Target Aus Pulls GTA V From Shelves, For Its "Violence Against Women" - Update

[one squirrel]

Is this really f*****g happening? "No one wants censorship!", "We just want to have a discussion about better representation of women in gaming!" Yeah, go eff yourselves.
Next time radfeminists or SJWs are complaining about a lack of female representation in games, just point them towards this and tell them: THIS is why!
Funny also that they are specificly against the violence against women. Violence against men is apperantly not a problem.
Tell me they don't have double standards.

 

[Zontar]

They aren't coming for out games, they said. No one's trying to censor anything, they said. Man this was upsetting, not for the fact that a company I hate caved in, but because this sets a precedent, and a particularly bad one at that.

No amount of fear mongering is actually going to make this, you know, true.

Oh for the love of god, how much more blatant do they need to get for you to accept the fact they want censorship? Do they need to spell it out for you? If this isn't them trying to prevent games from being sold because they don't like them, then tell me, what is it? What is this action which is a direct attempt to deprive people from being able to buy a product they want? The only way, in my mind, this does not constitute censorship is to use the archaic definition of government censorship (which Australia did have and just recently manage to escape in relation to video games) which does not conform with the current use of the term in regular parlance.

So tell me, what was this?

Whose they? These are soccer moms. They're the people who go around screaming "Think of the children." They're old news. Also this is happening in Australia, a country that has also banned and censored games for being violent (L4D) having drugs as as rewards (State of Decay, Fallout 3 {Med-X was normally called Morphine and was changed worldwide} and Saints Row IV) Sex with minors (South Park the Stick of Truth) sex was given as a reward (Witcher 2)

This is old news, old people up to old things. Not the work of "Them" whoever "They" might be.

How do we know these are soccer moms? Hell, what leads anyone to believe these where soccer moms? Given the tactics used, the message and the goal this was most likely started by yet another Social Justice Warrior (I know you're rolling your eyes at that term, but there is an archetypical internet user type which the term is used for denomination. We didn't label it on them because we hate them, the term became hated because of the actions of those who identified as ones) who wanted something they didn't like pulled form a retailer which was selling it a fair deal cheaper then other locations, thus making it easier for people to afford.

And your point about Australia's history of censoring games doesn't ease things, it only shows the reason this is a very real issue for gaming: it has happened before, it can happen again, it can happen to us, it can happen here. In fact MovieBob himself stated this back when he was making the pre-jumping the shark GameOVerthinker episodes, where he was insightful and logical instead of today when he's preachy and ideological.

 

[Zontar]

Target and Kmart are losing the very few sales they could have made.

Yes, very few sales would happen to one of the most popular games of all time which just recently got released in Australia in a retail chain which was selling it at a significantly lower price then the competition was, all during the pre-Christmas/post-Christmas season which is for most retail the busiest time of year.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Glad to see that Target can make the decision for me of what is appropriate for me to consume.

If buy "consume", you mean "buy from Target", yes. They get to make that decision.

Why is it a nation founded by the criminal refuse of Britain has such a hard on for censorship?

I REALLY do not 'get' the Australian, government, mindset.

It's...it's like The Tea Baggers of America, minus their love of guns, landed there and took over.

Beyond me, completely beyond me.

Apparently the idea that companies can make decisions independently of the government is as well.

 

[irishda]

I would call it a moralistic sleight of hand. Neo-puritanism, veiled under the cloak of concern for women and children-- no reasonable person could possibly object to such a benevolent position! What it boils down to is a case of self-appointed moral crusaders deciding, "we don't like this content, so nobody should be able to access it." Sadly, having read the petition, that is only a mild exaggeration.

It used to be religious fundamentalists who pushed the barrow for the agenda of censorship.[footnote]They still do, but their gripes do not get much play.[/footnote] Now, it would appear that the tide has shifted. A new breed of culture warriors have a bone to pick with the medium.

I mean if you can't get it at Target or K-Mart, you might as well just not play video games because there's no other way to get them.

 

[one squirrel]

It still amuses me to see Gamergaters getting pissed off by this.

"We use letter writing campaigns to influence the actions of news outlets hardly any of us frequented but which offended us with their sensibilities?"
"Whoo, yeah! Consumer power baby! I am Gamer, hear me type!"

