Target Audience
- Thread starter The Wooster
- Start date
THIS. This is your best comic ever. I hear people say "Everyone who thinks differently from me is a nazi!", completely ignoring that hating on people different from you is being a nazi in a nutshell.
I don't understand how this is morally wrong. Could you please explain? I don't follow your logic.Deathfish15 said:
i wouldnt know, the defintion of what is a proper portrayal of women varies from person to person honestly, just look at bayonettaerttheking said:
the fact that the game was pulled for such an arbitrary reason pisses me off, the fact that reason is a lie pisses me off even more
does target sell other M rated games? because if thats the case i dont think the fact they are more family oriented holds much water
if they had said "we are swifting our focus to more family oriented, products, we will be discontinuing the sale of M rated video games and 18+ movies"
i wouldnt be happy about it, but i could understand that decision, is a business oriented decision
The fact is that it's discriminatory. Game of Thrones has actual scenes of rape(and a hell of a lot of talking about it) it still gets sold. 300 has a rape scene, it still gets sold. 50 Shades of Grey is chock full of rapeyness, it still gets sold. GTA V? No rape AT ALL. If it did, it couldn't be sold in Australia. And It is illegal to sell to minors, the boys the petition claims will be influenced by the game.Eric the Orange said:
All of the points that the original petition brought up are false, hyperbole, or an issue that parents should take care of. It was propaganda from the get go. GTA V does not encourage violence against women, prostitutes or not, any more so than it encourages violence against anyone else. It has one rule, if you see a person, you can kill them. If you only run over women, that's your problem.
It's one thing to say I won't buy this. It's quite another to say no one should buy this.
Eric the Orange said:
Booklover13 said:
They didn't do this for the sake of anything other than their business image for their top-dollar customer. They threw bot the product and the customers who shop said product under the bus so that they could enjoy a more positive spin for more business by the soccer mom. Their censorship is for the sake of manipulation rather than true independent ideals and morality.
As someone else said, they have plenty of other games that they still stock Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed, The Evil Within, Kane & Lynch, Watchdogs, Dead Space, oh,....and the so-called "GTA knock-off" Saints Row 3 & 4. How is it that they have that game, which basically allows most everything that GTA allows, still and there's been no uproar on it? It's hypocritical on a large scale.
I think the fact that the majority of the female characters are passive is at least worthy of a double take.NuclearKangaroo said:
I'm pretty sure people would've gotten just as pissed off if the petition had been 100% factual. Like Jim Sterling said, I'm pretty sure this is people just attacking GTA V because it's popular and it's naughtiness can be spoon fed to people looking for something to be pissed off about without having to do any research.
See above. Don't get me wrong I think it's stupid, but Target has every right to make this decision. I mean how is forcing someone to sell something they don't want to any different from forcing them to not sell something they do want to?
the fact that they had to lie about how badly sexist the game is right away tells me that it really isn't bad enough to deserve any really complaints.erttheking said:
also, exactly how is it sexist? because I am actually failing to see what could be so offensive about GTA that's different from any crime films or TV shows that are also meant for an adult audience.
the family market is also the lying market I need to remind you. but hey, why don't we take your logic a bit further shall we? what if the "family market" didn't want an R-rated film sold because it had a transsexual character who was portrayed in a positive light, and they lied about the stuff that happens to the character, and how the character acts. should target still not sell the film, which they had already been selling for some time, even though their target demographic (no that wasn't meant to be a pun) doesn't like it?erttheking said:
That's still not a moral issue. Double standard, sure. Blatant attempt to placate core customer base, sure. Probably not as good a PR move as they thought, sure. But not morally wrong.WouldYouKindly said:
Imagine I run a grocery store. I can choose what to buy and stock on my shelves. It makes sense business wise to stock what people who go to my store buy. If I get complaints about something I stock I may wish to remove it. Add to that, that the item I'm stocking hasn't been selling very well recently and it seems like an easy call to make those people happy for relatively little cost.
