In Grand Theft Auto IV, you can hijack a car, run over people, deal drugs, and do all sorts of other nefarious activities. And now, while playing the new version of this insanely popular game, you can also choose to drive drunk when you leave a bar -- although there are virtual penalties if you do.

Because of that, Mothers Against Drunk Driving is not happy. MADD released a statement saying that, “Drunk driving is not a game, and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime, and it is also 100 percent preventable.”

MADD is asking Rockstar Games to consider removing GTA IV from distribution, “out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.”

Rockstar replied to MADD by saying, “We have a great deal of respect for MADD's mission, but we believe the mature audience for Grand Theft Auto IV is more than sophisticated enough to understand the game's content.”

The controversy has sparked one of the biggest outpourings I’ve seen at Slashdot.org in quite a while. NPR also filed an excellent story and podcast on the game.

I must admit that at first I had a strange reaction to the MADD story. Strange for me, because I’m anti-censorship. And yet, at first I thought, yeah, OK, maybe driving drunk shouldn’t be a choice, especially since so many teens play this game.

But after more thought, and after reading the scores of impassioned responses on Slashdot, I realize that you can perpetrate all sorts of horrible crimes in video games. Why is this different? What’s really important is that parents monitor the games their kids are playing.

One heartfelt Slashdot response in particular caught my eye. This is reproduced straight from the site, with no editing on my part (although it badly needs editing). The content, and the writing style, speaks volumes about young gamers:

“My assumption is that MADD had only caught wind of the drunk driving in GTA and didn't actually witness it. Had they experience the same scene i had, they'd know that while funny as all heck, there were penalties.

Now... My mother had been an alcoholic in my youthful years. She loved to be out all night at bars drinking her life away. On a school night when I was 8 she was out with her friends drinking till 2am. Yes that is a horrid act in it's own right leaving a kid in the car to drink but that is not the case to prove only back ground... Well her Beau of the time was going to drive us home, her more sober friend offered me a ride and somehow I refused and stupidly allowed me to ride with my mother and her drunken boyfriend who was driving.

Well the car didnt get far before hitting a stone wall, flipping 3-4 times and landing upside down in someone's yard. I woke up in her friend's car. I suffered a broken tibia and elbow and got to spend christmas in a wheelcheer. She suffered most of her life with a bum hip until a recent replacement. …

Speaking on my behalf I found the GTA IV drunk scenes hilarious. I found it to be a fun and refreshing challenge to an ever increasing stagnating market. I love the game and have played every GTA released so far. I've yet in real life to drive drunk, shoot cops, run over people, jack a car, pick up use and shoot hoes, deal drugs, participate in a gang war, drive by shooting, break an enter, steal and save someone from a burning fire and do unique stunts. Though I've managed to do all that and more playing GTA...”