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

Removed after Initial sales spike by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-04 22:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by TapeCutter · 2014-12-04 23:05 · Score: 2

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.

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And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Trepidity · 2014-12-04 23:25 · Score: 1

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.

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Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by jandersen · 2014-12-04 23:34 · Score: 1

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.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by jonwil · 2014-12-04 23:48 · Score: 1

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:Removed after Initial sales spike by squiggleslash · 2014-12-05 00:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

Largely agree though I'm not sure about the "stupid" thing.
I haven't played V yet, but have played 3/VC/SA/4, and wouldn't describe any in the series as "stupid". They're biting depictions of US pop "crime culture" as seen from 3,000 miles away, and they belong on the shelves in any store that sells games but also sells TV box sets from The Sopranos to Miami Vice.
I'm not arguing it's perfect, that it's the funniest, that if all games were like the GTA series there wouldn't be a problem, but standalone, marketed and sold only to adults, there should be no problem with the game being sold. We see a backlash against it largely because of a combination of politicians raising its profile as some kind of embodiment of evil in video gaming, and because of the background issue of there being so many games that persist sharing GTA's social flaws, something that's becoming a prominant concern now inside and outside the industry.
Stupid? No. each game in the series I've seen does what it sets out to do, does it with wit and insight, and tries its very best to present a provoking look at an artificial world that's a little twisted to begin with.

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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by __Paul__ · 2014-12-05 00:25 · Score: 1

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.

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worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Xest · 2014-12-05 00:34 · Score: 2

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 big market anyway.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 01:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

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:Removed after Initial sales spike by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 01:31 · Score: 1

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.

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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 01:34 · Score: 1

A petition to halt sales of the bible for the same reasons is now making the rounds.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by gl4ss · 2014-12-05 01:38 · Score: 2

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 games from now on? skyrim too, since you can murder women in it?
the problem really is that the people making decisions to ban games don't play them. and the people complaining about the violence don't play them either. like a certain femi troll who picks pieces from games and mispresents them totally - even mispresenting the moral choices given to the player! like, a game has a choice to do bad or good and then saying that it rewards and forces the bad behavior. ...saddest thing is that those fucks aren't even trying to censor the games for the sake of children, they're just making careers out of bitching about them. maybe it's just because unemployment is such a problem.
if anything it's less controversial than gta1. gta1 rewarded driving over monks.

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Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by CanHasDIY · 2014-12-05 01:47 · Score: 1

GOURANGA!!!

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An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by BarbaraHudson · 2014-12-05 01:56 · Score: 1

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 to and shouldn't be spreading gossip.
Of course, nothing changed ... she just went around collecting more signatures ... and I was suddenly "in favor" of a movie I hadn't even seen!

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"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by 0123456 · 2014-12-05 02:13 · Score: 1

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.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by mrchaotica · 2014-12-05 02:35 · Score: 2

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).

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Ol+Olsoc · 2014-12-05 03:05 · Score: 1, Interesting

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.

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The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 03:10 · Score: 1

I wonder if a game with violence against MEN would get banned too?????
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by hawkinspeter · 2014-12-05 03:20 · Score: 1

Do you mean like the Call of Duty series?

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by stonecypher · 2014-12-05 04:05 · Score: 1

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.

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StoneCypher is Full of BS
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by neoritter · 2014-12-05 05:09 · Score: 1

Just to be clear, these are two different companies.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by neoritter · 2014-12-05 05:14 · Score: 1

Or GTA for that matter...
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by ilparatzo · 2014-12-05 06:13 · Score: 1

Our society has deemed it okay to shoot and kill endless waves of Nazi Soldiers. They aren't considered much different from zombies I would imagine.

The Modern series certainly has to tread a little more lightly on how it depicts the enemy I imagine. And I seem to recall some game that came out more recently with enemy "Russians" that carried some controversy.
Re: Removed after Initial sales spike by jsh1972 · 2014-12-05 06:46 · Score: 1

The controversy surrounding the game with the Russians comes from a mission in which you play a sleeper agent in a Russian terrorist cell, and participate with them in a mass killing scenario at a shopping mall. It's more about the player's active role in the killing of innocent citizens than the fact that it's Russians that you're with.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by sudon't · 2014-12-05 06:49 · Score: 1

Well, it's being released on new platforms this month - PC and PS4 - so it's likely related to that.

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-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by almitydave · 2014-12-05 06:52 · Score: 1

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 can see how that somewhat misrepresents reality...
Indeed - prostitutes are a communist plot to contaminate the purity of our essence by depriving us of our precious bodily fluids. Like fluoridating the water.

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I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by nmr_andrew · 2014-12-05 06:57 · Score: 1

No, those WERE two different companies, they merged quite a while back now.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by neoritter · 2014-12-05 07:28 · Score: 1

K-Mart in Australia and K-Mart in the US are two different companies.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by nmr_andrew · 2014-12-05 07:33 · Score: 1

OK, I'll take your word for it as I have zero knowledge of K-Mart Australia. I had (apparently wrongly) read your reply to the AC parent to mean K-Mart US and Sears were two different companies.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Noah+Haders · 2014-12-05 08:12 · Score: 1

actually, GTA V was just re-released for xbone and ps4, so it's front and center the marquee product at electronics stores and video game aisles. its a big deal for these two stores to take down the product, especially if the boycott spreads.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Noah+Haders · 2014-12-05 08:14 · Score: 1

how many of the petitioners shop at those stores? how many live in australia? how many are real people?
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by TapeCutter · 2014-12-05 08:16 · Score: 1

"Gamer" demographic: Average age 35, 47% female.

