Take-Two Condemns Australian Retailer's Decision to Ban GTA V

[Nurb]

the petition wasn't *that* deceitful in a sense that GTA kind of is a shitty portrayal of woman

It's a shitty portrayal of everyone, the men are murderous amoral criminals, the "good guys" are horrible hypocrits, and the rest are victims of both, made to be cannon fodder, same as the women.

Making a woman a playable main character would also be a "bad portrayal of women" because they'd be doing the same evil shit the male main characters have.

 

[wulf3n]

Was getting ready to make a big deal about it's not a "ban" if the company chooses themselves not to sell, then I read the source and discovered that there was no mention of a ban. Thank you for the misleading title OP


I'm surprised at the large amount of meh, well not really. Though I am curious to see if people would still be so indifferent if it were something else, like say Dragon Age: Inquisition being pulled from the shelves for it's inclusion of same sex romances.

 

[SecondPrize]

Well did we honestly expect them to have any other kind of reaction? And against everything free society stands for, oh what? They HAVE to sell your game or they're dirty communists or something?

Nothing was said about being required to stock GTA, Take-Two condemned them because of the reason Target/Kmart chose to not stock the product.
If a store chooses not to stock a product because they want to push their views (or in this case, the views from the deceitful petition) then yes it flies in the face of a free society.

A free society simply refers to a society given the freedom to choose (in this case rather to purchase certain items).

In the grand scheme it means nothing to Take-Two, but it's weird how many people defend the action taken by Target and Kmart, meh.

I fail to see the difference.

And? Rockstar pushes their views in their video games all the time. Why the Hell shouldn't a company be allowed to not sell a game because of their views? If a mom and pop drug store says they don't want to sell GTA V are they pro-censorship?

And the people in charge of Kmart and Target CHOSE to not sell games. They're allowed to make choices too you know.

Because people don't always automatically agree. And personally I find the attitude being emulated towards the two stores to be along the lines of "I'm ok with people making choices, so long as they're choices I agree with."

When has Rockstar ever forced anyone to buy their games? They offer products.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I would like to see Take 2 blacklist Target and K-Mart.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

News just in, Gamers pissed over non issue again, Take Two makes an obvious statement to appeal to this pissy-ness for the sake of money. Both Take Two and Targets set to report net growth after appealing to their target demographics.

I want to thank you for succinctly summing up the situation in a way that I can agree with and with some humor. Good show.

 

[jklinders]

It's been out for over a year. Bob had it right (credit where it's due however much I dislike the man right now) in this week's Big Picture. The game is completely irrelevant on the brick and mortar store retail front now. It's unlikely that Target was going to have any significant sales of that game so they pulled the hundred or so copies they likely had left on shelf to make room for new Christmas releases. I'm sure they are really hurting in the wallet from that while they soak up the free publicity.

T2 is doing the same damn thing. Getting free points for bashing a retailer over not stocking a game they have not likely ordered any copies of in 6 months to get that Gamergate street cred. Pretty sure this was not the first time a stunt like this was pulled, won't be the last.

Wake me up when something interesting happens.

captcha: History repeats itself

Captcha, you creep me the fuck out sometimes.

 

[Doom972]

It would be nice to see all major publishers banning those retailers until they go back on that decision. They're horrible business partners if that's all it takes for them to do something like that.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hobby Lobby given an exemption on federal law to provide healthcare options because it "doesn't believe in them": they're a privately owned company, they can do whatever they want

Target and K-mart decide to stop stocking a game because they don't want to, which harms nobody at all because the game is still sold everywhere else and nothing really changed: FASCISTS HOW DARE THEY MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS THIS ISN'T WHAT FREE SOCIETY IS BASED ON

america: it's not freedom unless it's all MY freedom

With the exception that the latter of those is happening outside the US, yes.

Despite what the article says, Target and KMart are not banning anything, and do not have the power to do so. They have decided not to do it. I'll wait for them to get voted in next election before I get too worried about them banning things.

 

[SilverUchiha]

Cool. I called Bob out in his video for missing this point entirely where people just had the option to CHOOSE not to buy it rather than push retailers to not carry it. Force parents to actually be parents and monitor the shit their kids play or mess with.

 

[AstaresPanda]

Its the way this all went down that has got ppl all WTF about it. But really game has been out for ages now they are not loosing any cash.

Cool. I called Bob out in his video for missing this point entirely where people just had the option to CHOOSE not to buy it rather than push retailers to not carry it. Force parents to actually be parents and monitor the shit their kids play or mess with.

And yeh THIS. It was TV back in the day lazy parents would cry about now its moved to video games. Raise your kid right and they should know right from wrong, and tell the dam diff between video games and real world.

 

[Denamic]

[quote/]"flies in the face of everything that free society is based on."

*snrrrrrrrrrk*

oh come on really?

[sub/]I don't actually think this is as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be[/sub][/quote]
Yeah, really. True, this doesn't actually have much of an actual impact. It's the fact that a small group of people are making your decisions for you. That is in direct opposition to what a free society is, even if it's an ultimately inconsequential event. Many small and unimportant things taken away from you will eventually end up being a lot if you keep letting it happen.

