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Australia Games

Australian Target Stores Ban GTA V For Depictions of Violence Against Women 310

Posted by samzenpus from the not-in-my-country dept.
MojoKid writes "There's no such thing as an official Grand Theft Auto game until there's been a bit of controversy leading to its removal from at least one set of store shelves. It's a right of passage for the GTA series, if you will, and GTA V just earned its place among the franchise's previous titles by ruffling feathers in Australia, leading to its ousting from Target stores. At issue this time around is the "game's depictions of violence against women." Jim Cooper, general manager of corporate affairs for Target, explained that customers have voiced a "significant level of concern about the game's content." Separate reports say Target Australia received a petition with nearly 40,000 signatures demanding the game be removed. According to the petition, the game gives players plenty of "incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points."
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Australian Target Stores Ban GTA V For Depictions of Violence Against Women More

Australian Target Stores Ban GTA V For Depictions of Violence Against Women

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  • Removed after Initial sales spike (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05, 2014 @06:41AM (#48529319)

    I note that this cheap media stunt was done over a year after it was released. I doubt the loss of sales is worth more than the free press they're getting.

    • Kmart announced today they were also withdrawing GTAV from Aussie stores. All it demonstrates is their sales executives don't understand their average customer to the point a tiny but well organised minority can convince them that they represent the majority of customers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Trepidity ( 597 )

        Are you sure the average Kmart customer is who you think it is? Their target demographics aren't exactly the same as the demographics of Steam users.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by __Paul__ ( 1570 )

        K-mart in Australia is a downmarket piece of shit. They dumped something like 80% of their brand-name merchandise, around 5-6 years ago, and replaced it with it low-quality, in-house junk. I'm surprised that they even still sell video games at all.

      • A petition with 40,000 signatures is hardly "a tiny but well organized minority".

        However, knowing how petitions are gathered, I would bet the majority of those signed never even saw the game. I remember being asked to sign a petition to ban a movie. I asked the woman if she had seen it - "No but I heard about it on the radio from people who saw it and they want to get a petition to ban it!"

        So I told her that, since it hadn't even been released yet (it was still in the editing stage) that she had been lied

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 0123456 ( 636235 )

          A petition with 40,000 signatures is hardly "a tiny but well organized minority".

          It's tiny, in a country with a population of over 20,000,000. Though I could agree that it's not very well organized if it got so few signatures.

          Companies are much too fast to cave to 'petitions' that represent a minute fraction of ther customer base.

      • Target and K-Mart understand consumers far better than you ever will. Target's the company that knows people are pregnant before they do themselves.

        Despite that you disagree with this, your extremely superficial read is probably self serving.

        It is very likely that protestor revenue loss simply outweighs game loss after the high sales launch. I expect that they know exactly what they're doing.

    • You've probably nailed it, I'd say. Is GTA really controversial any more? It's violent, stupid, anti-social and a lot of other things, but it is also old news by now, and I think it is a bit pathetic, the way the 'controversy' gets milked with every new release.

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @08:21AM (#48529579)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Removed after Initial sales spike (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05, 2014 @09:21AM (#48529801)

        This isn't the same controversy. If you haven't been paying attention (and can't blame you if you haven't) there's a new wave of Jack Thompsons. It's not a think-of-the-children thing, it's accusations of racism and misogyny. Basically, same shit, different idiots from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Instead of wacky conservatives, now its loony pseudo-feminists ranting about how video games (which they totally play, but don't) are this that and the other thing, gamers are bad (seriously), pay attention to me, ect. Only when I called Jack Thompson a dumb asshole, no one cared, but now pointing out the poor arguments and outright lies of these new assholes gets you accused of being misogynist. To b honest I'd rather deal with ol' Jack was though; these new people are downright toxic, and causing all sorts of drama everywhere they go, and more seriously, making light of actual social issues. Lots of people are really getting the wrong idea of what feminism really means thanks to these boneheads who define feminism as 'that thing I can use as a cudgel for my own selfish agenda.'

        Anyway, yes, GTA and apparently video games in general for that matter are still controversial, and really, while the justifications have changed, the real root reason is still the same: pompous, self righteous, holier than thou busybodies who really need to find another claim to fame and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

          but now pointing out the poor arguments and outright lies of these new assholes gets you accused of being misogynist.