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And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Mashiki · 2014-12-05 08:41 · Score: 1

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

I didn't know Adolf Hitler had such a vested interest in this, especially the number of times he signed it.

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Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by neoritter · 2014-12-05 09:02 · Score: 1

I'm just taking the word of TFA. The Arstechnica article on this says that they're different.
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by johnsnails · 2014-12-05 12:34 · Score: 1

Whilst you probably haven't read it, you might like to sign this petition... http://www.news.com.au/technol...

https://www.change.org/p/targe...
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Pseudonym · 2014-12-05 19:24 · Score: 1

Andrea Dworkin is the new Frances Fox Piven.

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Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by Pseudonym · 2014-12-05 19:33 · Score: 1

Exactly this.
There is a good argument for a store like Target not to stock a game like GTA 5 or, indeed, any media rated R. I'll bet you money that Target doesn't carry any Catherine Briellat movies, and their Lars von Trier section is pretty small too. Something else that pretty much everyone on this thread missed was that this was partly in response to an advertising flyer which had GTA5 right next to a Peppa Pig DVD.
That Target decided not to sell GTA5 hurts almost exactly nobody. Game stores will still stock it. It will still be on all the download stores. JB Hi-Fi and EB Games will still sell it, and make it available via game stores. Hell, DVD stores (of which there still are plenty in Australia) will still stock it. Most people in the target audience for GTA 5 will continue playing the copy they got at some point in the last year.
The number of people who were hurt in any way by this decision was almost exactly zero. This is a big whoop over nothing.
But here's what makes me sad about the whole thing:
Target is within its rights not to sell GTA5, but it's hard not to see it as cynical and hypocritical.
Take Two is within its rights to make and sell GTA5, but it's hard not to see it as a symptom of a wider problem with the portrayal of women in media, and video games in particular.
The people who made and signed the petition are within their rights to do so, and certainly had noble motives for doing so, but it's hard not to see it as a symptom of the wider moral panic over video games as being somehow "different" from other artforms.
The gamers who lashed back at the petition (even the non-gators) are within their rights to do so, and even had good reason to do so, but it's hard not to see this as yet more pseudo-victim mentality.
In summary, there is no such thing as "the good guys".

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Re: Removed after Initial sales spike by LordLucless · 2014-12-05 21:53 · Score: 1

Average GTA player demographic?

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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Re:Removed after Initial sales spike by shutdown+-p+now · 2014-12-06 22:25 · Score: 1

GTA is so much more than a parody of "crime culture". It's a parody on culture in general. If you have ever listened to the entire track for WCTR or WKTT, you know what I mean. And remember the commercials?

Meanwhile by Rik+Sweeney · 2014-12-04 22:45 · Score: 5, Funny

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...

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Re:Meanwhile by Tom · 2014-12-04 23:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re:Meanwhile by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 00:37 · Score: 1

I think it's ridiculous that a story about a stupid video game is still the first article when the Orion launched successfully over 30 minutes ago.
And yesterday, I didn't see squat about Orion and there were just shit posts.
I mean really, Slashdot is lame click bait shit.
Re:Meanwhile by hink · 2014-12-05 02:24 · Score: 1

Does the Bible actually say you will be always be rewarded (increased player health) for killing all sinners (NPC prostitutes)?

I suppose it might be somewhere in the Old Testament, but half of the Old Testament is contradicted in the New Testament, so it's a wash. I know it's a game, but try to understand that it is a pervasive part of the game that they are actually complaining about, not "the whole criminal thing". Perhaps if killing male NPCs and prostitutes for health was another game mechanic, the complaints would be the same, but at least things would be more "balanced".

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- speaking only for myself, as always
Re:Meanwhile by 1_brown_mouse · 2014-12-05 02:27 · Score: 1

If people could be programmed, don't you think we would make them smarter?
Re:Meanwhile by blackomegax · 2014-12-05 02:51 · Score: 1

Anything on the internet focused on making a profit has gone to a click-bait business model. Slashdot is a business like any other.
Re:Meanwhile by stonecypher · 2014-12-05 04:03 · Score: 1

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.

