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

[Metalix Knightmare]

So your not selling this game? Fine I'll go across the street to gamestop, or god forbid walmart, they'll gladly take my money and future business from me unlike you.

Wallmart Austraila is gonna stop carrying the game as well.

 

[DirgeNovak]

I agree with everything said here except for the "WTF Rockstar" bit. The game never encourages the player to kill prostitutes, so there's nothing to ask WTF about. The only solutions to the "problem" would be to outright remove prostitutes and strippers from the game, which would be weird since they're a staple of stories about organized crime, or make them unkillable, which would be outright stupid since it goes against the very concept of an open world crime game.

But yeah. Target is being stupid, and Gamergaters are being just as stupid when calling this a scandal. If this is enough for you to boycott Target, that's perfectly fine, but saying Target is censoring GTAV when you've been rejoicing about Intel pulling their ads from Gamasutra after the GG email campaign a couple months ago is ludicrously disingenuous.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

"Oh bloody hell!" - Channelling your inner Aussie there Bob?
Given that game sales would represent a minute amount of income for Target, it's not much of a statement. If EB or JB HiFi had of done it that would be bigger news; but they, like the rest of the world, see this whole GTA5 thing in context.

 

[Revolutionary]

It's astonishing how ignorant most Americans coverage of this issue has been (Jim Sterling, Critical Miss, IG Daily, and now Bob). Hats off to Totalbiscut for actually bothering to research this properly and making a well reasoned response.

 

[themilo504]

Yeah it?s not censorship(although it does set a dangerous precedence), but the arguments used in the petition are at best poor and disingenuous and at worst pretty much as bad as the arguments used by people who did want to legitimately censor video games.

also bob you do know that gta 5 has been rereleased recently right? so the game was already in the spotlight even before this happend.

 

[SilverUchiha]

Here's the point that you either missed or that no one has brought up enough to help clarify why the outcry against this decision by Target has my support more than anything else in this situation.

Namely, we have anonymous petitioners from online asking Target to stop stocking a game in their locations because they refuse to act like parents. The refuse to monitor what their kids watch, read, or play. So rather than actually do their job as parents (again, assuming that's who put this petition together) they decided to make Target, Kmart, and (in the case of the Breaking Bad figures a month or two back) Toys R Us do that job for them. This is virtually no different from when parents wanted the government to censor or ban the sales of games for them instead of just not buying it for their fucking kids.

And the only reason that didn't work out is because (for once) the government was smart enough to determine that censorship of games by their part was not constitutionally sound and left it up to the industry to censor itself (for the most part). And what annoys me is how Target, Kmart, and ToysRUs are complicate in this whole affair. Rather than just tell parents that, "We're stocking what we want to stock because we want to cater to as many consumers as possible, you can just not buy it and avoid the issue," they caved in, hoping it would be good PR (and that didn't really work out for them long term).

In short, the petition is stupid. Yes, questions should be raised to RockStar for the game itself based on some of the content, but that's something actual gamers should be doing to the game developer. Not people who clearly aren't gamers to a retail chain that doesn't understand what the fuck its done to itself in this mess.

 

[Zealous]

I agree with everything said here except for the "WTF Rockstar" bit. The game never encourages the player to kill prostitutes, so there's nothing to ask WTF about. The only solutions to the "problem" would be to outright remove prostitutes and strippers from the game, which would be weird since they're a staple of stories about organized crime, or make them unkillable, which would be outright stupid since it goes against the very concept of an open world crime game.

Or you know, make it representative of actual illegal prostitution that is to say the industry with the most sex related climes. An industry that doesn't offer any protection to the people in it because of it's illegality which also leads to abuses of power from pimps who also don't particularity like their money makers leaving the business. Instead of a bunch of women who are perfectly happy to fuck you and have no issues whatsoever. Not to mention the GTA trope of having sex with a prostitute, paying her for the sex, killing her, and getting back your money.

You don't need to remove them from the game or make them invincible, it just might be a good idea to try to be a bit more representative of you know, reality.

 

[drmagicpants]

I don't think Bob understands this nearly as much as he thinks.