          This new breed of men haters would do Andrea Dworkin proud. But misogynist has quickly become so overused that it's losing it's meaning.

          Regardless, it appears that Target and the Dworkinettes have no problem with GTA's violence toward men.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        they're actually pretty good games that have much more to them than many other games.

        the open world nature enables you to do many things though.

        I mean, I played THROUGH gta V and .. well. I don't remember where killing some bitches happened. is it that you can go to the strip club and shoot people there? or on the street? like you can shoot the men there as well?

        I do remember going to the fucking psychiatrist in the game with the family and the fucking yoga minigame.

        are they going to ban all open world game

        • GOURANGA!!!

        • I mean, I played THROUGH gta V and .. well. I don't remember where killing some bitches happened. is it that you can go to the strip club and shoot people there? or on the street? like you can shoot the men there as well?

          I think they're talking about the "pick up a prostitute to regain health, and then run her over afterward to get your money back" game mechanic that's existed since GTA 3. I assume said mechanic still exists in GTA 5 (which I haven't gotten around to playing).

        • I mean, I played THROUGH gta V and .. well. I don't remember where killing some bitches happened.

          Perhaps they're confusing San Andreas with V. In San Andreas, hiring a prostitute would bring your health up a bit. Not so in V where, correct me if I'm wrong, it just takes your money. Certainly you can kill female NPCs in V, just as you can kill male NPCs, but there's no particular incentive to do so. That said, aside from the other points of sexism already noted, female NPCs, unlike male NPCs, will not fight back when you jack their car. Only rarely will a female NPC pedestrian will fight back. Or, perha

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      I doubt Target or K-Mart are going to loose much in the way of sales for this game. The sort of hardcore gamers who play games like GTA are more likely to be buying their games at EB Games or JB Hi-Fi or through an online download service than through K-Mart or Target.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Xest ( 935314 )

      No, the Xbox One / PS4 versions were recently released and have quite a boost in terms of graphics and content since the 360/PS3 versions came out and so they're currently in heavy sales territory again as it's been a well received and well selling re-release of the game.

      But you're right regardless, a handful of stores in a country with a population of only 20 million have stopped selling it? Seriously who cares. Anyone in Australia that wants it will just buy it elsewhere and Australia isn't exactly a very

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      The new versions for Xbox One and PS4 versions have a first person view and enhanced sex acts, that's why it's controversial now.

  • Meanwhile (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @06:45AM (#48529331) Homepage

    Disgruntled GTA V fans have called upon Target to withdraw the Bible from sale, for exactly the same reason.

    https://www.change.org/p/targe... [change.org]

    • Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tom ( 822 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @07:05AM (#48529381) Homepage Journal

      The above is a fantastic example of just how arbitrary our ethics are. It's not just the bible - things ten times worse than what any game or movie show happen in real life and we accept them as "collateral damage". The same as 50,000 years ago, our attitude depends a lot more on who does to whom than it does on what is being done.

      • The worst thing I can think of in The Bible is the Great Flood.

        If you think that's ten times worse than anything that happens in video games, I think you might need to play some more video games. That doesn't even cover Final Fantasy materia.

        Sephiroth will straight up destroy Saturn like five separate times per fight while trying to kill you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      That might be funny except Target Pty Ltd does not sell the bible, or any religious fiction.

  • Grammar Nazi to the rescue (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05, 2014 @06:48AM (#48529339)

    Right of passage? Rite of passage!

  • Huh (Score:2)

    by koan ( 80826 )

    But still for sale in US stores?

  • Why only women? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheDarkMaster ( 1292526 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @06:49AM (#48529343)
    Why only violence against women is unacceptable, when any type of violence should be unacceptable?

    • Re:Why only women? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rikkards ( 98006 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @06:58AM (#48529365) Journal

      It always irks me when domestic violence is attributed to violence against just women. There are estimates that it is pretty much 50/50 for both genders but men don't report it. Also usually if it is against men and the assailant is a woman there will be weapons usually leading to more severe damage

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

        Agreed, but that doesn't justify anything, or mean that we can't concentrate on one particular issue for a moment.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pla ( 258480 )
          Agreed, but that doesn't justify anything, or mean that we can't concentrate on one particular issue for a moment.