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StoneCypher is Full of BS
Re:Meanwhile by quenda · 2014-12-05 04:38 · Score: 1

That might be funny except Target Pty Ltd does not sell the bible, or any religious fiction.
Re:Meanwhile by iMadeGhostzilla · 2014-12-05 05:16 · Score: 1

People react to people more than people react to concepts, I don't think it's that surprising. "There's been a murder" has less of an emotional weight than "Alice murdered Bob." (And note, different emotional weight than "Bob murdered Alice." The endless nuances of being human carry far more information -- infinitely more, actually -- than what is captured by a conceptual abstraction.)
Re:Meanwhile by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 05:44 · Score: 1, Insightful

The Bible certainly does not say you'll be rewarded for killing sinners. Sin is a tragedy and its consequence (death) is also a tragedy. God doesn't want anyone to die and gives every person an opportunity to be forgiven (John 3:16 - https://lumina.bible.org/bible/John+3:16)
The New Testament does not contradict the Old Testament. Most of the time when the New Testament discusses something in the Old Testament it shows that the same matter is even more important than than even the Old Testament indicated. For example, the Old Testament says "Do not murder" but the New Testament says that even hating someone is just as bad. This and other examples are given in Matthew 5 starting with verse 17 (https://lumina.bible.org/bible/Matthew+5:17). Fortunately, because we are unable to meet these standards on our own, God graciously teaches us and helps us to live toward those standards until we can do so perfectly.
The decision-making someone goes through in a game grows and reinforces neural pathways that we naturally use for decision making later. I'm not saying that everyone that plays games with violence against women is going to act out those things in real life, but they are adding experiences to their mind that make them more and more familiar with those scenarios. That familiarity will have an affect how they interpret and react to these atrocities when they happen on the news and in real life. If the game is positively reinforcing these actions then the player's mind begins creating and reinforcing neural pathways that will suggest a positive outcome when these things are done. This is potentially dangerous not only for the person playing the game, but especially for the generation after that sees these things being enjoyed virtually by the people they look up to and don't yet make a distinction between virtual and reality.
At the end of the day, though, the player choosing to virtually rape women is still making that choice. The person being raped in fantasy may not be a real person who will have to live with the soul-shattering consequences of being raped, but the damage to the player choosing those scenarios still takes place.
In a previous post on this thread it was pointed out that even worse atrocities than are depicted in GTA are in the Bible. This is true. The atrocities that happen in this world and even the judgments required for bringing justice to them are difficult for me to stomach. If God didn't send His son who willingly accepted the punishment for all of the sins humans have ever committed then there would be no hope. Anyone who wants to live the way God wants them to can because Jesus has covered the punishment for our mistakes.. if he hadn't, then we would have no hope. We just have to accept that Jesus died in our place and submit ourselves to God's way.. a learning process that God wants to help us with.
Re:Meanwhile by ilparatzo · 2014-12-05 06:21 · Score: 1

It seems to me that the vast majority of people that are killed in GTA games (and I assume GTA V as well, though I haven't played) and for which you are rewarded are males. You kill some guy driving a car for some money and their car. And from what I've read, it's certainly more direct for the health game from the prostitutes being killed isn't from killing them which isn't necessary, but possible. The benefit is derived a different way.

Maybe what really bothers people is that it's a problem in the real world that is difficult to fight and bring an end to. The energy spent trying to get GTA V off the shelves of Target (which will do next to nothing to actually stop people from playing it who want to) would be better spent on actually saving people from the sex trade and domestic violence. Things committed by plenty of people who couldn't care less about GTA V.
Re:Meanwhile by BobSutan · 2014-12-05 06:54 · Score: 1

On a related note, notice the complete lack of caring by gender ideologues about the men who are killed in games or how men are depicted with unrealistic physiques. Only when women are the ones on the receiving end of violence does anyone perk up and take notice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

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"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Re: Meanwhile by jsh1972 · 2014-12-05 06:54 · Score: 1

Not to mention it is now serving me pop up ads and those stupid double underlined fake links on arbitrary words like "travel" and "door". If Soylent News could just get a few more people commenting I'd never come back.
Re:Meanwhile by Gryle · 2014-12-05 08:27 · Score: 1

Considering The Great Flood wiped out all but one human family from the world I'd say that's a pretty horrifying event. Further, as a practicing Christian, I'll say you have a really incomplete understanding of the Bible. There's assassinations (Judges 3:12-30), murder to cover up an illegitimate pregnancy (2 Samuel 11), incestuous rape (2 Samuel 13), and daughters seducing their father (Genesis 19:36). Granted most of these are portrayed in a bad light (guys like Ehud being an exception) but unless Saturn was inhabited when Sephiroth destroys it (I haven't played that game so I don't know) I'd say the Bible's body-count is pretty high compared to a lot of video games out there.

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Re:Meanwhile by oldmac31310 · 2014-12-05 10:32 · Score: 1

Pity it is so poorly written.

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http://www.acetonestudio.com
Re: Meanwhile by oldmac31310 · 2014-12-05 10:35 · Score: 1

But Soylent News is really no better. Sorry, but bad as /. is, it is still overall somewhat better than SN.

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http://www.acetonestudio.com
Re:Meanwhile by oldmac31310 · 2014-12-05 10:37 · Score: 1

It is a mouthwash derived from the bodily fluids of the humble goat. Everyone knows that!

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http://www.acetonestudio.com
Re:Meanwhile by quenda · 2014-12-05 12:05 · Score: 1

Wrong company, wrong continent. Why are ACs so dumb?
Re:Meanwhile by Pentium100 · 2014-12-05 16:07 · Score: 1

In that game, the player also chooses to run people over with his car (either specifically or because driving on the sidewalk is faster), kill them with various weapons etc. That does not make the gamers into murderers.
So, why can I kill a man in a game (and that is OK), but not a woman? The scene where the player has to torture a guy to get information, would that be different if a woman was tortured? Yes? Then where is the equality.
Then again, I am still waiting for various countries that have conscription army to stop excluding women from that.
Re:Meanwhile by Pseudonym · 2014-12-05 19:37 · Score: 1

Actually, there is no "eternal torture in the fires of hell" for humans in the Bible. A lot of people don't know this.

