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

[Bat Vader]

So there you have it. Violence against women in R-rated movies = okay! Violence against women in R-rated video games = won't someone please think of the children!

You think that's absurd? So you killing men is totally acceptable? But no, by gosh it's a girl.

I agree with Mr. Bogos. We need to think of the children. Think about killing them in games. I find it odd that I can kill men, women, and animals in GTA V yet not children. Rockstar needs to remedy this in GTA VI.

 

[Dragonlayer]

This is a particularly good counter-petition going around at the moment

https://www.change.org/p/target-to-change-their-violent-name-and-aggressive-logo

I'm fairly certain I saw a petition going around that Target needs to stop selling COD: Advanced Warfare on the grounds that it promotes violence against men. At first I chuckled, then but my misandry triggers were activated as I remembered the appalling level of anti-men violence that is the very core of the gaming industry.

OT

I can't even be bothered to get worked up about something as stupid as this, but I am kind of tempted to stage my own localised counter-protest by loading up my copy of the game and just killing women for a while. The is populated with the kind of ultra-leftist, fashionably progressive caricatures that it would feel like an apt if small revenge.

#Notasexpredator.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Wait, they were selling GTA V in Australia? That's the real surprise there!

In all seriousness, though, it is rather silly that they specifically chose to ban it because of violence against women despite violence against men being more prominent (as mentioned before, there's an extended torture sequence where you attach electrodes to a dude's wii). I would have thought they'd ban it for the general violence.
Oh well. Time to watch the pro and anti GG camps get their collective knickers in a twist!

 

[chozo_hybrid]

The Warehouse did this a week or two ago here in New Zealand for the same reasons. It's just silly, and horribly misinformed.

 

[IceForce]

People are seriously making comparisons with CoD?

It would seem there are too many people in this thread who can't tell the difference between:
- Killing a scantly-clad unarmed female prostitute moments after having sex with her.
- Killing a fully-clothed, fully-armed, fully-armored male enemy combatant before he kills you first.

Because these two things are completely comparable. /sarcasm

 

[Jinjer]

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.

In case you didn't notice, this is going on in Australia, which has a long history of banning or cutting down violent video games - this has been going on for a looong time. The whole 'violence against women' is just the latest excuse for forcing their moral standards on consumers. Instead of picturing frothy mouthed 'Feminazis' carrying pickets or whatever, it's probably more accurate to say that the loudest voices are crotchety old men who think too much fun will turn people into sociopaths. The 'think of the children' and similar rallying cries are just convenient slogans to spout to make their viewpoint seem sympathetic and rational

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Australia being Australia. At this point I'm surprised they haven't stitched "think of the children" or "this is for your own good" onto their flag.

If I owned a game retail store in Australia my first thought on all this would be to drop the price of GTA V and reap in all the customers that Target and Kmart have turned away.

 

[Rattja]

I can't help to wonder, would this still have happened if the character you controlled was a woman?
Let's say everything remained the same, you just swapped the character model to a female and changed the name, would that make it okey?

Have not picked up GTA5 yet, waiting for PC version, but from what I have seen both men and women get beat up all the same, I really do not see the difference here.
In the earlyer GTAs I never thought about who I ran over or charged at with a baseball bat. It was a human shaped pile of polygons on a screen and it was in my way.

 

[blackrave]

I have brilliant idea
Someone (not me since I'm too lazy) should make a game
BUT
Not any kind of game but the most horrible game possible
Misanthropy, sexism, racism, homophobia, violence against kids, violence against animals, torture, rape, everything horrible you can imagine.
Then market it as game that will turn any mentally healthy individual into violent lunatic.
And then few months later issue public apology to everyone who didn't became violent lunatic.

P.S.Also- after release of this game, someone (maybe even devs themselves) should send especially gruesome screenshots to those self-righteous holier-then-though organisations and activists. Then grab pop-corn and enjoy the circus.

 

[Something Amyss]

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

Something other than the histrionics of the supporter of another consumer movement to influence the conduct of the gaming industry, for one.

Oh no. Target and K-Mart have opted to voluntarily stop selling something that almost certainly wasn't worth the potential lost sales. This is....this is....

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.

Censorship! Oh, wait, but you're a Gamergater, and gamergate is also engaging in censorship by this definition you've used, so it can't simply be that it's censorship. So if it's opkay to censor when you do it, but not okay when others do it, I suppose your last question is pretty apt then:

So tell me, what was this?

Certainly looks like hypocrisy.

It's actually worst then that. Jack Thomson only wanted to make it impossible for minors to play adult rated games, this is an attempt to make it so that no one can play adult rated games.