          Of course it doesn't justify anything. It very much does mean we have missed the point if we focus on one sub-issue, however.

          Trying to solve domestic violence as a "men vs women" issue will never succeed, for the simple reason that gender has nothing to do with it. We exist as an evolutionarily-recently domesticated species of mean monkeys who killed and fucked our way to the top of the f
      • Well, I was not talking about domestic violence, but violence in general. Then expanding my previous question: Why only violence against women is unacceptable when any violence against anyone (women, men, children, etc) should be unacceptable?

  • Innaccurate (Score:5, Informative)

    by guises ( 2423402 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @06:52AM (#48529351)
    I haven't played GTA 5, but I've played all the others and this: "incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points." is bullshit unless things have changed dramatically. Violence, yes. Plenty of violence, but the player never commits sexual violence. That would be thematically way out of line with the series. And you don't get 'health' points by abusing or killing women either. You can certainly rob them of their money... Is that supposed to be the same thing?

    • Re:Innaccurate (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 05, 2014 @07:54AM (#48529499)

      I played through GTA 5 on launch and then a year later, this past month, I played the next gen version.

      I don't think I killed a single hooker or stripper in either play through. That's about 70 hours worth of play. I think I had a total of two lap dances. I never had sex with anyone. The only women that I killed were those that happened to also be in the crowds of men (that is, they were just "people" in the crowd when I accidentally took a corner wrong in my car at high speeds).

      In fact, if you play through the game, the story is actually kind of touching. While it plays on generic 80s/90s films and tropes and cliches, the gangster angry family man learns some lessons and becomes more family oriented and reconsiders his ways (because men always have to rethink their interests and careers and give them up for their wives and children, of course). The stupid shithole vapid daughter actually has some rather mature moments of realization and appreciation. A part where she is caught up in wanting to be an "american idle" style star/joke and is taken advantage of by men in hollywood has a really amusing and sweet moment where her father and "uncle trevor" come to defend her against those creeps. Even the wife who is a shrill bitch turns out to be more dimensional than the first part of the game portrays.

      The game has some meat if you bother to give it a chance.

      There are also some horrifying moments. Moments that are hard to stomach. They are not targeting women in those moments and they serve to the greater commentary on american society, which is the whole point of the GTA series. There's a gruesome drawn out scene where you torture a *man* on the command of your government. There's a scene where a couple (part of the story) are murdered in their apartment by the one of these three main characters who is totally psycho. You don't actually see it happen. You just see the character go into an apartment. Then awhile later, he comes out and has blood spatter on his clothes. That's it. No commentary about what happened.

      Of course, why let that stop a "good bit of activism"? These are the same idiots who support people like Anita Sarkessian who portrays games like Hit Man as being games where you are forced to and rewarded for murdering strippers in a mission (you don't have to kill them, I DO NOT KNOW ANYONE WHO HAS DONE THAT... and you are PENALIZED for it). But nobody gives a shit. Even game developers eat the shit right out of her ass and don't question her bullshit.

      The funny thing is whenever anyone in gaming speaks up and says they don't appreciate their hobby or interest being taken over by "social justice warriors" capitalizing on the opportunity to push their agendas on people and degrade the audience and shame them, the response is "oh shut the fuck up, neckbeard, Anita isn't going to take your games away".

      Well....

      • Anita isn't going to take our games away. Try as she and her SJW force might, they'll never succeed... particularly because Anita is ignorant of the messages delivered in the games she criticizes (particularly Bayonetta [youtube.com], in which this link is actually a teardown of her review and illustrates every point she's wrong about and how she's wrong about it). And there will always be Rockstar Games or a company/indie like them who are willing to build a game that rubs against the grain of censorship to put their

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      Go watch a video of the game on YouTube. The player's character takes the prostitute to a secluded area (the game make you find one) and can then use his hand to force her head down onto his cock while she gives him a blowjob. He can also pay for sex. This restores the character's health. He can then murder her to recover his money. Of course, all this is optional, and they are very careful not to show any nudity (not even topless).

      As to if it is acceptable... Well, I'd just question why it is there at all.

      • Re:Innaccurate (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Xest ( 935314 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @08:47AM (#48529657)

        "As to if it is acceptable... Well, I'd just question why it is there at all."