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Re: Meanwhile by Tom · 2014-12-06 01:53 · Score: 1

True, they're out in the open, preaching, not hiding in basements.

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re:Meanwhile by Tom · 2014-12-06 02:02 · Score: 1

The worst thing I can think of in The Bible is the Great Flood.
In a book filled to the brim with instructions to kill people, from individuals to whole tribes, including god-commands to kill all the men, rape the women and enslave the children, a natural catastrophy is the worst you can think of?
Did you miss I was talking about ethics and not death count? Three people dying in a landslide is a tragedy, but one of them slaughtering the other brutally and eating his heart is certain ethically quite worse even though fewer people die.

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re:Meanwhile by Tom · 2014-12-06 02:10 · Score: 1

The Great Flood wiped out all but one human family from the world
That's not the ethically questionable part. You could argue that they brought it upon themselves by not worshipping the right god in the right way or something. It's a weak argument, but it can be made.
But it also wiped out all the animals in existence (except 2 of each species), creatures who by the alleged gods own design were not responsible. That's a lot of collateral damage that barely gets a mentioning, but from an ethical perspective I think we pretty much agree that punishment on innocents is a big no-no and capital punishment doubly so.

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org

Grammar Nazi to the rescue by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-04 22:48 · Score: 5, Informative

Right of passage? Rite of passage!

Re:Grammar Nazi to the rescue by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-04 23:01 · Score: 5, Funny

they should of checked there dictionary.
Re:Grammar Nazi to the rescue by duckintheface · 2014-12-04 23:24 · Score: 1

Thank you! My own personal Grammar Nazi was screaming in my head. You have given vent to the frustrations of... well, I don't know.... several of us.

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"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Re:Grammar Nazi to the rescue by RavenLrD20k · 2014-12-05 01:57 · Score: 1

Especially when it's said with the contraction: should've.
Re:Grammar Nazi to the rescue by Triklyn · 2014-12-05 02:13 · Score: 1

shoulda too
give it another 50 years. "should of" will probably become acceptable usage.
Re:Grammar Nazi to the rescue by thegarbz · 2014-12-05 02:19 · Score: 2

Couldn't find one. Went to Target to buy one but apparently it was removed from the shelves due to containing bad language.
Re: Grammar Nazi to the rescue by mrchaotica · 2014-12-05 02:41 · Score: 2

Grammar Nazis are like the dog from "Up": as soon as they see an error they forget to finish reading the com-- SQUIRREL!

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Grammar Nazi to the rescue by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 02:54 · Score: 1

I love all the people bashing him for should HAVE ... and then leaving the "there" alone :)
Re: Grammar Nazi to the rescue by NotDrWho · 2014-12-05 03:25 · Score: 2

A grammar Nazi could read "War and Peace" and come away from it only with a list of misspellings and grammatical mistakes.

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.

Huh by koan · 2014-12-04 22:48 · Score: 2

But still for sale in US stores?

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"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

Re:Huh by dcw3 · 2014-12-05 00:04 · Score: 2

Shhhhh!!! We like our violence against women. Ask anyone in the NFL.

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Just another day in Paradise
Re:Huh by OzPeter · 2014-12-05 00:29 · Score: 1

But still for sale in US stores?
Because Target Oz and US are different companies.

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I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Re:Huh by NotDrWho · 2014-12-05 03:29 · Score: 1

You do realize that in GTA V (as in real life) there is the option of going through the whole thing *not* beating up any hookers, right?

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SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Re:Huh by dcw3 · 2014-12-05 05:52 · Score: 1

Sorry, I didn't include my /sarcasm flag.

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Just another day in Paradise
Re:Huh by Cederic · 2014-12-05 07:14 · Score: 1

Are you stupid or trolling? I can't tell.
The rewards for violence against female prostitutes in the game are: You get the cash they're carrying.
The rewards for violence against EVERY FUCKING NPC in the game are: You get the cash they're carrying. Sometimes items too.
Can you please post a rant about how the game is misandrist by rewarding players for walking up to a car stopped at lights, opening the door and killing the male driver? I mean, you get his money AND his car; that's far more reward than you get from the female prostitutes.
You fuckwit.

Why only women? by TheDarkMaster · 2014-12-04 22:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

Why only violence against women is unacceptable, when any type of violence should be unacceptable?

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Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time

Re:Why only women? by rikkards · 2014-12-04 22:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

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:Why only women? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-04 23:11 · Score: 1

Women commit more domestic violence against children than men do.
Re:Why only women? by 91degrees · 2014-12-04 23:32 · Score: 1

Male agression against women is slightly higher, but we're only looking at a 40/60 split. That is, of course, reported, but then the statistics don't seem to be that different for injuries caused (I did see a figure very close to 50% here but I think that might actually be misreading of the statistics).

The main problem here is lack of awareness. The police seem very reluctant to prosecute women, and men are reluctant to apear weak.
Re:Why only women? by MRe_nl · 2014-12-04 23:35 · Score: 2, Informative

http://domesticviolencestatist...