"A bunch of busybody think-of-the-children types used a letter writing campaign to influence the actions of a business stocking a product hardly any of them were going to buy but which offended their sensibilities?"
"WHOA! Whoa. Can of worms, man! Dangerous precedent right there! Why, it's practically censorship! Domestic terrorism even!"

Ignoring that you are comparing a boycott to censorship, and just alone therefore your analogy is worthless, do you understand that there are people out there negatively effected by this censorship, who probably are not interested in gamergate or don't even know what it is?

 

[R.K. Meades]

I would love it if Rockstar wrote a female protagonist into the next GTA game,[footnote]Let's be real, it's long overdue.[/footnote] and made it a stone-cold bloodbath. Perhaps ramp up the innuendo and trash-talk to really rustle some jimmies. Would love it if she is nastier than Trevor.

 

[seule]

As an Australian, I love reading threads like this and getting a vague image of what people think life is like down here. Anyone who wants to get GTA will still get it, probably at a cheaper price than Target or K-mart would have sold it for anyways. I mean seriously, I have to wake up in the morning, kill 10 venomous spiders just to get to my refrigerator in the morning, strangle a couple of deadly snakes in my shower, wrestle a crocodile just to get to my car before dodging kangaroos and emus on the street so I can go for a leisurely swim at the beach with deadly box jellyfish, how hard can getting one little video game be after that?

Storm in a tea cup, Target and K-mart wouldn't have made many sales, just some PR persons way to get the chain in the news as "doing something good for society." Get back to me when they stop selling Apple products made by slave labor... or most of their clothes that are made in south easy asian sweatshops too.

 

[Erttheking]

They aren't coming for out games, they said. No one's trying to censor anything, they said. Man this was upsetting, not for the fact that a company I hate caved in, but because this sets a precedent, and a particularly bad one at that.

No amount of fear mongering is actually going to make this, you know, true.

Oh for the love of god, how much more blatant do they need to get for you to accept the fact they want censorship? Do they need to spell it out for you? If this isn't them trying to prevent games from being sold because they don't like them, then tell me, what is it? What is this action which is a direct attempt to deprive people from being able to buy a product they want? The only way, in my mind, this does not constitute censorship is to use the archaic definition of government censorship (which Australia did have and just recently manage to escape in relation to video games) which does not conform with the current use of the term in regular parlance.

So tell me, what was this?

Whose they? These are soccer moms. They're the people who go around screaming "Think of the children." They're old news. Also this is happening in Australia, a country that has also banned and censored games for being violent (L4D) having drugs as as rewards (State of Decay, Fallout 3 {Med-X was normally called Morphine and was changed worldwide} and Saints Row IV) Sex with minors (South Park the Stick of Truth) sex was given as a reward (Witcher 2)

This is old news, old people up to old things. Not the work of "Them" whoever "They" might be.

How do we know these are soccer moms? Hell, what leads anyone to believe these where soccer moms? Given the tactics used, the message and the goal this was most likely started by yet another Social Justice Warrior (I know you're rolling your eyes at that term, but there is an archetypical internet user type which the term is used for denomination. We didn't label it on them because we hate them, the term became hated because of the actions of those who identified as ones) who wanted something they didn't like pulled form a retailer which was selling it a fair deal cheaper then other locations, thus making it easier for people to afford.

And your point about Australia's history of censoring games doesn't ease things, it only shows the reason this is a very real issue for gaming: it has happened before, it can happen again, it can happen to us, it can happen here. In fact MovieBob himself stated this back when he was making the pre-jumping the shark GameOVerthinker episodes, where he was insightful and logical instead of today when he's preachy and ideological.

I dunno. How do we know that they were SJWs? What leads people to believe that they're SJWs? Tactics and message and goal? It's the same thing that we keep seeing time and time again, the time we saw the backlash against Hot Coffee in GTA. (No one fucking identified as an SJW. It was a term invented to insult people, it's the new white knight.)

What is it? Can you please tell me what the threat that we're supposed to be so worried about is? Besides, Australia has taken steps away from this problem with the implementation of 18+ games. And it happens once for every hundred or so games that come out. At most.