When this happens, my next question is: were the people who complained really Target clients? I supposed this time it falls in a gray area, because Target sells a lot of stuff, not only games.erttheking said:
However there is something else. There is a trap in the petition site. People can't make commentaries in the petition site unless they sign it. Well, I read the commentaries, and a lot were against the petition (which means they all had to sign it) *facepalm*
let me try to explain, imagine a bunch of vegitarians got together, made up a petition to have a certain brand of meat removed from a store and the petition was filled with lies about that brand, and then they spread the lying petition around to get a bunch of people to sign it and the store actually lisened to them.Booklover13 said:
so basically, a store has listened to one audience to have a product removed, even though the reasons for having it removed are lies and the people who started the petition aren't even the market for that specific product, and most of the signatures were either the signers also weren't part of that products target market or only signed because of the lies on the petition or for both reasons.
that should answer why this is wrong.
Favoring one clientele over another isn't a moral issue. Double standards aren't necessarily moral issues either.Deathfish15 said:
I played the game and I'm complaining about it. Just because some numb nuts couldn't do it properly doesn't mean it's impossible for there to be anything wrong with a game.spartenX said:
Because I struggle to think of any female characters that have any meaningful impacts on the plot. Despite there being quite a few female characters around. Or are allowed to do anything important. The closest I can think of is the hacker that helps out on the heists. And when GTA's most progressive woman is a goddamn hacker, I kind of have to role my eyes.
Be careful with that line of logic. By that line of logic than the gamer market is woefully misinformed considering that they wrote up a petition demanding that Target stop selling the Bible on the grounds that it is also sexist. And they didn't let little facts get in the way, facts like Target Doesn't sell the Bible! So I would put away that little snip at the family market if I were you, unless you're really prepared to go down that rode.
I said they had a reason, I didn't say I liked their reason. Personally I think what they're doing is stupid, but it's their choice to do it. And if that happened I'd do what I would do if I was an Australian gamer who wanted GTA V. Send a message to them saying "Aw, that's cute, you think a shop at your store," and then go off to buy it somewhere else. I'm not the type of person who is going to lose my shit because every store doesn't cater to my every need.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Stores decide not to carry stuff ALL THE DAMN TIME! I worked at a walmart and was told to take all the GTA VC copies off the shelf. They were no longer carrying that title, because of complaints. I never saw a huge blow out over it, only some disappointed guys who went to the Future Shop next door and got it.
This stuff happens and private companies have been doing it for years, you're too damn late to change this stuff now. And you're freaking out over the wrong part. Target will do what it has to to seem good, the problem is that a Change.org petition lied (supposedly, I never actually saw what the thing said) and was international so non locals could add their signature to something that would effect another country.
This is where my problem is. Change should be brought to task if their petitions are being filled with lies and fear mongering. Target doesn't care what's in a game, but if people *****, they'll dump it faster then a mud pie.
This stuff happens and private companies have been doing it for years, you're too damn late to change this stuff now. And you're freaking out over the wrong part. Target will do what it has to to seem good, the problem is that a Change.org petition lied (supposedly, I never actually saw what the thing said) and was international so non locals could add their signature to something that would effect another country.
This is where my problem is. Change should be brought to task if their petitions are being filled with lies and fear mongering. Target doesn't care what's in a game, but if people *****, they'll dump it faster then a mud pie.
This is a pretty legitimate complaint. Can't say. Then again one of the possible reasons for the outrage was GTA V being included in a flyer for Target that put it alongside kids toys, so I'd have to say "Maybe".CaitSeith said:
Yeah, that was pretty fucking stupid of them.
Yeah, I saw a picture of that flyer. Just recently the Australian goverment accepted that videgames aren't just toys for kids; and then Target advertise GTA V in the toys page with the Spiderman action figures and Barbie dolls at one side.erttheking said:
So, if you use the word in a fairly broad sense, discrimination is not a moral issue?Eric the Orange said:
There's also the other moral issue of outright lying about something to get it pulled from store shelves because you don't like it. It would be like if I started a petition to remove Apple computers from stores because they spontaneously burst into flames when it's patently not true.