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"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Re:Why only women? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 00:34 · Score: 5, Informative

Please link to the actual study. Your link is to a blog, which links to an opinion site dedicated to battered men which cites the original study.
Here is the original study for anyone interested in the method and actual conclusions: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf
Here is the actual statistic from the article summary, which has a lot of other statistics.

About 1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men (13.8%) have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner (e.g., hit with a fist or something hard, beaten, slammed against something) at some point in their lifetime
Re:Why only women? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 00:40 · Score: 1

How do totally made up numbers get modded +5 here?
Really, "There are estimates". There are actually studies. Check out the one that all the "battered men" sites quote: http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf if you want the REAL numbers for violence against partners which are not close 50/50.
The article says 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men. And that is the number that have ever experienced physical violence by an intimate partner ever, even once, in their lifetimes, even if you immediately left the partner or hit back. (E.g. you qualify if your girl hit you with her fist and you then bashed her face in... or even if she hit you with the stick while you were bashing her face in.)
What is amazing is that the numbers are NOT 50/50.
Re:Why only women? by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 00:41 · Score: 1

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

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Why only women? by MRe_nl · 2014-12-05 00:54 · Score: 1

Thanks, didn't read the blog, just linked to the first copy of the study I found.

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"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Re:Why only women? by 91degrees · 2014-12-05 01:00 · Score: 2

Should possibly take that with a pinch of salt.
Re:Why only women? by trout007 · 2014-12-05 01:12 · Score: 1

Especially since those evil men were most likely raised by single women and educated in schools made up almost entirely of women.

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I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Re:Why only women? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 01:25 · Score: 1

There are estimates that it is pretty much 50/50 for both genders but men don't report it.
Men report it reasonably often, then they got laughed at by the police officer.
It is always assumed that the man should be able to easily defend himself, being stronger. What isn't taken into consideration is that if he does it in a way that bruises the woman he is the one that will be taken into custody for domestic abuse.
Re:Why only women? by dywolf · 2014-12-05 01:36 · Score: 1

the article assumes that a study should automatically match the FBI's crime statistics.
problem is even the FBI admits their statistics are woefully inadequate.
remember, we do not have a national database or mechanism for tracking any crime statistics.
not homicides, murders, police harming civilians, nor rapes.
FBI statistics are based off voluntary reports from a small minority (fewer than 1,000) of the law enforcement and police departments (>30,000) across the nation.
And due to the nature of the crime, rape is only ever reported, IF it's even reported, by the victim.
ie, there are rarely ever any eyewitnesses to report it and initiate an investigation comapred to robbery or homicide.

--
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Re:Why only women? by TheDarkMaster · 2014-12-05 01:49 · Score: 1

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?

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Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Re:Why only women? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 01:49 · Score: 1, Insightful

Physical violence is generally a consequence of psychological violence. Based on my experience, woman use psychological violence a lot more than men to get what they want.
But that's the kind of thing we're not allowed to say in our modern society. We should only criticize men, never women. The same way that violence against women is not tolerable, but there's nothing wrong with violence against men.
Re:Why only women? by Shadow+of+Eternity · 2014-12-05 02:25 · Score: 4, Interesting

Actually it's 70% of non-reciprocal violence committed by women, and 50/50 of reciprocal violence. Furthermore that study is heavily affected by methodological problems such as their gender restricted definition of rape (male victims are classified as "other").

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A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Re:Why only women? by anagama · 2014-12-05 03:20 · Score: 4, Informative

The police seem very reluctant to prosecute women, and men are reluctant to apear weak.
I can speak to the second part. I've been punched in the face exactly one time in my life -- saw stars even -- by my then girlfriend. At a different point in our relationship, she choked me and by the time I realized she was serious, I was getting dizzy and my ability to stop it was compromised. Lucky for me she quit on her own. That was well over 20 years ago -- back then I said nothing. Even today, despite the passage of time and the consequent ability to chalk up my reticence about the incident to the ignorance of youth, I feel embarrassed by it -- so much so that it is a struggle to not post this as AC.

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What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Re:Why only women? by pla · 2014-12-05 04:46 · Score: 1

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 food chain. Socially, our brains remain wired in the "if I can't eat it or screw it, kill it"; yeah, you've probably heard something like that as the punchline of a number of jokes, but it very literally holds true for us as a species.

In order to "solve" the problem of domestic violence, we need to focus on teaching people to think beyond the monkey-brain for conflict resolution. Personally, I'd say that as the single best thing we could do, we need to stop pretending to believe in monogamy. We live far too long, and have far too many roving eyes, to make that a viable social default - Nor do we need it anymore, it made a great way to help increase the number of offspring surviving to adulthood 20k years ago, today it just means the kids get to see mom and dad arguing about petty shit when they fall out of love but still feel "bound" to do everything possible to keep the household intact.
Re:Why only women? by phorm · 2014-12-05 05:41 · Score: 1

The problem with many of the numbers is that it's based on reports and extrapolation, and men are much less likely to report domestic violence.
Also, that just includes violence, not the person stuck in an abusive relationship because the spouse threatens to ruin him/her (take the kids, false charges, no money, etc).
There was a recent case of a Canadian woman who was killed by her spouse. She went back because she couldn't afford the lawyer to fight for custody, nor rent to live on her own. Many men are in a similar boat: facing loss of custody and/or crippling support payments.
Re:Why only women? by neoritter · 2014-12-05 05:58 · Score: 1