 

[Zombie Badger]

a

 

[MrFalconfly]

the petition wasn't *that* deceitful in a sense that GTA kind of is a shitty portrayal of woman

GTA has been, and still is "equal opportunities shitty portrayal".

Hell it's actually men who get the slightly shittier end of the stick.

EDIT: Or do you want for the next GTA to have the player brutally torture a woman the same way a man was tortured in GTA V?

 

[Tohuvabohu]

the petition wasn't *that* deceitful in a sense that GTA kind of is a shitty portrayal of woman

It actually is that deceitful, Vault. I'm not sure if you're defending the petition or not, but I find that statement to be a silly one either way. "Yeah they're lying, but they're not lying thaaaat much."

Even Jim Sterling admits the petition was disingenuous. Rather than stating the facts to support her claim, the writer of the petition resorted to lies and misrepresentations to get what she wanted. I'm not sure how anyone could support such a thing.

Target made a statement that they pulled the game from their shelves in direct response to the petition too, which again, was full of disingenuous misrepresentations, and now another store has followed suit. Will it be the last? No one knows. But it's not unreasonable for some to be concerned about this.

I've yet to hear a good reason why "Don't like it, don't buy it" is unacceptable in this regard.

The petition states that murdering sex workers is a core game mechanic, which is demonstrably false. The only way GTA fails at portraying women is by not having them murdered enough, really. Women are indeed under represented in the GTA games, but adequate representation in a GTA game would mean them being killed horribly.

Take a look at the Saints Row franchise. Many female characters are killed during the main story, protagonists and antagonists. And many of the mook gang members you fight are women.

It's a shitty portrayal of everyone, the men are murderous amoral criminals, the "good guys" are horrible hypocrits, and the rest are victims of both, made to be cannon fodder, same as the women.

Making a woman a playable main character would also be a "bad portrayal of women" because they'd be doing the same evil shit the male main characters have.

^Exactly. Also Nurb, you can create a female character in GTA Online, and take part in the exact same destruction and havoc the main characters can.

 

[Laughing Man]

Oh the whole thing is just full of stupid, the only real winners are funnily enough the company no longer selling the product and the company who produced it.

Target and Kmarts moral stance is bullshit publicity, if they truly had any moral object against the game or any REAL concern for the opinions of their customers concerns they would have never sold the game in the first place, to pull the game a year after release and a long time after the bucks would have rolled in from the game and then stand on the podium proclaiming that they listen to the moral views of a select few and decided that the game no longer fit with whatever image the company is trying to portrait (money grubbing wankers is the image I am getting) is frankly pathetic but it's working they are getting a ton of free publicity and my what a shocker it's all happening right before the biggest retailing period of the year, now what were the fucking chances of that then?

Take Two will make cash because of the small knock on from this, folk will just go elsewhere and buy the game, some folk will decided to buy because, well this company refused to sell it it must be fucked up lets give it a go.

The people that come out looking the worst are the petition creators, and that's just about bloody right as far as I am concerned. The petition was ill informed at best and an out right collection of fucking lies and mis representations at worst. It was signed by a pathetically small number of people, seriously 40 odd thousand is fucking nothing, the country has a fixed R18 and certification system so the arrogance of a group that believes it knows best what should and shouldn't be sold because of 'who will think of the children' I am sorry, yes they have the right to free speech just like everyone has the right to tell them to go fuck off but I guess they could start a petition to have that 'banned' next.

 

[Quellist]

Hilariously misinformed petition is about right. What really pisses me off about people like Change.org and their ilk is no option to say 'No i totally do not support this petition and feel its a bad idea'

 

[Fulbert]

Hilariously misinformed petition is about right. What really pisses me off about people like Change.org and their ilk is no option to say 'No i totally do not support this petition and feel its a bad idea'

I remember somebody launched a counter-petition to one asking Rockstar to port GTA5 to PC. That counter-petition asked them NOT to port GTA5 to PC so that "PC pirates learn their lesson".

So that's one way to protest petitions, I suppose.

 

[Spade Lead]

Well did we honestly expect them to have any other kind of reaction? And against everything free society stands for, oh what? They HAVE to sell your game or they're dirty communists or something?

Well at least I have evidence to counter the claim that this incident will pressure developers into changing their games.

Going to have to Godwin this thing:

One of the first things Nazis did was start banning works that they didn't agree with. Surely you remember the pictures and videos of the huge book burnings the Nazi Party had? This isn't anywhere near as serious, since it was just two retailers (one of whom is doing shit for sales in the first place), but yes, banning something that you don't like just because you don't like it is exactly the type of thing that a free people shouldn't be allowed to do. That said, it is their shitty company to make their own shitty business decisions about, and if that shitty business decision is to remove a popular product because a bunch of Nanny-state enthusiasts want to get all butthurt, that is their choice, but that doesn't make it correct.