Top selling R-rated game has parents in a panic
Australia's first R-rated computer game was released at midnight - the latest version of Grand Theft Auto which was developed for $300 million.
Its extreme adult themes earnt the over-18s restriction, but many parents are still worried.
The die hard fans have waited five years so five hours in a queue was easy.
"I don't come out at midnight for much else," one gamer said.
The fifth installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise features graphic, realistic, sexual, violent - but merely criminal escapism, say fans.
"The amount of time I spent just running around, killing hookers and stuff," another gamer said.
It has attracted a rare R-rating in Australia. Not for children, but not harmful anyway, recent studies suggest.
"Moderate game play, even these sorts of games, doesn't seem to be associated with any major psychological harm," child psychologist Michael Carr Gregg said.
But many disagree - Norway's mass murderer Anders Breivik practiced with a "first-person shooter" game before his killing spree.
And twelve years ago, Trish Affleck's policeman husband, Jim, was deliberately run down by a man acting out a video game.
"They don't understand the consequences and the fact that they're doing it in real life," Affleck said.
The average gamer's age in Australia is 32, and three quarters are over 18.
"If you've set your parental controls not to play R18 games, it just won't play," Carr Gregg said.
