The Big Picture: Off Target - Don't Censor Me Part 2

[Something Amyss]

Buying sex from prostitutes gives you health back, at the cost of your money.

Wait, it actually still does that? I haven't solicited a hooker in the game except for the 100% (which I still haven;'t got because "bored now" and I started playing online), so I didn't notice if it did, but I thought they pulled that out of the games in the PS2 era.

Nope. That noble tradition is still there.

I'll have to try this. But that also means that another thing people are claiming is a "lie" in the original petition isn't.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Yes you can kill hookers in GTA, but do you know who else you kill? Everyone. You're not incentivized to go out and murder prostitutes anymore than you are to cause other types of general mayhem and destruction. Should Prostitutes be the one character group in GTA whom you can't kill, or is Bob taking the stance that Grand Theft Auto should remove the violence from its games?

Buying sex from prostitutes gives you health back, at the cost of your money. Killing the prostitutes then means you get all the money you spent on getting your health up back.

So, you've used a service, and a casual, no consequences murder lets you ignore the cost of that service. Gee, that's totally not an incentive!

(for the record, I specifically heard about this from guys at work/volunteering who found out I was into games and totally though that screwing then killing the prostitutes to get their money back was totally an awesome feature)

You don't always get all your money back. I've tried it once because people wouldn't shut up about it (honestly in the later games it's far more convenient to buy food if you need to restore health) and I didn't get all my money back.

But you can attempt similar things with hot dog vendors and taxi drivers. And taxi drivers have a very dangerous job, more so than prostitution would be if it were legalized and regulated like it is in Nevada.

E: That should say some parts of Nevada.

 

[Miroluck]

Buying sex from prostitutes gives you health back, at the cost of your money.

Wait, it actually still does that? I haven't solicited a hooker in the game except for the 100% (which I still haven;'t got because "bored now" and I started playing online), so I didn't notice if it did, but I thought they pulled that out of the games in the PS2 era.

Nope. That noble tradition is still there.

I'll have to try this. But that also means that another thing people are claiming is a "lie" in the original petition isn't.

Again, I haven't played V yet. Maybe that lie was pointed out by newbies who only started playing now?

 

[WhiteNachos]

Buying sex from prostitutes gives you health back, at the cost of your money.

Wait, it actually still does that? I haven't solicited a hooker in the game except for the 100% (which I still haven;'t got because "bored now" and I started playing online), so I didn't notice if it did, but I thought they pulled that out of the games in the PS2 era.

Nope. That noble tradition is still there.

I'll have to try this. But that also means that another thing people are claiming is a "lie" in the original petition isn't.

It's lying by saying the game encourages this kind of thing and by saying killing prostitutes get your health back.

 

[WhiteNachos]

The idea that this is a slippery slope is predicated on the notion that there will be the same market forces acting on any such petition. That's unlikely, given the market demographic and the game in question.

Does anyone really have to point out to Bob that GTA is a satire?

Considering he points it out in the video, something you should know if you watched it, no.

Also, as the resident Biodrone here, where was this outrage when Dragon Age: Inquistion was banned in India and no one could play that game?

It couldn't be blamed on feminists, so nobody cared.

Yeah just like when Australia was censoring games for reasons that have nothing to do with feminism. Gamers didn't care about that /sarcasm.

 

[WhiteNachos]

So, I don't get what Bob was trying to convey at the end about the prostitutes. Does he want them to be invincible like children in Skyrim? Does he not want them to simply not be in the games like children in GTA? Because by simple virtue of being NPC's in a GTA game they're fair game to be gunned down, ran over, stabbed, and blown the fuck up just like everyone else.

Okay, I've already made this point with another commentator, but I think what MovieBob mostly means to say is that prostitutes don't have to be cut from the games altogether, and shouldn't be granted magic invincibility when a GTA player goes on a rampage, but they should do more to acknowledge how abusive a sex worker's life is, (like with pimps who abuse them to keep them in line, 'customers' who abuse them just to get their rocks off, and so on), rather than just treat them with a "Hey guys! Just pay these happy girls for instant sex!" attitude that was laughably cheesy in the 3D-era, but increasingly out of touch and creepy in the HD-era.

