AMIDST ALL THE hand-wringing from terribly-concerned pressure groups about the imminent launch of GTA IV, a simple question seems to have completely failed to be asked. [He gets there eventually but you have to be patient - Sub ed].

People who have probably never even played solitaire are suddenly being quoted as expert witnesses on the perils of gaming and the threat it poses to society. Our children's innocence is at stake; gratuitous sex and violence are cutting a simulated swathe through civilisation; hookers are having their limbs hacked off with chainsaws; and expensive cars are being driven at improbable speeds, scattering hapless pedestrians as they go.

Stores such as Currys are introducing new family-friendly rating systems for games in a cynical bid to encourage responsible parents to shop there rather than at its rivals' emporia.

This is, of course, excellent publicity for any company producing games that involve heavyweight weaponry and bad attitudes.

When Windows 95 appeared, it came with a free game called Hover. This involved driving a hovery thing around a castle, but without any nasty contact, aggression or bloodletting. No doubt there's a Hover society somewhere still exchanging gaming tips and tricks in a non-confrontational way.

The attraction of nasty, violent, biting-peoples'-faces-off gaming is that it takes dull, insipid people who wouldn't know which way round to hold a Heckler & Koch MP5 and who think a Mac-10 is a pastel-hued PC from California and gives them a taste of an exciting, dissolute lifestyle they will never know for real, unless they're extremely unlucky.

For a few hours each day, they become amoral, drug-crazed sociopaths for fun. They will never get to live out their harmless fantasies in the real world, where, sadly, such behaviour results in misery, disease, death, destruction and a lot of blood and gore for some poor sucker on the minimum wage to mop up afterwards.

So, back to that unasked question: people who flip burgers or work as junior accounts clerks can find an escape from their drab, ordinary lives by driving imaginary stolen cars full of drugs through shopping malls while smiting passersby with sophisticated weaponry, simply because it's completely different to their normal lives.

So what on earth do real gangsters, pimps and psychopaths do to relax after a hard day shooting people - and up - for real?

Presumably, these dudes would find escape in games where they go to school, get some qualifications, get a steady job, save up to buy a car, have 2.4 kids and die of boredom aged 65.

Or perhaps they play Hover. µ