The What They Play website released the surprising results of a recently completed parent/children oriented study; as it turned out, parents are currently more concerned about their children playing Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto (GTA) than watching porn or drinking beer.

Most of the participants, when asked to identify the main causes of their stress, first mentioned marijuana (49 percent); not many would have thought that their number two concern would be playing Grand Theft Auto (the controversial game was brought up by 19 percent of the parents); watching pornography only got 16 percent and drinking beer came in last with 14 percent.

According to Cheryl K. Olson, Grand Theft Childhood co-author, while these results may initially seem surprising, they actually point to a more general fear of parents towards video games. Some of them consider games as "full of unknowable dangers." Obviously enough, no parent wants their children to drink alcohol, but when comparing beer to games, the former is much more familiar to people everywhere and therefore, it is regarded as less of a threat.

The website has previously had another poll that only focused on video games; parents were most disturbed with regard to a heterosexual act featured in a video game (37 percent); next in line came the image of two men kissing (27 percent) and violence with 25 percent; vulgarity closed the list with 9 percent.

The Grand Theft Auto series has always been extremely controversial and has caused numerous debates; it has also received powerful criticism from organizations like Parents Television Council or Mothers Against Drunk Driving.