction, but teens process games in the mid-brain where there is less distinction between reality and fiction."

Desiderio and other game makers say studies, like the most recent findings from Harvard, can be twisted to say just about anything. They add that millions of law-abiding citizens are playing violent games. In a group that size, statistically some will be criminals, but the games, they say, are not necessarily causing the crimes.

"It's like, well at Columbine those kids played Doom," Wik says. "Well, lots of people played Doom. Millions of people played Doom, and we're not seeing a Columbine everyday."

But Thompson says crimes where teenagers mimic or copycat actions from a game prove the causation. He cites a scenario where law enforcement officials named Grand Theft Auto 3 as the cause when two boys began shooting cars and killed one pedestrian. He cites the Columbine killers, who reportedly modified their version of Doom to display the faces of classmates. He cites a poll that found teen boys who play Grand Theft Auto were twice as likely to be involved in acts of violence.

"Short-sighted," Wik says of such deductions that video games alone are the cause for such crimes. "There's so many reasons: environment, chemicals in their brain. We're just the easiest factor to blame."

Legislating Civility

Even if violent games cannot be proven to trigger real-life violence, many parents may not be aware of just how realistic video corruption has become. Gone are the days of Pac Man and Pong. In the PC game Singles2: Triple Trouble, gamers coax high-definition animated humans into realistic, graphic sexual encounters. It was the recent release of JFK Unleashed, which puts the player in the shoes of John F. Kennedy's assassin, that prompted an Illinois law banning minors from violent video games.

Like many parents, Valley mother Ann McDonald assumed state or federal law limited her 17-year-old son's access to M-rated games like Grand Theft Auto. In reality, the game rating system is only a recommendation from game manufacturers.

"There are laws about selling to minors in some states, but Arizona's not one of them," says John Correia, manager of a Valley GameCraze video game retail store. Correia says his store policy restricts minors from buying M-rated games. "That's not real common though. Typically when I turn someone away they'll go over to Wal-Mart and buy it," he adds.

Correia says he can name at least four stores he says would likely sell M-rated games, including Playboy Mansion, to minors as young as 13. Now available for Playstation2, Playboy Mansion puts gamers in the pajamas of Hugh Heffner. The gamer builds the Playboy empire, complete with topless models, close-up photo shoots, parties and a photo gallery of actual Playboy covers.

Illinois is now the only state restricting the sale of M-rated violent and sexually explicit games. California is considering a similar bill, but some legislators fear what happened in Washington state, where a similar law was declared unconstitutional after a suit from game makers.

"I always consider that stuff censorship," game designer Wik says. "I think their hearts are in the right place, but when you legislate that kind of thing you begin censorship."

Thompson says laws applying to minors cannot be labeled censorship. "The first amendment does not protect the right of adults to sell harmful material to other people's children," he adds. "This society, for literally hundreds of years has identified minors as a protected class of individuals. You can't buy tobacco when you're 10, can't buy booze, can't buy firearms until you're 21."

Even Mike Jaret of Running With Scissors thinks an age-limit for some games is a good idea. "There are definitely some kids who shouldn't be playing some games," Jaret says, but he adds that criminalizing a retailer who sells to a minor is taking it too far.

Digital Parenting

"Our parents are very aware," Saguaro High School senior Glen Coolidge says of Grand Theft Auto, one of his favorite games. "My dad came in the first day I bought the game. I was like 'dad, this is something that I do for fun. It keeps me out of trouble.' He understands."

Coolidge and friend Greg Halle, both 17, are clean-cut and soft-spoken. They've both been playing Grand Theft Auto since they were 14, their freshman year. "I think the game is more the thrill of something that you can't actually do, something you would never do," Coolidge says.

He adds that blaming video games for violence is just another way for teenagers to pass the blame for their own choices. "I don't think it's anything that makes you think, 'Oh, I'm gonna go steal a cop car, or I'm gonna go shoot some person on the street.'"

"Yeah, it's a warped view of reality," Halle adds. Coolidge and Halle estimate between 95 and 100 percent of high school males they know play Grand Theft Auto or games like it. "It's not like those are the only games we play. We play sports games, all of that. But basically that's what attracts most high school guys," Coolidge adds.

Marilyn Halle knew Grand Theft Auto was violent, but she had no idea her son could kill hookers in the game. "I can't believe what goes on today. I'm fairly liberal, but I still can't believe what passes for entertainment."

Still, Hawke isn't terribly worried about her 17-year-old son. "You know, all the kids play it. And he certainly doesn't exhibit any violent tendencies, so I don't worry about him. But I can see how it might affect some kids," Hawke says. She adds that even in his younger years her son never needed parental permission to buy or rent any video games in the Valley.

The crew at Running With Scissors says this is the way it should be-no laws, just parents deciding which games are suitable. "Some people are thinking that the government needs to take care of parenting," Wik says. "But there's ratings on the box. The rating tells you what's in the game. You have to decide what's right for you and what's right for your kids."

But Thompson says some parents are completely unaware of the games. "What if one of our kids gets in the way of a more violent or aggressive kid? What about the parents whose children are killed, what are those parents supposed to do?"

Thompson says even the entertainment media are aware of the connection between virtual violence and real violence. "Any parents know kids are sponges. You fill a kid's head and heart and soul with corrosive material, and you get that. Spending hours a day killing people in a virtual setting is going to have consequences."

Thompson adds that adults have the right to play whatever games they want. But he'd like legislators to limit minors from violent games. And he won't rest until legislators and game-makers start taking him seriously.

Tonight will be another late night of paperwork for Jack Thompson. Tonight lawyers, corporate executives and legislators will exchange accusations and throw millions of dollars into lobbyists, lawsuits and research.

As they do, a Valley eighth-grader sits in front of big screen TV. He's in the ultra-realistic world of San Andreas. He enters a crack house where he's been assigned to beat the crack dealers with a baseball bat. A prostitute can be seen in the background, performing an explicit sex act.

Moments later, the player steals a pimp's car and is delivering prostitutes to "tricks." He'll get a cut of their pay. The player can change channels on the cars' radio, now playing an ad for The Glory Hole Theme Park, "where strangers become friends. Open every day till 3a.m."

This was the best-selling video game of 2004.

What do you think? Should there be more strict laws preventing the manufacture and sale of excessively violent and explicit video games? Let us know by calling our Sound Off line at 480-391-6519.

For legal reasons, the names of sources under the age of 18 have been changed in this story.

www.killology.org
www.leavegamesalone.com
www.mediafamily.org
www.runningwithscissors.com