Target May Discontinue Manhunt 2 Sales

Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog is reporting that retail giant Target may be pulling Rockstar's Manhunt 2 from store shelves and their online storefront. "This could be an interesting case: there is no content in Manhunt 2 that goes above and beyond what we've seen in other M-rated games without the extensive hacks needed to unlock the more graphic content. If Target wasn't seeing high sales of the game though, it wouldn't hurt the company financially to pull the game, and it gets to look family-friendly. From a public relations standpoint that's a win-win situation. My question remains: would Target be as quick to pull the game if it were a runaway success? " GamePoltics has up a discussion of the issues surrounding this move, with commentary from analyst Michael Pachter.

Comments

I think I speak for the majority....

[Borealis]

I think I speak for the majority of gamers when I say "Who gives a rat's ass?"

I mean seriously, when the major marketing point of a game is whether it's banned, not the graphics, gameplay, and technical merit, one has to wonder whether anybody besides Jack Thompson is ever going to bother with the game.

Can we stop talking about this lame and pathetic excuse for a game now? Violence as part of a game is shiny. Crappy games that use it to sell instead of actually being decent suck, let's move on.

If the game sucks, don't sell it.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Another week, another "Manhunt is, like, so XTREEM" article, eh? Someone in their PR department is due for a promotion.

Would Target be as quick to pull the game if it were a runaway success?

No. (Kind of a silly question, isn't it.)

Players think the game sucks: they aren't falling for the enormous "carnage to the limit is cool" marketing campaign that's been going on here on Slashdot and elsewhere for six months. If anyone wanted it, the game would earn its shelf space. But...they don't, so buh-bye.

Of course not...

[analog_line]

My question remains: would Target be as quick to pull the game if it were a runaway success?

Of course not. That doesn't mean they wouldn't end up doing it in any case. See also: Don Imus' aborted radio career. It took an awful lot of pressure to bring him down, with all his political influence and the extreme financial rewards he reaped for his bosses. Manhunt and Take 2 have little to no political influence, and if their products aren't a financial success, who's going to be hurt if Target takes them off the shelves and sells them at firesale through another venue, maybe even eBay.

The game is too violent.

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Me and a friend were discussing this the other day and decided that we liked the concept of the original manhunt, but the game was just too violent to be worth playing. If the game involves violence but has another focus (Tenchu comes to mind, it's a very similar game style) then the violent is acceptable, it's there as a means to an end and fits the setting, but when that flows backwards (The game is the violence not the violence is part of the game) it just loses all interest to both of us.

We're both 21, both been avid gamers since we were kids and both play games ranging from Mario to GTA:SA to Silent Hill, we're not the type of people to be overly conservative and avoid a game based on religious content or violence, but we expect a game to use these mediums and others in a way which enhances the game, rather than steals focus from it. If Manhunt was a good stealth game which just happens to be realistic in it's violence to the point of being uncomfortable we both would have picked it up, but being a violence game with a bit of stealth just makes it appeal to children (12-16 year olds) rather than appeal to the exact audience they claim to be aiming for.

These manhunt stories seem like iPhone stories to me now. The hype is feeding the hype rather than the product. The iPhone was on Slashdot daily, it was going to spawn undead and be the new hot drug on the street, instead it just faded into the mists and rarely gets mentioned any more, the hype is no longer needed and the content of the product just isn't enough to stand on it's own two feet. That's how I feel Manhunt is going, it's unlikely we will see a third, or they will attempt to be even more extreme by which time the crowd will have gone "bored of you beating nurses to death with a fetus, I'm off thanks" and it won't get hype or sales.

Simple Solution

[Tsu-na-mi]

If they don't want to carry MH2, don't give them GTA4 (or any GTA titles) either.