It's not like they can't use the "girlfriend dating" system from GTA IV. It admittedly needs some improvements both mechanically and tonally, but it's still better than acting like prostitutes are happily shameless in performing sex acts for just a bit of money, when in reality they're likely forced and abused into the life by criminal scumbags, and are screwed over even harder by law enforcement and mainstream society blaming the hookers for "bringing it on themselves" instead of the pimps actually forcing them to do those acts.

And if the argument is "oh, EVERYBODY is dehumanized in a GTA game", that can easily be accomplished by dehumanizing the people abusing sex workers, thus getting closer to the root of the problem, while still being a more acceptable message - it's what Watch_Dogs did during the "Human Trafficking" sidequest (namely, hunting down a band of criminals importing sex slaves into the city).

As long as they don't pretend that EVERY prostitute is someone is there by force or because they have no other options.

 

[Miroluck]

Buying sex from prostitutes gives you health back, at the cost of your money.

Wait, it actually still does that? I haven't solicited a hooker in the game except for the 100% (which I still haven;'t got because "bored now" and I started playing online), so I didn't notice if it did, but I thought they pulled that out of the games in the PS2 era.

Nope. That noble tradition is still there.

I'll have to try this. But that also means that another thing people are claiming is a "lie" in the original petition isn't.

It's lying by saying the game encourages this kind of thing and by saying killing prostitutes get your health back.

Look, I don't exactly agree with petitioners (or rather, I would disagree if that thing affected me in any way), but you can't seriously be saying that you don't see the logic here?

I mean, you get a service, a service useful for the player. And the act of meretricide allows you to get that same service for free. You can't seriously argue that there's no incentive here.

 

[MaddKossack115]

Yes you can kill hookers in GTA, but do you know who else you kill? Everyone. You're not incentivized to go out and murder prostitutes anymore than you are to cause other types of general mayhem and destruction. Should Prostitutes be the one character group in GTA whom you can't kill, or is Bob taking the stance that Grand Theft Auto should remove the violence from its games?

Well, I think the issue is less "oh, you shouldn't kill them", and more "hey, instead of using hookers as an excuse to put 'sex' in the game, perhaps we should point out the ways that being a prostitute is NOT good for the prostitute at all? Y'know, with abusive pimps, even more abusive 'customers', and getting treated like crap by everybody in society for something they were likely forced into, that sort of thing?" I don't think that sex workers should be "immune" when you suddenly whip out an assault rifle and go on a GTA-style Rampage, but it's probably best not to trivialize their portrayals to "oh these girls are just SO happy to take your money and give you sex", and just ignore all the abuse they falsely receive from virtually every part of society, especially when Rockstar is trying to give the characters of the "GTA HD-era" more meaningful depth and story than the "personified Ids" of the "GTA 3D-era".

And if you REALLY need to put optional sex in the GTA games, I personally think that the "girlfriend dating system" of GTA IV may be worth taking another swing at. True, the mechanics should be refined so the player isn't constantly nagged to drag their girls on dates every few minutes or so, but it would edge off the "sex workers as shameless whores for the sole benefit of the player" angle at least.

I don't know about you guys, but I attempted to date pretty much all the strippers in the game. Kill them? Heck no! They're my harem!

Oh, wait.. is that worse than killing them? I can't seem to figure that out these days.

...Ok, perhaps the whole "harem" thing has its share of problems, but those problems aren't exactly the main point of the issue at hand - namely, how you can take random hookers off of the street, pay to have sex, and then immediately beat them up, shoot them, or run them over just to get the money back. That, AND the fact that all the sex workers in the game seem like happy-go-lucky girls who don't mind at all you paying them for sex, even though real sex workers are beaten by their pimps to enforce their servitude, and beaten harder by customers who don't mind getting violent just to get their rocks off.