Yes, consumer groups exercising their right to boycott is actually worse than a guy who tried to irrevocably and legally tie these games to everything from murder to jaywalking. The worst thing is, I have little doubt you believe what you're saying.

 

[Something Amyss]

I can't help to wonder, would this still have happened if the character you controlled was a woman?

Wasn't one of the videos that spawned this an online, female character model?

Have not picked up GTA5 yet, waiting for PC version, but from what I have seen both men and women get beat up all the same, I really do not see the difference here.

When you get the PC version, make sure to tell me how you're able to hire a man for sex in the game. Especially since hookers don't seem to ever fight back.

 

[Zontar]

Snip

As yes, faulty comparison, haven't seen that one in quite some time, at least so blatantly.

Here's the difference (which people have already pointed out but I'll do it again): this was people telling a retailer to remove a product for ideological reasons because they disliked it. GamerGate has been writing letters to advertisers informing them about what sites they finance for ads have been doing, namely insulting us, our way of life and out very existence despite them only existing because of people like us.

Last time I checked I didn't see GTA or any other game doing the same.

As someone else said

"Actually, it's about ethics in retail stores."

(Sorry Neverhoodian, that was too good to leave alone)

 

[Karadalis]

And the people who say that they aren't trying to censor anything aren't fucking trying to censor anything. They really are just trying to argue that this kind of stuff is "harmful" (in that it's message is bad, it's purpose is at best non-existent, and it's effect on consumers is more likely than not largely negative) and trying to get people to realize just how bad that it is. So, who were you talking about in your original post?

And both you and the people who say such things are talking out of their rear ends without any proof. Quite the contrary actually, studies throughout the board AND the crime statistics show that there is absofuckinglutely no corelation between videogames and real life violence.

The crime rate has been constantly going DOWN and not UP since the introduction of video games... from the original wolfenstein to mortal combat never has a game EVER caused a surge in the statistics.

You and the people who make these arguments solely make them because you feel offended by the material, because you "believe" that the others are wrong despite any lack of proof.

And THAT my friend is why people dislike SJW types. You guys will fling shit at everyone who disagrees with your made up out of thin air opinions, because anyone who doesnt "belief" is clearly the enemy of mankind.

The very fact that SJWs do exactly what religious nutjobs try to do, converting people to their beliefs, must have went straight over their heads.

 

[Something Amyss]

GamerGate has been writing letters to advertisers informing them about what sites they finance for ads have been doing, namely insulting us, our way of life and out very existence despite them only existing because of people like us.

Yes, you had to misrepresent these publications to get ads pulled. That doesn't help your argument. It just makes you as dishonest as the people you're complaining about trying to "censor" your games. It's "different" because this time it's not to your benefit.

(Sorry Neverhoodian, that was too good to leave alone)

Yes, it is funny watching that transparently false phrase shifted over to something else. I'm just not sure you actually get why. It's the equivalent of a branch of other conspiracy theorists using the term "teabag" without understanding why it's hilarious.

It's every bit as much about ethics as your little hate group. Which is to say, not at all.

 

[smithy_2045]

Eh, Target and Kmart just appealing to their typical demographic (women in their 30-40s). They can choose to sell or not sell it, even if it's for a patently retarded reason like the one given.

Personally, I'll be boycotting them for my Christmas shopping as a result of this decision.

 

[Kahani]

Update: Kmart Australia (another major Australian retail chain) has joined with Target

This is a little misleading, since it suggests that two major retailers have stopped stocking the game. In fact, both are simply subsidiaries of Wesfarmers. It's not "another" major retailer dropping the game, it's exactly the same retailer that happens to put a different sign outside some of its stores.

"...the decision to stop selling GTA5 is in line with the majority view of our customers." Somehow, I doubt that.

You need to read between the lines - "...the decision to stop selling GTA5 is in line with the majority view of our customers who haven't already bought the game and who are about to start doing the Christmas shopping for their families". They know they're not going to lose much money from taking a game that's over a year old off the shelves, and figure that they would lose more money than that if those whining about it decide to take their custom somewhere else. After all, even if gamers threatened to boycott them out of principle, we know perfectly well how well that works [http://kotaku.com/5403286/what-modern-warfare-2-boycotters-are-playing].

 

[Zontar]

Yes, you had to misrepresent these publications to get ads pulled. That doesn't help your argument. It just makes you as dishonest as the people you're complaining about trying to "censor" your games. It's "different" because this time it's not to your benefit.