First off, his portrayal of the people against Target's decision is a sweeping generalization and a straw man. The amount of people who actually are furious about it are a vocal minority of the people who just generally don't agree with the decision (assuming they even significantly exist). Bob seems pretty good at making straw men such as this.

Second of all, he's overstating the prominence of sex workers in GTA. They may as well just be a comedic tradition at this point. They serve practically no purpose in the game. Sure you can pull up to one and get a blowjob for money, but it is such an insignificant, tucked away part of the game that I didn't even notice it was there after playing three games. Someone only recently told about it, I always thought it was just a dumb joke about GTA.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I thought killing hookers in GTA was like killing anyone in GTA: something everyone does, and one of the reasons I've never picked up a copy. I mean, having never played it, I don't know, so could someone explain to me what makes sex workers in GTA games so much more worrisome than any of the other parts of it?

 

[Occams_Razor]

"People's Republic of Overreactistan" is now my new go-to definition for this trend of blind outrage over relatively minor issues.

 

[NiPah]

Spoiler

I posted something similar to this on part one, but it seems as though people still refuse to believe words mean what they clearly mean. So, from Wikipedia.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, it is called self-censorship. Censorship may be direct or it may be indirect, in which case it is called soft censorship. It occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, child pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote or restrict political or religious views, and to prevent slander and libel.

From vocabulary.com

Censorship blocks something from being read, heard, or seen. If you've ever heard the sound of bleeping when someone is speaking on television, that's censorship.
To "censor" is to review something and to choose to remove or hide parts of it that are considered unacceptable. Censorship is the name for the process or idea of keeping things like obscene word or graphic images from an audience. There is also such a thing as self-censorship, which is when you refrain from saying certain things ? or possibly re-wording them ? depending on who is listening.

oxforddictionaries.com

Examine (a book, film, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it.

merriamwebster.com

censor verb
: to examine books, movies, letters, etc., in order to remove things that are considered to be offensive, immoral, harmful to society, etc.

You get my point. Censorship doesn't have to be official or government backed to be censorship. This is simple definitions of words. It just requires the removal of something for reasons of offence or unacceptability. This is how it different from choosing not to stock something because you believe that it won't make you enough money. It also doesn't matter if you can get it elsewhere. Target has censored GTAV by the definition of the word.

And even if I couldn't go to the top few results from google when I type in 'censorship definition' to back up my point, words are defined by their usage. Decimate is now essentially a synonym of destroy. Less can mean fewer. Literally doesn't literally have to mean literally. You might not like it, but you're going to have to live with it.

Pretty much can be summed up with this:

Spoiler

Certain CD publishers decided to censor their own CDs for sale to a larger audience (while still stocking the original).
This is censorship, it's not really a bad thing since the other version was made freely available, but it's still censorship no matter how hard you wrack your brain trying to say it isn't.

Hell Walmart used to only carry censored versions of certain CDs, that was censorship too.

I don't get why people are so outraged over calling this censorship, it's pretty damn cut and dry.

"People's Republic of Overreactistan" is now my new go-to definition for this trend of blind outrage over relatively minor issues.

Honestly I think Bob is the current leader of said Republic, if I recall he's pretty much the reason the Escapist no longer has a Twitter feed on the front page.

 

[42]

The problem I had as a suffering Australian Gamer, was the wording of the petition, implying that all people who play the game go out of their way intentionally to kill prostitutes and sex workers, and that the line "you get points for killing them" is just again the same argument they used when Jack Thompson was going on about how violent they were.

 

[Grampy_bone]

I'll just point out that MovieBob and other's support of Target would completely reverse if they were removing Gone Home for promoting "sodomy" or something (yeah I know its digital only, but you get my point). People always support censorship of things they personally don't like.

"Censorship is stupid, it's like forcing all men to drink skim milk because babies can't have steak." -Robert A Heinlein.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah, I think the only ones hurt by this whole petition thing are Australian Target and K-Mart. After all if anyone still wants GTA5 in Australia they're just going to go buy it somewhere else.
"Oh no, I can't buy GTA5 from Target or K-mart... Oh look EBgames!"

 

[JimB]

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

I would say no, since he explicitly said that in the video itself, but of course I can't speak for what other people feel a need to point out.