Again, it's not a case of magically erasing hookers from the GTA games, or somehow making them impervious if a bloodthirsty player decides to shoot them during a Rampage, but to make the real issues with sex workers more apparent instead of just making them "happy girls that take money for sex without any harm involved - unless you want a refund". And if people argue that treating the issue of sex slavery and prostitution seriously would take the "humor" out of GTA 5, I think it would just invert it, by making the pimps and 'customers' abusing sex workers such despicable scumbags that players would want to beat up, shoot, or run over THEM to deliver karmic justice for their assorted sex crimes. And for the 'sex for the player' aspect, using the dating system from GTA IV (after tweaking the mechanics so the girlfriends don't nag you onto dates every two minutes) would be enough to get the same sex, just without the aspect of fueling an industry that is literally built on abusing women, and sexual slavery. Sounds like a win-win if you ask me.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Buying sex from prostitutes gives you health back, at the cost of your money.

Wait, it actually still does that? I haven't solicited a hooker in the game except for the 100% (which I still haven;'t got because "bored now" and I started playing online), so I didn't notice if it did, but I thought they pulled that out of the games in the PS2 era.

Nope. That noble tradition is still there.

I'll have to try this. But that also means that another thing people are claiming is a "lie" in the original petition isn't.

It's lying by saying the game encourages this kind of thing and by saying killing prostitutes get your health back.

Look, I don't exactly agree with petitioners (or rather, I would disagree if that thing affected me in any way), but you can't seriously be saying that you don't see the logic here?

I mean, you get a service, a service useful for the player. And the act of meretricide allows you to get that same service for free. You can't seriously argue that there's no incentive here.

By that logic I can argue the game encourages the murder of taxi drivers.

But you're forgetting that in both cases if you murder them afterwards it can add stars to your wanted level.

 

[WhiteNachos]

I think it just didn't get the coverage necessary to draw attention. Because I certainly have a problem with that too.

It got coverage on here, where everyone's flipping tables and accusing Target of censorship. The thread made two pages and died. Honestly, that should more tell which has more value to posters here.

Well people here are far more likely to be able to stop Target pulling games than India unbanning something. There's a language barrier for most of us when it comes to India.

Also a lot of that thread was arguing over the definition of censorship rather than discussing whether this was a good idea or not. Everyone agrees that the India thing is censorship

 

[Schadrach]

I think it just didn't get the coverage necessary to draw attention. Because I certainly have a problem with that too.

It got coverage on here, where everyone's flipping tables and accusing Target of censorship. The thread made two pages and died. Honestly, that should more tell which has more value to posters here.

It didn't get coverage on the Escapist, it got someone making a thread about it over on the Gaming Discussion board (I had to Google to figure out what thread you were talking about). That's a fair bit less visible than actually having articles or videos published about it.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

And as Jim also pointed out - you can probably buy a ton of media in Target which is "just as bad" as GTAV in terms of violence etc. So... yeah. Agree with all your points too and to be honest I only heard about this yesterday and I'm already bored of this subject. Over-reaction on all sides, it seems.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Can you boot up GTA and from the start of the game literally attempt to be a normal person. Ignore all the missions, kill no one, go on hikes, get your hair cut, or whatever. Be a normal ass person and not participate in any of the actual violence. Never progress the plot, but instead just be the first character and muck around the world map till the end of time?

Yes i had a friend who did this when it was his turn with the controller, and it was funny at first, but the third time the cops started chasing him when he was just "trying to drive to the dentist" it started getting really annoying.

 

[Miroluck]

Buying sex from prostitutes gives you health back, at the cost of your money.

Wait, it actually still does that? I haven't solicited a hooker in the game except for the 100% (which I still haven;'t got because "bored now" and I started playing online), so I didn't notice if it did, but I thought they pulled that out of the games in the PS2 era.