Again I ask: where was the direct insult against the people who signed the petition, their existence and their way of life? The problem with your assertion that we misrepresented what the articles said, was that even if it was true, the companies would not pull their ads based on what we said in our letters. They'd do them based on weather the linked articles we where complaining about where in fact as bad as we claimed. There's no chance that the multi-billion dollar corporations who have pulled their ads did so without reviewing the articles in question.

What you're saying is that basically lying threw your teeth for ideological reasons is on par with taking issue with direct insults against you (and yes, most of the "Gamers are Dead" articles did in fact insult us directly). The only double standard here is your own.

Yes, it is funny watching that transparently false phrase shifted over to something else. I'm just not sure you actually get why. It's the equivalent of a branch of other conspiracy theorists using the term "teabag" without understanding why it's hilarious.

It's every bit as much about ethics as your little hate group. Which is to say, not at all.

If GamerGate is a hate group, those rallied against it are domestic terrorists. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but one glance at GamerGahzi begs the question "how is anti NOT a hate group?" Say what you will about us, we let those who disagree with us talk, while they will ban you for agreeing with them fully but not being extreme enough in it (actually it's hilarious to watch anti rip itself appart, you people attack eachother just as often, if not more so, then you do us. Reminds me of the Goa'uld from Stargate, GamerGate being the SGC, developers being the Jaffa, companies being the Asgard, Tok'ra, Replicators and the government being the Ori).

 

[Something Amyss]

Again I ask: where was the direct insult against the people who signed the petition, their existence and their way of life?[/quote]

You're asking me to correlate to your made up argument against games journalists, which is dishonest from the game.

The problem with your assertion that we misrepresented what the articles said, was that even if it was true, the companies would not pull their ads based on what we said in our letters. They'd do them based on weather the linked articles we where complaining about where in fact as bad as we claimed. There's no chance that the multi-billion dollar corporations who have pulled their ads did so without reviewing the articles in question.

Then there's no chance that Target would have pulled the games without reviewing the articles in question.

Of course, on review, at least one company reversed their stance, meaning that obviously there's some room for kneejerking, but to claim it's different here because you got results is disingenuous, too.

What you're saying is that basically lying threw your teeth for ideological reasons is on par with taking issue with direct insults against you (and yes, most of the "Gamers are Dead" articles did in fact insult us directly). The only double standard here is your own.

No, I'm saying lying through your teeth is on par with lying through your teeth.

If GamerGate is a hate group, those rallied against it are domestic terrorists.

Sweet. I expect to see them show up on the equivalent of the SLPC then. Oh, right, that didn't happen.

Say what you will about us, we let those who disagree with us talk, while they will ban you for agreeing with them fully but not being extreme enough in it (actually it's hilarious to watch anti rip itself appart, you people attack eachother just as often, if not more so, then you do us. Reminds me of the Goa'uld from Stargate, GamerGate being the SGC, developers being the Jaffa, companies being the Asgard, Tok'ra, Replicators and the government being the Ori).

In the sense that what you just said was pure fiction, yes. It's a shame you had to torture a good show to get your fake analogy.

 

[Zontar]

You're asking me to correlate to your made up argument against games journalists, which is dishonest from the game.

How is it dishonest? You're saying we lied threw our teeth to get something which didn't have any direct connection to us pulled from existence when the articles where much more then that. What I'm asking for if to make your comparison of the two equivalent, which they are not.

Then there's no chance that Target would have pulled the games without reviewing the articles in question.

Of course, on review, at least one company reversed their stance, meaning that obviously there's some room for kneejerking, but to claim it's different here because you got results is disingenuous, too.

Target most certainly did not, we know this because the game can't follow the claims made in the petition in much the same way as the claims against Hitman in the FF videos can't be done without it being the sole choice of the player (in other words, not what the claims in the petition said).

As for the company which reversed their stance, the only one I'm aware such a claim being made is Adobe, and that was because people misrepresented a statement of their condemning harassment as them reversing their stance despite still dropping their ads and the statement not actually supporting Anti due to there being more harassment from Anti then anyone save for trolls.

No, I'm saying lying through your teeth is on par with lying through your teeth.

I think the worst part of that is that you actually believe it's true and not that you actually said it.

Sweet. I expect to see them show up on the equivalent of the SLPC then. Oh, right, that didn't happen.

I have no idea what that acronym means honestly, but I have a feeling it's something stupid that isn't on par with GamerGhazi. Namely because I'd have herd an anti use it before now.

In the sense that what you just said was pure fiction, yes. It's a shame you had to torture a good show to get your fake analogy.

I'll admit it would need a few kinks worked out to work an an analogy, but the basic "Anti fights everyone, even itself" idea rings true. After all, half the 'ammunition' we use against it comes from such fights.