Lurid computer game joins design prize shortlist

Judges of a new award aiming to be the design world's answer to the Turner prize have shortlisted a controversial computer game featuring extreme violence.

The game, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, shows gangsters, pimps and prostitutes marauding through 1980s Miami exchanging gunfire with police, and has been lauded as one of the most innovative video games ever made.

It has been praised for moving computer games close to art but the storyline, involving a main character who rises through the criminal underworld through ever more violent tasks, has been criticised by campaigners concerned at such games' lurid content.

The game, the fastest selling in the history of the industry, joins computer, jewellery and chandelier designers in the final four for the £25,000 Designer of the Year award.

Alice Rawsthorn, director of the Design Museum, said the game was chosen purely on the merit of its design, and questions about its violent content were "inappropriate" for the award ceremony. The game's complex technology, narrative and sophisticated imagery made it worthy of conclusion, she said.

"One of the impressive things is the way it treats architecture, which is very realistic and alluring. The shot of a helicopter hovering over Vice City is so detailed you can see the whirl of the rotor blades above the skyline of the city.

"It is visually very evocative and there is an abstract quality about it."

The game is expected to be given an 18 certificate when the computer games industry adopts age ratings this spring, and the Design Museum is taking steps to ensure children are not exposed to its content in an exhibition to accompany the awards.

Ms Rawsthorn said children would not be able to play the game at the exhibition, although they could use others by the manufacturers, Rockstar Games. A DVD of footage from the game has also been edited to cut out violent scenes.

The other finalists include Jonathan Ive, vice-president of industrial design at Apple Computers, who was shortlisted for the new iMac computer and iPod MP3 player launched last year.

Ms Rawsthorn said he was chosen because the original iMac was a massive leap forward in computer design but the company had still managed to improve on it.

The other two people on the shortlist are jewellery designer Solange Azagury-Partridge, nominated for her signature range and a collection she developed for Parisian jewellers Boucheron, and product designer Tord Boontje, for the limited editions of chandeliers he devised for the Austrian crystal company Swarovski, as well as mass-manufactured projects such as his Wednesday Light, a 1.5m garland to be attached to a lamp.

An exhibition of the work of the nominees will be staged at the Design Museum from 1 March to 29 June. The shortlist was chosen by a jury including Sir Paul Smith, who said: "The four nominees have all made fantastic contributions to the world of design. Their work in 2002 was exceptional."

The jury will choose the winner with the help of the public at the museum exhibition and on its website and the winner will be announced in June.