        You could ask the same question of any scene in any book or movie involving sex or violence.

        Why is it there? Because it's not meant to be acting as a beacon of how the world should be but instead is fictional commentary on how the world is.

        Setting the world to rights isn't GTA's job anymore than it's the job of Hostel, or 50 shades of grey.

        "Movies make an effort to censor themselves. War films don't show the real horrors of war because it would give the audience PTSD."

        Absolute and categorically incorrect bullshit. Movies show stuff that video games can't even come close to showing, if you put anything like Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, or the Human Centipede in a video game it's an instant ban for that game. Manhunt was far far tamer than all those films yet it was banned. War movies show far worse graphic violence and far greater impacts of war than any Call of Duty or Battlefield game ever has.

        "They could, for example, make the prostitute disappear after the act off-camera so she can't be murdered"

        Yes, and 50 shades of grey could be a book that says "A women has fantasies about being dominated, but the man respects her too much so refuses to. The End." but it's not, because some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world, or our fears, our thoughts and so forth in a bit more depth than that.

        The fact is there are parts of the world, even in Western countries like the US where the sort of shit as in GTA happens. Why should video games be held up as some medium cannot explore the reality of the world in which we live in like movies and books can? Why hold them to different standards and suggest video games may only be used for the purpose of advertising the ethics and morals of an ideal world rather than as an exploration of the real world?

        Nothing in GTA says "You should go and do this for real".

      • Re:Innaccurate (Score:4, Insightful)

        by guises ( 2423402 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @09:23AM (#48529807)
        What you've described is sex (for which you gain health) followed by violence. I'm familiar with both of those things, they've been in previous GTA games, but the point is that they're unrelated. For the sake of the video the player has chosen to do one right after the other, but they could have just walked away after the sex or committed the violence without the sex.

        Your suggestion that sex should render the NPC invulnerable is... odd. Before the sex she's an NPC just like any other, after the sex she's an NPC just like any other.

        All right, lets look at this another way: in Halo players have the ability to crouch, this serves a functional purpose. There's a rather juvenile tradition in Halo of killing another player in a multiplayer match and then standing over their corpse and crouching. The existence of the corpse and the ability to crouch are entirely separate from one another, each there for a good reason, but when the player decides to combine them in this way they do so with the intent to suggest a humiliating sexual act. There are ways that Bungie could prevent this one particular act if they chose to do so - they could eliminate corpses, they could make the areas around corpses impossible to crouch in, they could remove the ability to crouch entirely - but the act exists because the players wanted it and created it themselves. So in other words: 1) The fact that people use the game as a medium for their expression, and that expression in undesirable, does not mean that there's anything wrong with the game. 2) Any attempt to censor this sort of thing is likely to get worked around. 3) Free expression isn't always nice, it doesn't always make you feel good about humanity, but it is always valuable.

        So how does that relate to a single player game like GTA? Ultimately what I'm saying here is that the player makes the game what they want it to be.

        • Your suggestion that sex should render the NPC invulnerable is... odd. Before the sex she's an NPC just like any other, after the sex she's an NPC just like any other.

          If it's anything like previous GTAs, she's carrying more cash than normal NPCs afterward (because your character just paid her).

      • Thanks for explicitly clarifying that you don't want equality but rather superiority. You're perfectly fine with an entire game full of brutal violence against men, but you want the game mechanics to forcibly prevent the player from harming a woman.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          As far as I know you can't pick up male prostitutes in the game, but if you could it would be equally as bad.

  • So if it were violence against white men (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ruir ( 2709173 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @07:17AM (#48529397)
    It would not be a problem, would it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      It would be a problem if it were violence against them because of their gender, or sexual violence, or racially motivated violence.

      There is no double standard here, just your incomplete understanding of the issue.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xest ( 935314 )

        You don't have any idea what you're on about do you?

        No violence you can choose to commit against women in GTA is because they are women. None. In fact, even the games most psychopathic protagonist Trevor right at the start of the game takes a woman hostage and lets her go opting to run away instead.