Nope. That noble tradition is still there.

I'll have to try this. But that also means that another thing people are claiming is a "lie" in the original petition isn't.

It's lying by saying the game encourages this kind of thing and by saying killing prostitutes get your health back.

Look, I don't exactly agree with petitioners (or rather, I would disagree if that thing affected me in any way), but you can't seriously be saying that you don't see the logic here?

I mean, you get a service, a service useful for the player. And the act of meretricide allows you to get that same service for free. You can't seriously argue that there's no incentive here.

By that logic I can argue the game encourages the murder of taxi drivers.

But you're forgetting that in both cases if you murder them afterwards it can add stars to your wanted level.

Taxi driver will not drive too far off the road. He will not drive your character to the pier, or inside of an abandoned warehouse, or city park at night. Which means that murdering a cabbie is more likely to draw attention. Also, taxi driver will drive away almost immediately.

Hooker, on the other hand, is riding in your car. She won't leave, no matter where you drive; in fact, they insist that you stop the car in an abandoned area, otherwise they refuse to do anything. After your business with them is done, they slowly strut away from your car, allowing to catch up with them easily or line up a shot (I'm sorry if that sounds creepy).

 

[sageoftruth]

What made this news to me was the counter petition to ban the bible. It was hilarious.

 

[Moeez]

So is the big picture already turning into a poor mans Jimquisition? Also do we need more Americans telling us what to be mad at in other countries? Clearly Bob isn't up to date on his Australlia VS Video game news.

Clearly you aren't up to date with even watching the actual video because he addresses (2:47) that there is actual censorship of games in Australia but this Target GTA V case is not censorship.

"Calling this censorship does a huge disservice to actual censorship. For example, the Australian government actually does censor videogames for real. They have the classification board and their function is to decide the rating which in turn decides which games can legally be sold in the country. That is a real, honest to God, capital C censorship and that's what gamers should be fighting against. Not petitions made by individual citizens to private companies, neither of which can meaningfully censor anything."

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

The idea that this is a slippery slope is predicated on the notion that there will be the same market forces acting on any such petition. That's unlikely, given the market demographic and the game in question.

Does anyone really have to point out to Bob that GTA is a satire?

Considering he points it out in the video, something you should know if you watched it, no.

Also, as the resident Biodrone here, where was this outrage when Dragon Age: Inquistion was banned in India and no one could play that game?

It couldn't be blamed on feminists, so nobody cared.

I did watch it, but Bob hasn't fully internalised the concept that everyone is dehumanised, so complaining about one specific group is moot, as it is using it to see intent where there isn't any.

GTA says that humans suck in general, not a particular aspect of humanity.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Yes you can kill hookers in GTA, but do you know who else you kill? Everyone. You're not incentivized to go out and murder prostitutes anymore than you are to cause other types of general mayhem and destruction. Should Prostitutes be the one character group in GTA whom you can't kill, or is Bob taking the stance that Grand Theft Auto should remove the violence from its games?

You hit the nail on the head there. The thing is if a game is legally allowed to be sold, then companies should stock it. Because when stores stop stocking stuff just because a number of people dont like it then where does it stop? Im sure all those real life prostitues are so happy that their fellow gaming prostitues will be protected. lol.

 

[WarpedLord]

Also, as the resident Biodrone here, where was this outrage when Dragon Age: Inquistion was banned in India and no one could play that game?

...or the fact that one of the main reasons "AO" games don't really even exist is because Wal-Mart refuses to stock them, thus making them MUCH more guilty of this whole "censorship by not selling" thing?

 

[Sofox]

I quit the video when Bob, on a site targeting gamers, tried to downplay the first major push at restricting the sales of videogames that have been made in years. Yes, you could point to things more important, but people who don't play videogames taking action that affect game players due to ignorant views on what video games are about is a major issue in gaming as a whole that has been going back at least as far as the 80s.