I play, and I enjoy, videogames. I'm a 20-year-old male student, so this shouldn't surprise you too much. But the reasons why may. I play videogames for their stories and artistic merit, much like why I would watch a film or television show, or read a book.

Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) is one such game. GTA 5 is Rockstar's satirical and darkly humoured take on capitalist society, set in the fictional state of San Andreas; an area based on Southern California and Los Angeles.

GTA 5 pushes the limits on all fronts: graphically, technically, and even in what content is acceptable in a videogame. Critics love to condemn its usage of prostitution, torture and murder.

Perhaps the worst offense in the game is a graphic torture scene midway through where Trevor, the most unsavoury of the three protagonists (he kicks a man's head in shortly after his introduction), torments a character, known only as "Mr K", in order to extract information pertinent to tracking down an Azerbaijani character.

The entire scene is playable. You decide what item to inflict pain with: clamp a car battery to his nipples and electrocute him, attack him with a heavy wrench, forcefully yank a tooth out with pliers or kick his chair over and waterboard him. It's the player's choice.

But here's the thing: it's not that different from Kathryn Bigelow's five-time Oscar nominated Zero Dark Thirty. Her film revolves around Osama Bin Laden's assassination and the torture used in the quest to find him. The opening scene, one of several torture sequences, shows waterboarding. It is unsettling. We see the detainee coughing, spluttering and struggling as the Americans continue pouring water into his rag covered mouth. It's a scene not dissimilar in style or content to the one found in GTA 5.

The difference is we celebrate Bigelow's film as art. To me, it's equivalent to GTA 5. Videogames should be on the same pedestal.

If anything, GTA 5 does a better job of showing the consequences of violence. Anyone who claims Grand Theft Auto is just violence for violence's sake hasn't played it. Police intervene if they catch you committing crimes, whether it be murder, shoplifting or accidentally bumping their car.

Yes, it is possible to end the game with all three protagonists super rich, but the game also constantly shows crime's devastating effects – whether it's apparent in the desolated slums or shown through the often fatal consequences for the game's characters.

People are quick to point to video games when we want to talk about violence and denigration of women, even though there are similarly violent and harrowing scenes in Game of Thrones, the Saw films, and in other entertainment franchises.

Videogames are evolving. They are starting to tell more evocative and engrossing stories – and ones that aren't far off from reality in some places. Consider developer Naughty Dog's the Last of Us, for example. The game tells the sombre story of a teenager named Ellie and her new-found caretaker, Joel, trapped in a post-apocalyptic America. It keeps you immersed, often throwing in heart-wrenching moments as the world's devastation takes its toll. It's certainly not the kill-everything-in-sight gameplay we used to expect.

The Last of Us is not the exception either. Games such as Bioshock Infinite, the Walking Dead, Tomb Raider and the Uncharted series all strive to tell compelling scripted stories. French developer Quantic Dream even motion captured performances from Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe for Beyond: Two Souls, further bridging the gap between games and films. There's a long way to go to reach the same recognition as TV and film, but it's a start.

This is why Grand Theft Auto is vital. There have to be games that push boundaries. What one person sees as offensive to another might be art or stylized reality. That is true of just about anything in entertainment. In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho pushed the boundaries and became a classic whilst doing so. Now we wouldn't glance twice at a shower scene, or a murder, or blood being shown on screen. This has only benefited the medium, allowing a greater litany of darker, grittier, more realistic films to be made.

The only new argument levelled against videogames is that due to their interactiveness people – especially youth – are more likely to be influenced by its content (pdf). It's a quaint thought, but violent videogames aren't made, or advertised, towards children. Games carry ratings, like most entertainment products, and you have to be that age to purchase it, so some adult is purchasing the game for any child playing it. That's the parent or guardian's responsibility to monitor in the same way a parent or guardian would decide if it's appropriate for a child to watch or read Game of Thrones.

Even beyond that, video games don't make people violent. It's just an easy scapegoat, a placeholder for the lack of a better reason behind the constant violence we see in real life. You don't become a prostitute-killing criminal through playing Grand Theft Auto any more than you become a plumber with a vendetta against turtles by playing Mario.

We need games to keep pushing the medium forward even if there are missteps and critics along the way. It's how any art and entertainment form evolves. I play Grand Theft Auto because it's engaging, because its story – like many other games – captivities me. I also understand that it's a game, not a "how to live your life" manual.