        So yes there is a double standard. At least play the game through before commenting because currently you're just making shit up in a weak attempt to try and justify your viewpoint.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        So you're saying that violence committed against a guy is not because of his gender, but in case of a woman it somehow magically is? This is just a restatement of "violence against men is ok, violence against women is not" with added sexist justification of why violence against men is acceptable. It is a double standard. Either violence against any sex is wrong or it isn't. Regardless of motives. You can't know what will be the motives of potential gamers. Maybe they will be man-hating misandrists? I say ba

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          So you're saying that violence committed against a guy is not because of his gender, but in case of a woman it somehow magically is?

          No.

    • If men's lives weren't disposable think how hard it would be to get things done or have wars.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      You have no sense of historical context, do you?

  • Selective media censoring (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @07:25AM (#48529421) Journal
    What are we going to censor today? Please make a selection:

    1) Video games.
    2) Movies.
    3) Opinions.
    4) Drawings.
    5) Retro (back censoring things that aren't politically correct today).

    So what will it be tomorrow? It's like we target popular items for "insert won't anyone think of the chil...feminists" reasons here. Any idiot out there with at least half a brain knows that violence in unacceptable whether it's children, females, shemales, hemales, dogs, cats, horses (insert your preference here). If you censor ONE thing in ONE media, you have to go for the other medias as well.

    We're SO close to arresting people for thought crimes!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      Any idiot out there with at least half a brain knows that violence in unacceptable

      And yet there is still quite a lot of violence in our society. Perhaps it's because there is more to psychology than just rational thought.

      • Re:Selective media censoring (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Xest ( 935314 ) on Friday December 05, 2014 @09:49AM (#48529945)

        And yet levels of violence have been drastically declining despite sales of violent video games drastically increasing making it almost impossible to claim violent video games have any kind of measurable impact on increasing violent crime levels.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          You make the mistake of thinking that all violence is equal. Will a Tom & Jerry cartoon the same as a gory horror film get the same reaction?

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Xest ( 935314 )

            Well murders, manslaughters, and violence caused A&E admissions have been declining too which comes with the implication that the violence that is happening is less likely to result in death or hospital treatment which means that the violence in question is probably actually less violent too (unless people engaging in physical violence have all become well disciplined marshal artists who all know how to attack only to stun). What exactly is your point? that although less people are punching each other t

    • I agree, pretending that a company choosing to not sell an item in its stores is a form of censorship is likely to get you karma on Slashdot, despite being critically incorrect.

  • Almost every year there is a big news story like this, regarding banning some game in Australia. Why are they so tight-assed about this topic, they otherwise seem quite relaxed people?

  • While I don't condone any violence (FWIW, I don't consider MMA, hunting etc. in that category), some people just don't understand the difference between role play/fantasy and the real world. I guess we should ban all rough sex, or civil war reenactments, oh and every James Bond movie, just to name a few.

  • ...The Road Warrior then.

    I bet people can still buy that movie down under.

  • There quite a lot of violence against men in the game as well. Probably much more so than violence against women. Not too long ago, while I was playing Trevor, I was kidnapped by some guy who beat me up, drugged me, raped me in the ass and then left me naked and unconscious in the railroad tracks. So why isn't that a problem according to Target? Either Target is a bunch of sexist assholes or they believe women are fundamentally weak and in need of protection like this, which would make them ... o yeah. Sexi

  • I bet if they came out with a game where you are an NSA agent snooping on other players to make them do things would be banned, too.

  • Their line of logic is as follows:
    Since men and women are equal, any measurement that shows any imbalance can only be attributed to society treating men and women differently. If we had a fair society, we would be seeing 50/50 splits across the board, so until we see this, we need to continue adjusting society.

    It's obvious where the mistake is, it's good old Tabula Rasa again. If we want to end this kind of foolishness we need to push the debate towards their erroneous assumptions, instead of debating them

  • So graphic violence against men is acceptable?

  • Hopefully nobody notices that they still sell Lifetime specials and so forth in their TV section.

    Maybe Romper Stomper and Mad Max got through on local cultural relevance.

  • What the game depicts is the main character being violent against other characters who are in actuality nothing more than computer generated pixels with particular behavior traits associated with them. Any alleged violence against human beings occurs only in the mind of the player, and not in the game itself. Said computer generated pixels are no more women, or men, than a mannequin or dummy would be.

  • so violence against men is socially acceptable?

  • This is so stupid and wrongheaded on so many levels

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