You're getting paranoid over nothing.

 

[Erttheking]

Is this really f*****g happening? "No one wants censorship!", "We just want to have a discussion about better representation of women in gaming!" Yeah, go eff yourselves.
Next time radfeminists or SJWs are complaining about a lack of female representation in games, just point them towards this and tell them: THIS is why!
Funny also that they are specificly against the violence against women. Violence against men is apperantly not a problem.
Tell me they don't have double standards.

Oh, I can go eff myself huh? Please tell me, if "we" don't want an honest discussion, what do "we" want?

And can someone please tell me how this is connected to the "SJW"s?

Also there's a lack of female representation in games...because one store in one country pulled one game from their shelves? I don't follow.

 

[irishda]

It still amuses me to see Gamergaters getting pissed off by this.

"We use letter writing campaigns to influence the actions of news outlets hardly any of us frequented but which offended us with their sensibilities?"
"Whoo, yeah! Consumer power baby! I am Gamer, hear me type!"

"A bunch of busybody think-of-the-children types used a letter writing campaign to influence the actions of a business stocking a product hardly any of them were going to buy but which offended their sensibilities?"
"WHOA! Whoa. Can of worms, man! Dangerous precedent right there! Why, it's practically censorship! Domestic terrorism even!"

Considering how much they hate "hypocrisy", you think they'd be better about it.

But whatever, so many of these posts are so ironic I want to use them to smooth the wrinkles on my shirts.

 

[irishda]

Is this really f*****g happening? "No one wants censorship!", "We just want to have a discussion about better representation of women in gaming!" Yeah, go eff yourselves.
Next time radfeminists or SJWs are complaining about a lack of female representation in games, just point them towards this and tell them: THIS is why!
Funny also that they are specificly against the violence against women. Violence against men is apperantly not a problem.
Tell me they don't have double standards.

IF WE DON'T STOP THE SJWS SOON NONE OF US WILL BE ABLE TO GET GAMES FROM TARGET!

I'm counting down until someone posts the "First they came for the communists and I said nothing" quote in a serious manner.

 

[irishda]

Well one of them is lying about what what the people actually said/did, and it's not the gamegaters.

By the way I've never seen a gamegater compare this to domestic terrorism. I have seen someone else compare them to ISIS though.

Are we including the time the "Anti-GG is supported by ISIS" talking point made the rounds because GG couldn't understand what a twitter bot was? I really hope we are.

 

[Zontar]

I dunno. How do we know that they were SJWs? What leads people to believe that they're SJWs? Tactics and message and goal? It's the same thing that we keep seeing time and time again, the time we saw the backlash against Hot Coffee in GTA. (No one fucking identified as an SJW. It was a term invented to insult people, it's the new white knight.)

No one was complaining about white knights because the very few who where complaining about those issues where laughed out of the forums, and rightly so. Plus it wasn't clearly ideologically driven by people who want what they don't like removed from existence by lying threw their teeth but the work of trolls, this was.

What is it? Can you please tell me what the threat that we're supposed to be so worried about is? Besides, Australia has taken steps away from this problem with the implementation of 18+ games. And it happens once for every hundred or so games that come out. At most.

The threat is of censorship, a very real threat which we have had to fight against four times before in gaming, this turning into a fifth time would be laughable only in its dismissal. Australia may have improved things lately, but things can change back quickly and it can happen both there and here. There's no reason to believe things will constantly move in the direction of going towards progress, we've seen it with film (dark age of cinema), we've seen it with comics (Comics Code Authority), and we've already seen it with video games to different degrees. To think it can't happen again is dangerous thinking.

You're getting paranoid over nothing.

Maybe, but if it is just paranoia then it's one born from history, both decades old and a few years new. It's a justified paranoia.

 

[Zontar]

Considering how much they hate "hypocrisy", you think they'd be better about it.