The FBI statistics should never be taken as a standard for other studies. Merely a guide post. The reporting is completely voluntary.
Re:Why only women? by neoritter · 2014-12-05 06:01 · Score: 1

I think there's a statistic out there that women are more likely to use a deadly weapon, e.g. knife in the violence. But the reports I've seen also suggest that man against woman typically results in worse injuries than woman against man. Thought he severity of the damage should not be a huge factor in allowing the actions to occur.
Re:Why only women? by BobSutan · 2014-12-05 06:58 · Score: 1

Look up in-group or same-group preference. Women have it, men do not. Furthermore, men prefer women over their own gender in those studies more often than not. It's a bit of a paradox, but the theory is that men who kowtowed to women were sexually successful and that's why the preference exists. It kinda makes sense if you accept evolutionary psychology. Also, watch these for more in how this manifests in society:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
And then there's the Amazing Atheist's "It's only sexist when men do it" video, which I can't find the link for at the moment.

--
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Re:Why only women? by BobSutan · 2014-12-05 07:01 · Score: 1

Ahem:
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert...
"SUMMARY: This bibliography examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 371,600. "

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"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Re:Why only women? by BobSutan · 2014-12-05 07:03 · Score: 1

Food for thought, when you compare women who are raped and men who are "made to penetrate", the numbers are nearly identical. Made to penetrate is a special term feminists came up with who guided the FBI's crime report statistics so to mask male victims of rape. Some people dismiss this as tinfoil hat bullshit, but it literally is what happened. Mary Koss was the one behind it.

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"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Re:Why only women? by Cederic · 2014-12-05 07:35 · Score: 1

The most reliable stats I've seen suggest the 40/60 split for non-reciprocal violence - but also suggest that a lot of the violence is reciprocal.
The main problem isn't a lack of awareness, it's a lack of equality. I got assaulted by a woman last night and people watching laughed. If I'd hit her back I'd have spent the day in a police cell and/or talking to HR (it was a work event).
(I actually got assaulted twice, both times by women. The other one could be construed as physical comedy - although again, not had it been me hitting her)
Re:Why only women? by 91degrees · 2014-12-05 09:08 · Score: 1

Honestly, there are a lot of questionable statistics. But it seems that the numbers are close enough together that gender really shouldn't enter into it. Some people are victims of violence, usually from people they have strong enough feelings for to be completely irrational over the matter, and we should actually address this as a serious concern.
Re:Why only women? by Mashiki · 2014-12-05 09:22 · Score: 1

Women commit more domestic violence against children than men do.
That's unpossible! In the case of same sex, domestic violence in lesbian relationships(depending on the study) hits as high as 74% it's in the 50% range for gay men.

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Om, nomnomnom...
Re:Why only women? by uninformedLuddite · 2014-12-06 12:09 · Score: 1

The police seem very reluctant to prosecute women, and men are reluctant to apear weak.
My friends wife is insane. I mean that word as she has escaped from asylums on several occasions. He has made multiple calls for police assistance(they are separated) as she is extremely dangerous and they have not once attended at his request. In a court case she also got custody even though she has made threats against her daughter on several occasions.

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The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Re:Why only women? by rikkards · 2014-12-12 09:26 · Score: 1

This was my whole point, the problem is that a lot of the organizations that are pushing the domestic abuse awareness have also been linked to having an anti-male agenda.

Innaccurate by guises · 2014-12-04 22:52 · Score: 4, Informative

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 by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-04 23:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

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....
Re:Innaccurate by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 00:29 · Score: 1

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. They obviously went to some effort to program all this in, to motion capture the animations, record the voices and sound effects etc. It's not just a side effect of having an open game world of general gameplay mechanics, it's something they designed to be that way and spend time and money to implement.
Movies make an effort to censor themselves. War films don't show the real horrors of war because it would give the audience PTSD. I think in this instance it's not unreasonable to ask if Rockstar would be putting content like that into the game. They could, for example, make the prostitute disappear after the act off-camera so she can't be murdered, or just make it more like the old GTA games where you don't get to see the actual sex.
It's the old "vending machine" problem. Why create female characters who are just objects, with the same basic game logic as vending machines but with some sexual gratification thrown in? Does it make the game better or is it just cheap objectification for the male gamer's pleasure?

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Innaccurate by Xest · 2014-12-05 00:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

"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 by hawkinspeter · 2014-12-05 00:53 · Score: 1

When you write $100.000 do you mean $100 or $100,000? I can't figure out why you've got three zeroes after the decimal point unless you're using it instead of a comma.

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You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Re:Innaccurate by guises · 2014-12-05 01:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re: Innaccurate by Megol · 2014-12-05 01:28 · Score: 1

Logically $100000. Decimal commas are used in a lot of places.
Re:Innaccurate by Xest · 2014-12-05 01:41 · Score: 1

Fallout 3 was based on the US too but that doesn't mean nuclear war has actually happened and that people are living or have lived post apocalyptic lives across America.
"The whole thing is a comment on American society"
Yes, that's why I said:
"some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world"
Re: Innaccurate by RavenLrD20k · 2014-12-05 02:10 · Score: 1

Some other countries use points like we in the US use commas, and vice versa. For instance in France 100.534,67 is our 100,534.67 read One hundred thousand, five hundred thirtyfour and sixty seven (or Cent mille cinq cent trente-quatre et soixante-sept in French).
Re:Innaccurate by Shadow+of+Eternity · 2014-12-05 02:27 · Score: 1

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.