Pulling something from store shelves because it doesn't sell well is perfectly reasonable. But that's not why they pulled it. If you wanted to pull something because of questionable quality, that's fine too, but why is Assassin's Creed Unity still getting sold? No, the press release from Target pointed solely at this nonsense outcry based on a propaganda screed of a petition from people who know nothing about what they want to have removed from shelves.
It'd be like if a bunch of people who didn't like/had never eaten tofu demanded it be taken off the shelves. The store might rather keep it because it brings a different clientele through the doors who may buy other things as well. Should we just give in to the loonies even if there are a lot of them?
Finally, what would have happened if they just ignored this petition? I imagine absolutely nothing. We're talking about the family demographic here, give me convenience or give me death. There wasn't liable to be a boycott in any situation.
so? that's sexist enough to have the game pulled? that's like saying because you don't have a black, Asian, and Latino character that has major importance to the game it's racist. a game is not sexist, racist or homphobic because it doesn't have major characters of certain demographicserttheking said:
you do realize that that petition was made to prove a point, right? people weren't actually serious about asking them to pull it from the shelves, but rather pointing out that you could use the same logic to pull many different works from store shelves. granted maybe the bible wasn't the best target in this case, but I think the point has still been made.erttheking said:
it's the principle of the matter dude. this is the same kind of logic that jack thompson tried to use to get previous GTA's band. hell this exactly like wen he talked about the hot coffer mod. this was a horrible decision that could very easily set a dangerous precedent, at least for Australia who's gaming market has taken enough shit already.erttheking said:
Bananas are your top selling fruit but members of your largest demographic are threatening to boycott the store because they are too phallic. What do you do?Eric the Orange said:
A) You stop selling bananas.
B) You promise to fund genetic modification of bananas to make them less phallic.
C) You section off the banana isle with black drapes and warning signs.
D) You piss off the petitioners by issuing a statement that redicules the issue.
E) You do nothing.
F) You issue a statement stating that you understand the boycotters concerns, claim you are looking into the issue/set up a committee to look into it. This is a lie and you do nothing.
Outcomes:
[Spoilers]
A) You lose out on banana sales, lose profits, strengthen your competition and and show that you can be bullied by future pressure groups. You also anger a gay lobby who were your second biggest demographic, they now boycott your store for homophobia.
B) You piss off anti-GM people and create tabloid scare stories about your produce. You lose more customers than the initial boycott's numbers.
C) You become the subject of national mockery, your sales of bananas go down. You do attract more perverts into your store but they leave confused and angry, buying relatively few bananas.
D) You provoke a full-scale boycott and a ton of bad press.
E) You see a short-term dip as some of the boycotters carry out their threat, most lapse on their threat or move onto other issues.
F) Everything blows over. The boycotters are temporarily appeased and lack the attention span to follow up, by the time they realise you aren't going to do a damn thing (if ever) they have moved on to protesting other bullshit.
[/Spoilers]
Point out the part where I said that, because I didn't. Nowhere did I advocate for the pulling of GTA V. I just said that it was indeed kinda sexist. Except the game does have female characters, a lot of female characters. And none of them do anything important. Really Rockstar? All of those characters and you couldn't decide that just maybe one of them could do something important?spartenX said:
Yeah and it failed miserably because no one decided to let little things like facts get in the way of their moral outrage. Which sounds a lot like another petition that we're talking about. And my point still stands. If you want to get snippy with demographics because of what vocal minorities say, you better be prepared to see that line of logic through to the end. Because if that's the case you need to accept a LOT of unpleasant things about gamers.
We are not talking about banning here, we are talking about a private company's decision to not sell a product. Precedent? Hate to tell you this, but there's already a precedent. This has already been going on for a long time. I would like to point out this.
This stuff has happened before and it will happen again. I hate to say it, but people getting mad about this for the most part are pretty much like the people who signed the petition. Mostly reactionary and wouldn't even know about if it hadn't been shoved in their face.Sosa Star said: