Take-Two Condemns Australian Retailer's Decision to Ban GTA V
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
- Start date
[/quote]Zeriah said:
Yeah, I saw that, but later in the article it says that the president was disappointed in Kmart and Target. Hence my half and half comment above,
Well, that's where freedom of speech comes in. When a person or group of people says or does something that they know is controversial, they'd better be prepared for people to call them out on it. If they can't take the criticism, then they shouldn't have done it in the first place. However, the offended parties should also realize that they do not speak for everyone, nor should they try to "fix" the situation on everyone's behalf.Vault101 said:
Well first up id like to point out that 2 retail chains (owned by the same people, it seems) taking the decision to stop selling a game doesnt mean its a "ban". A ban would be the local government making the games sale illegal, this is a private company taking an action in its own space, which is well within thier rights, and theres not a damn thing we can do about it.
Second;
And if anyone in AU didnt have GTA5 and wanted to obtain it in future, theres Amazon and whatever the AU equivalent of Gamestop is.
Second;
T2/2K and Rockstar have already made most of the money off of GTA5 that theyre going to at this point. Theyre hardly going to miss sales just because a couple of general retailers that represent a tiny fraction of the sales of any game in Australia made a public fiasco at deciding to not sell a game anymore. In fact they might see more sales since GTA5 hadnt really been making news recently.Ticklefist said:
And if anyone in AU didnt have GTA5 and wanted to obtain it in future, theres Amazon and whatever the AU equivalent of Gamestop is.
I doubt they would have taken a hit at all, let alone a noticeable one.Ticklefist said:
Target has the lowest market share for gaming in Australia, we are talking less than 2%, and kmart isn't far behind being 3rd last for market share.
If EB Games or JB HiFi were to stop stocking it, we could say they've taken a hit, with roughly 50% and 20% market share respectively.
My local Target stores only had 4 copies of GTA V on release, they don't do pre-orders, and basically only stock low amounts AAA games and skylanders/Dinfinity to compliment their toy section.
Yes he's disappointed, that's completely fair and expected. Any company would be after having their product removed from the shelves of a large department store chain for completely ridiculous reasons.erttheking said:
As I said please don't try and spin this like they were referring to Target in regards to the 'free society' stuff though. That is a complete misrepresentation. They were very deliberately referring to the group that is actively trying to prevent the game from being sold to anybody at all.
Well he's disappointed in them for a reason. And he's making this disappointment clear in an announcement where he is talking about people who he views as stepping on a free society. Frankly I just see it as making a logical jump.Zeriah said:
Also I looked up the full quote and he made a reference to a "Poor leadership decision"
Yes for removing his product for quite frankly, pretty ridiculous reasons. Yes Target/Kmart can refuse to sell anything they please as a private company but that won't stop them from being disappointed about the decision.erttheking said:
That's a pretty baseless and piss poor logical jump. They rightly criticize the goals of civilian groups that are trying to dictate which games can and cannot be sold. They then go on to express disappointment towards the companies who succumb to their demands (especially after the sheer number of factual inaccuracies that made up their joke of a petition). They do not however, level any such claims towards Target/Kmart because a private company can refuse to sell whatever they want.erttheking said:
How on earth does that have to do with anything? You can be disappointed and question the leadership of a company without saying they are "against everything free society stands for" or if they don't stock their product they are "dirty communists". Besides many people would agree that refusing to stock one of the most popular games of all time on the basis of a factually inaccurate petition signed by a relatively small number of people, whose numbers were likely largely made up of people who weren't even from the country that the company operates in, a 'poor leadership decision'.erttheking said:
Thanks to Steven Bogos for understanding the context of this story. I've noticed a lot of people covering this story have shown an incredible degree of wilful ignorance, *Cough moviebob* from people covering this story, some even going so far as to support the move. No it's not the end of the world, but if no one does or says anything then it's going to keep happening. This isn't about Kmart and target electing not to stock a product, this is about how ludicrously misinformed the petition signers were and how quickly the companies were to bow to the social pressure.
That's a precedent that I and many other adult Australian gamers aren't comfortable with. That's why we're making noise and letting target know that it's not okay. You can't dismiss our concerns entirely because it doesn't effect you and it doesn't seem like a big deal to you. Special thanks to all the people outside Australia who bothered to properly research the context for this story and how Australian classification works and even what GTAV is.
This is more about the principles of the matter more than the semantics of what actually happened. We're doing this because we want videogames to be treated the same as film, and literature. Plain and simple.
Captcha: Labour of Love
That's a precedent that I and many other adult Australian gamers aren't comfortable with. That's why we're making noise and letting target know that it's not okay. You can't dismiss our concerns entirely because it doesn't effect you and it doesn't seem like a big deal to you. Special thanks to all the people outside Australia who bothered to properly research the context for this story and how Australian classification works and even what GTAV is.
This is more about the principles of the matter more than the semantics of what actually happened. We're doing this because we want videogames to be treated the same as film, and literature. Plain and simple.
Captcha: Labour of Love
Zeriah said:
He made a reference to a poor leadership decision in the same paragraph that he went on about "These people" and "Decisions flying in the face of everything free society is based on. They're the people he's talking about. Seriously, look up the original quote, it's right there.
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
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
A 178 word paragraph that you can quite clearly see that contextually, he makes references about multiple things. I don't know if you are aware but you can in fact address multiple different things in a single paragraph.erttheking said:
There's no way he is referring to Target/Kmart here. It makes no sense contextually since Kmart/Target are not the ones that made the petition. It is very clearly directed at the people who are actively trying to stop GTA from being sold anywhere at all, which Kmart and Target are obviously not trying to do. Only at the end of the paragraph when talking about *gasp* how it effects their business (unless you think they are referring to Target/Kmart here too) and how they are more disappointed that such thinking convinced a store to stop stocking a product than its effect on their bottom line, do they finally make a reference to Target/Kmart and end by saying that succumbing to their demands was a poor business decision.
Well, if a game I'd developed/published had just been removed from sale by a fairly large retailer due to a rather sensationalist petition (that purposefully misrepresented the game) from the "think of the children!" brigade, I'm pretty sure I'd be a little disappointed, wouldn't you?erttheking said:
Especially when the justification given from the retailer behind their decision is pretty hypocritical and reeks of double standards.
Ironically the people who protested this games existence here have probably caused nothing other than even more kids/adults wanting to buy it now. And Target/Kmarts short term image gain from doing this "family friendly" business move is ultimately just going to hurt whatever sales they would have had from this game. Heck it might have been a game that would actually help them sell more ps4s and ones this christmas too. Like bob said the whole thing is just dumb on all accounts.
Even for feminism all this has done is add yet more fuel to the fire of feminists being regarded as just a bunch of whiny people who want to take away access to certain kinds of material/media when any good feminist knows that isn't true ultimately.
Even for feminism all this has done is add yet more fuel to the fire of feminists being regarded as just a bunch of whiny people who want to take away access to certain kinds of material/media when any good feminist knows that isn't true ultimately.
I don't think the problem is that Target has chosen not to sell a game in their store.
The problem is that Target chose not to sell a game in their store due to a deceitful petition. And that tens of thousands of people signed a deceitful petition, whether they were aware or not of its deceitful nature.
The problem is that Target chose not to sell a game in their store due to a deceitful petition. And that tens of thousands of people signed a deceitful petition, whether they were aware or not of its deceitful nature.
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.Vault101 said:
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.