Do you know what that sound is ladies and gentlemen? No? Could it be the sound of capitulation, the sound of victory? Might this be gaming's Marston Moor or Gettysburg or Midway, its Gaugamela or D Day? This is certainly not the end of the war, but might it be, perhaps, a turning point, the beginning of the end rather than total surrender?

Take this from the Toronto Star; "It is one of the most anticipated entertainment events of 2008. No, we're not talking about the upcoming Indiana Jones flick or the long-awaited Guns N' Roses CD Chinese Democracy....." How about BBC radio's Today Programme - the most listened to and influential current affairs show in Britain – which called it; "The entertainment event of the year."

That phrase again from the Reuters news agency; "[The] launch of Grand Theft Auto IV is expected to be the biggest entertainment event of the year." [my italics]

When the history of the games industry comes to be written it may be that the release of GTA IV is seen as a turning point. This was after all the moment when the mainstream press came to see gaming as a seamless part of a wider entertainment industry, not a ghetto for sun deprived freaks. This was the moment when the carping about violence or sex or inappropriate content was drowned out by the simple appreciation of a finely honed game release – when the mainstream press started to judge sex and violence in games by the same criteria they apply to films – not by a set of higher standards. And by the mainstream press I mean the whole shebang; the Baltimore Sun, The Times and The Daily Telegraph in London, The Wall Street Journal, Le Figaro in Paris, the lot of them, from Muskogee to Okinawa.

And London's Financial Times really sums it up when it leads its story thus; "Robert Downey Jr takes on Niko this week as Hollywood and the video-games industry fight an unprecedented battle for spending on entertainment."

And that is the real story here. GTA IV is battling for a slice of the massive global pie that is entertainment spending. That pie includes spending on movies, TV, music, sport, hotels and restaurants; in short everything that the world spends having fun. Niko ain't just taking on RDJ. Nope, Niko is taking on Tiger Woods, the Paris Ritz (yes and Paris Hilton before someone else says it), Heroes and Dirty Sexy Money, McDonalds and The French Laundry, The Rolling Stones, Beyonce and Brad Pitt.