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A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Re:Innaccurate by RavenLrD20k · 2014-12-05 02:36 · Score: 1

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, 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 message out there...and who actually make use of the waves of censorship as propellant for free advertising for their product. These are the games that I'm willing to support, because they so willingly take the ugliest parts of human nature and throw it up as a mirror for the world to see itself... and the denialists are the ones to protest loudest.
Re:Innaccurate by mrchaotica · 2014-12-05 02:51 · Score: 1

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).

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Innaccurate by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 02:57 · Score: 1

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.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re: Innaccurate by O('_')O_Bush · 2014-12-05 03:07 · Score: 1

JFYI, much of the world uses '.' As the thousands separator.

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while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Re: Innaccurate by petermgreen · 2014-12-05 04:35 · Score: 1

Which would be fine if they stuck to doing it in their own languages, unfortunately they cause ambiguity and confusion by writing english text but failling to follow english numeric conventions.
Not sure I would agree with "much of the world" either, from what I can tell it seems to be a mainland european thing.

--
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Re:Innaccurate by neoritter · 2014-12-05 06:44 · Score: 1

The link you gave is actually Anita's crappy review of the game.
Re:Innaccurate by neoritter · 2014-12-05 06:58 · Score: 1

Is there a difference between killing a prostitute and some other npc?
Re: Innaccurate by KozmoStevnNaut · 2014-12-08 22:02 · Score: 1

People get bent totally out of line about the alleged violence against women, which literally only exists in the game because you can be violent against anyone, the game itself doesn't discriminate at all. At one point you can save a woman from baby boomer cultist cannibals as one character, while as another character you can kidnap people and deliver them to said cannibals. But never any single women, it's always either a couple or a man. Rockstar knew what lines couldn't be crossed, and they stayed within them.
On the other hand, there is a horribly graphic torture scene including teeth-pulling, electric shock and threats of being burned alive. But apparently that wasn't enough to get the game banned, completely untrue allegations had to be made up instead.

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Eat the rich.

So if it were violence against white men by ruir · 2014-12-04 23:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

It would not be a problem, would it?

Re:So if it were violence against white men by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 00:33 · Score: 1

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.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:So if it were violence against white men by Xest · 2014-12-05 00:56 · Score: 1

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:So if it were violence against white men by trout007 · 2014-12-05 01:11 · Score: 1

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

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I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Re:So if it were violence against white men by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 01:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

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 ban all games depicting violence against anyone, Jack Thompson style :)
Re:So if it were violence against white men by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 02:55 · Score: 1

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.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:So if it were violence against white men by psybre · 2014-12-05 03:01 · Score: 1

>>It would not be a problem, would it?

Generally, no.

If it was *sexual* violence against white *men* (as the people who signed the petition believed: "incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points") then I challenge that it would indeed be a problem.

A lot of male gamers would likely be turned off playing a game where a character that looks like them is the subject of sexual violence.

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Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
Re:So if it were violence against white men by DogDude · 2014-12-05 05:52 · Score: 1

You have no sense of historical context, do you?

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I don't respond to AC's.
Re:So if it were violence against white men by Xest · 2014-12-05 07:32 · Score: 1

But even that's not true, there are tons of male civilian NPCs of all race, colour, age, and size walking around.
"Is there a way to go around indiscriminately kill characters in GTA V without being misogynist?"
Yes absolutely. Just go around shooting all the men instead.
This is really the problem with his, and Anita Sarkesian's depiction of GTA and other games - they claim they're misogynist games, because you can kill women, but there's no reason you have to kill women anymore than men and you'll be forced to kill far more men throughout the game. One women even calls a hit squad after you to have you killed as a male protagonist.
So much of their argument about misogyny through killing women is actually wholly a choice they make about how they choose to play the game rather than an inherent thing you have or need to do within the game. Effectively by GTA opting to put an equal mix of male/female NPCs roaming the street it seems they've opened themselves to misogyny claims, but if there were no women in GTA so you couldn't kill male and female NPCs equally then wouldn't they then call the game misogynistic for not having any women? It ultimately seems like a lose-lose situation because the feminists are going to find an excuse to attack it whatever they do.
Re:So if it were violence against white men by ruir · 2014-12-05 19:49 · Score: 1

I say fuck the historical context and the political correctness bullshit. Due to this nonsense, we are pussified to accept that whatever minority has to have equal rights, even when they are a 10-15% minority, and as a minority, it is perfectly normal that in a few privileged settings, there are 10 to 1, well because it is pure math you know. And then, all this nonsense even for my own sex. Yo have no balls, do you?
Re:So if it were violence against white men by manwargi · 2014-12-07 17:42 · Score: 1

