Sometimes, I can’t help but notice that it seems like everyone else on this blog gets to write about video games. The more I examine this suspicion, the more I realize that - by golly! - it’s true. Those jerks. Somehow, just because I am a girl with a limited interest in gaming, I got passed over. Help, help, I’m being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!

Anyway.

I’ve finally found a way to sneak in my own opinion on the latest gaming sensation, GTA IV. And it wouldn’t be possible without CNN and what was, apparently, a very slow news day.

While I unfortunately didn’t take a screencapture at the time to prove my case, CNN’s featured front page article on May 1st was the compellingly titled “‘GTA IV’ could keep ‘Iron Man’ audience at home.” Writer Mallory Simon asks us to consider the following:

Who would win in a fight: a police-killing, rampage-driven thug or a superhero encased in a technologically superior suit of armor?

Why, Mallory, I’m sure I don’t know. Could you please enlighten me?

The answer could come this weekend when video game enthusiasts find out whether “Grand Theft Auto IV,” expected to set sales records in the gaming world this week, will steal glory and revenue from a different entertainment empire: the movies.

Oh my. this is surely a compelling and not at all irrelevant or speculative “news” story!

The article goes on to helpfully explain what GTA is, for those of us how have been living inside a cardboard box in Siberia for the last seven years. (Seriously, since the release of GTA III and especially San Andreas, has anyone seriously been unaware of this gaming phenomenon?)

Apparently, “some speculate” that these young kids today with their loud music and their baggy pants will be too busy playing GTA to make it out to the theater. Who are these “some people,” you ask? Well, for one:

Edward Woo, a research analyst specializing in media and interactive entertainment at Wedbush Morgan Securities, said the game’s release date and widespread reach could negatively affect opening box office numbers for “Iron Man.”

“People on Friday or Saturday might find themselves at home playing this game instead of at the Cineplex,” Woo said. ” ‘Iron Man’ will still have a pretty good release, but intuitively, I think it’s got be impacted when both share a similar audience and genre.”

So a guy named Edward Woo, who has nothing to do with either franchise unless I’m missing some important secret about Wedbush Morgan Securities, “intuits” that GTA will have an affect on Iron Man’s opening. Good to know…?

Luckily, hard-hitting news source CNN has some history to back up these claims.

This weekend won’t be the first time analysts have speculated about video games damaging box office numbers. Last year, with $170 million in launch day sales and $300 million in its first week, “Halo 3″ was blamed by some for the poor box office performance of “The Heartbreak Kid,” starring Ben Stiller.

I’m tempted to point out some kind of flaw in the comparison between Iron Man and The Heartbreak Kid, but surely that’s just speculative rubbish.

Oh, wait.

Yes, it’s just my unprofessional opinion when I say that an article of this caliber would have been rejected by my junior college newspaper. (It was a good junior college, but still.) However, I think the utter inanity of this premise - on the front page of CNN, no less - is best expressed by a man named John.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello told the Financial Times this month that movie executives told him, ” ‘Iron Man’ the movie is going to get killed by ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ the game.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before,” he said.

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