Funny, neither you nor anyone else here has actually bothered to explain why this is hypocritical behaviour. We got made when Jack Thompson tried to do less then this in terms of making games inaccessible, why would a group doing something with an order of magnitude greater reach then what he ever accomplished be hypocrisy? Not being outraged would the an act of hypocrisy on our part, but you probably knew that and would, if we acted accepting of this, point that out as well.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

No one was complaining about white knights? I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine all the times I saw it getting used on these forums before SJW became the new shorthand for "Believes things aren't perfect and should feel ashamed because of it." No offense, but every time I see someone describe a group they disagree with that bitterly I roll my eyes. Because I find it VERY hard to swallow that they group that disagrees with you just happens to have all those horrible qualifies. "The person that disagrees with me is horrible," quote every human being ever. It just comes off as petty to have to resort to name and insult throwing. Like you can't beat them on the terms of argument versus argument so you have to attack them instead.

Ok. Censorship from whom, directed at what in gaming? Because I feel like outside of a handful of countries, censorship has become a non-issue to gaming. Yeah, things can get worse, but you can't just point to an isolated incident made by an independent company and use that as a springboard to say an entire medium is going to be censored. That's just baselsss, pure and simple.

No. It really isn't. We don't live in freaking Oceania.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I'm counting down until someone posts the "First they came for the communists and I said nothing" quote in a serious manner.

Target don't stock Communists! We should have said something, I guess.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

They aren't coming for out games, they said. No one's trying to censor anything, they said. Man this was upsetting, not for the fact that a company I hate caved in, but because this sets a precedent, and a particularly bad one at that.

No amount of fear mongering is actually going to make this, you know, true.

Oh for the love of god, how much more blatant do they need to get for you to accept the fact they want censorship?

I know "they" don't because I am among this oh so horrifying "them." I am the feminisms Zontar. I am after your misogenies. And I have no desire to ban games. So I in no way appreciate when you claim that I and all feminists desire to ban games or censor anything. That is not, in any way, my fucking intent.

Do they need to spell it out for you? If this isn't them trying to prevent games from being sold because they don't like them, then tell me, what is it? What is this action which is a direct attempt to deprive people from being able to buy a product they want? The only way, in my mind, this does not constitute censorship is to use the archaic definition of government censorship (which Australia did have and just recently manage to escape in relation to video games) which does not conform with the current use of the term in regular parlance.

So tell me, what was this?

It's idiots being fucking idiots. I'm sorry, did I have to start defending idiots who agreed with me? Do I have to defend the worst of my movement to be a part of it? Because I sure as hell doubt I'll have as hard of a time defending this as you will have defending the fucking Nazi's who represent the worst of your's, which I do not think you should have to. And go ahead, make this about rhetoric, make this about how they are just seeing my ideas to their logical conclusion. I'll just fucking remember it for next time, because that line of argument is just as worthless and just as easily twisted around.

 

[Kameburger]

Here's the thing. Australia chooses to censor games. At this point it's a cultural thing. If they say that they have problems with certain depictions in their titles, and it is not enough to simply warn their customers, than that is the prerogative and I bare no ill will toward them for that. But I don't think we should be telling people what they can and cannot include in their art and entertainment as long as the items are appropriate and no one real is being victimized in the process. If you would like to debate that even the depiction is harmful to all women that I will be willing to have that debate as long as the debate is in good faith of course, but that is my stance.

Is it an SJW issue? Not really, I mean what is an SJW issue really? I think that word is becoming a bit to vague, and it shouldn't become like the word liberal that people use incorrectly to an amazing degree.

I am worried that we are reaching a point where we are unable to see nuance. "Gamergaters" and "SJW" are very broad terms, with genuine members among their ranks. When did it become such a god damned virtue to see the world as black and white?

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Several issues.

1.) They didn't ban the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions so what's the major difference? If it's first person mode, I'm going to laugh.

2.) Depicting something doesn't mean support of it. IIRC, most of the characters are assholes that you aren't supposed to relate with.

3.) Dumb business decision. It's not like any mass amount of people would have boycotted your stores(that doesn't happen in the USA and I don't think Australia is more conservative than the USA).

4.) Why bring the violence against women thing into it? It's just taking a match to a powder keg.

5.) I do quite like how they waited a couple weeks, you know, the biggest selling weeks, to make this change.

6.) They still sell(at least in their online store) 300, which if I remember correctly, has a rape scene in it.

Goddamn nonsense.