I don’t remember exactly when I realised it. Maybe it was when I was mowing down an army of Swat team officers with a machine gun in Payday 2. Maybe it was when I was clubbing street cops to death with a colossal dildo in Saints Row 3. Maybe it was when I was playing Max Payne 3 as he slaughtered his way through almost the entire São Paulo police force. It could have been when I was watching people shoot down police helicopters in the Battlefield: Hardline promos, or playing any one of the Grand Theft Auto series. The realisation was that that there is something unwholesome about the portrayal of law enforcement officers in games, something unsettling about the glee with which games portray violence against them.
Violence in games has been around almost as long as the games themselves, and shooting police officers as a theme is not especially new. Games like Syndicate, and the first GTA, featured plenty of violence from the protagonists directed against police officers, but back then games were different. The industry was small and the reach was minimal. Games had a rebellious streak to them; they were a little bit edgy, a little bit punk.
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