Bob, please stop talking about games. I get nothing out of listening to you talk about games but a headache.

I feel it will probably be easier for you to control what you listen to than it will be for you to control what another person says.

I posted something similar to this on part one, but it seems as though people still refuse to believe words mean what they clearly mean. So, from Wikipedia.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

Nevertheless, I feel we have to apply certain qualifiers to this, or else Target is engaging in censorship by not selling its shoppers' credit card information to me, and the word becomes meaningless as a condemnation. "They're suppressing the information of their patrons' financial identifications because it's considered harmful! Censorship! Censorship!"

I too use the "It's not collusion, just capitalism" line, when complaints are made about tropes or depictions or lack of diversity. If this is an apparently unsatisfactory thing to say in that case, why is "LOL capitalism" something we ought to just suck up when directed at the other side?

Presumably for the sake of internal consistency; or because Mr. Chipman is okay with you arguing against Target's choice as long as you don't call it something it's not. Or maybe something else. I genuinely don't know his mind. Just guessing.

So, permitting violence against prostitutes is bad and "normalizes" real-world sexual violence, but on the other hand the depictions of gun violence, vehicular violence, and gang crime that the GTA series is utterly dependent on, is something only a nut like Jack Thompson would try to ban! No cognitive dissonance here, boss!

I don't remember him saying any of that about gun violence, vehicular violence, or gang crime. Would you please indicate the time stamp on the video when he said those things?

This is censorship. Nothing annoys me more then people who try to play koi with words.

Is that intentional? I can't tell how funny to find it. If it's an error, it's funny; if it's intentional, it's kind of hilarious.

Censorship is the suppression of freedom of expression.

It may be a bit of a split hair, but I don't believe that refusing to sell someone's work for a profit counts as suppressing their freedom of expression. The expressions are still out there, still being sold and circulated. Target just isn't doing it. If Target choosing not to buy this game for resale is censorship, then by that definition, aren't I also censoring Rockstar by not buying the game to sell to others?

People are allowed to get upset about whatever they want.

I do not remember him saying otherwise. Would you please indicate the time stamp of where in the video he says so?

I just want to point out to all the people getting American about this, but prostitution is legal in Australia. It is regulated and taxed; the people who started this petition...are sex workers.

Is that the origin of those .gifs I've been seeing of a woman in front of a committee giving a speech about how none of them call themselves "sex workers" and the term is offensive white-washing? Would you happen to know that off the top of your head? No worries if not; I realize that question is probably really out of nowhere.

His portrayal of the people against Target's decision is a sweeping generalization and a straw man.

In what way?

 

[themilo504]

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).

Well for starters gta san Andrea?s dehumanized pimps, not sure about gta 5 but that has to count for something.

Assuming that moviebob wants what you claim he wants, then he should not agree with the intentions of the petition, the petition was about violence against sex workers, all of its arguments(stupid as they were) are about violence against sex workers, at no point did it complain about the game glamorizing the life of a sex worker, if gta 5 had a mission that showed sex workers getting abused by pimps the petition would still have been created.

So no I think that moviebob does indeed want invincible(or no) sex workers in gta 6, that or he just has no idea what he?s talking about.

 

[Sofox]

We'll agree to disagree as to whether a re-release makes something new again.

The footage of the YouTube video was based on the re-release. Specifically, it used the first person perspective which is only available in the re-release and some have said ended up making the events in the video more immediate.

I disagree with some of the other stuff you're saying, but okay, we can disagree. I've a feeling we'll just be rehashing previous arguments.

We can't repeat that enough

Who's "we"?

 

[Nurb]

I remember the days when the mighty moral crusaders were taking about GTA's killing sprees were causing problems with kids wanting to be murderers and desensitizing them to violence, now the Politically correct crowd is complaining about the same sort of violence, but for different reasons.

Oh how times have changed.

Spoiler

 

[MPerce]

I'll just point out that MovieBob and other's support of Target would completely reverse if they were removing Gone Home for promoting "sodomy" or something-

Support? You really got the impression that he was supporting Target?

He called them cynical and dumb. Boy, those are some supportive words.

Correctly identifying their refusal to sell the game as free market capitalism instead of censorship does not mean he agrees with their actions.