It ultimately seems like a lose-lose situation because the feminists are going to find an excuse to attack it whatever they do.
Hear hear. I noticed this a very long time ago. There are no winning moves and they like it that way. If there are no females they'll complain about the absence of females. If there are females and they're attractive, they're being objectified. If there are females and they're not playable or combatants, an awful video rant is made complaining that they're objects and property or something. Are there even official, coherent demands by the people who spend all their time griping about issues like this? Do they have an achievable goal post that isn't discriminatory and makes sense?
Even many years back GTA3 was given a hard time for it being possible to kill hookers after you got your health restored by them, and it was the same situation even then. If the player wanted to kill all the black guys on the street or all the women or all the males or whatever, that is their prerogative and a natural condition of having a diverse world and equal playing field-- it is every bit as possible that an NPC can kill you or you can kill them.
Re:So if it were violence against white men by Xest · 2014-12-07 20:49 · Score: 1

It's not just video games either for what it's worth, I've seen it in the great Lego debate recently.
Lego has increased the ratio of male/female characters in sets (for IP it controls) so that you now have a fairly fair split of male/female builders, firefighters, police, and even criminals. I've seen a number of feminists criticise this for not being appealing enough to girls and for fire engines still being boys sets.
Yet Lego also do a line of girl only sets with just female characters, where everything is pink and so forth, there's even a Disney princesses line and guess what? They criticise this for forcing girls to conform to gender biases and so forth.
So even toy companies like Lego just cannot win no matter what they do.

Selective media censoring by MindPrison · 2014-12-04 23:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

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!

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What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.

Re:Selective media censoring by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 00:38 · Score: 1

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.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Selective media censoring by Xest · 2014-12-05 01:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

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:Selective media censoring by AmiMoJo · 2014-12-05 02:53 · Score: 1

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?

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Selective media censoring by Xest · 2014-12-05 03:20 · Score: 2

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 they might be punching a little bit harder because they've played GTA?
Get a grip and stop talking nonsense. You've turned into a Jack Thompson like nutjob on this issue, there's nothing more to it than that. Video games don't cause violence, we've got an entire generation brought up in an era of violent video games now and guess what? they're the least criminal generation of young folks possibly ever:
http://www.independent.co.uk/v...
So if video games are turning people into prostitute murderers as you're suggesting where is the evidence of this? where is this actually happening? Why has an entire generation brought up on ever more violent video games become more placid than ever?
Your narrative on video games, violence, and women bears no semblance to reality. You seem to have got yourself so tangled up in that childish gamergate thing which is from what I can tell fundamentally just a battle between two different groups of Twitter attention whores and has fuck all to do with the many other millions of people who actually play video games in practice and are actually normal decent human beings that you've lost all sense of perspective on this issue.
Re:Selective media censoring by sudon't · 2014-12-05 07:34 · Score: 1

It's testosterone, really. More testosterone = more aggression. The males of many species have evolved to be aggressive and territorial, and testosterone is the driver. A lot of women hate this idea for some reason, but it's simply true.

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-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Re:Selective media censoring by goose-incarnated · 2014-12-05 09:23 · Score: 1

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.
And yet, here we are, living in the least violent period in human history. Your logic doesn't quite make sense.

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I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.

Australia again by jones_supa · 2014-12-04 23:35 · Score: 1

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?

Re:Australia again by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-04 23:56 · Score: 1

There's a pretty big 60/40 split between 'family first' / 'think of the children' / religious zealot types (in aussie terms, they're crazy right wing - but in US terms they're probably center left), and the rest of us who are a bit more level headed (left wing in aussie terms, beyond the most extreme scales of left wing in the US).
Sadly the (slight) majority are just a little insane, your typical brainwashed types who believe what their (often religious, to one degree or another) community and big media tell them. And thus quite often you get retarded shit like this happening (or worse things, like our current prime minister...)
The rest of us know better, but are a bit too lax to care unless it's a serious issue and we put our foot down.
This, isn't one of those serious issues, it's not even news worthy - one retailer, who probably sells not even 10% of games in AU (EB games (game stop) and JB HiFi would be the top two here, neither of which would dare take GTA off the shelves - in fact both had big posters/signs infront of their stores on both launch days and pre-orders in the tens of thousands).
Let the religo's have their petty win, maybe they'll shutup for a month or two.

Fantasy vs. Reality by dcw3 · 2014-12-05 00:02 · Score: 1

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.

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Just another day in Paradise

Re:Fantasy vs. Reality by Yosho · 2014-12-05 02:15 · Score: 1

I guess we should ban all rough sex
Good news, the UK is way ahead of you there! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/sex-acts-banned-porn_n_6254330.html

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Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)

Re:Reality Check by squiggleslash · 2014-12-05 00:05 · Score: 1

I think they meant Target's customers, not GTA's customers.

(Nonetheless the decision is disappointing anyway)

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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.

Re:Has there ever by 91degrees · 2014-12-05 00:27 · Score: 1

GTA 1 & 2 didn't. Well, I guess some of the blobs might have been female but it was pretty indescriminate mindless violence.

I guess they missed the rape scene in... by Assmasher · 2014-12-05 00:53 · Score: 1

...The Road Warrior then.

I bet people can still buy that movie down under.

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Re:I guess they missed the rape scene in... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 01:53 · Score: 1

It's pure hypocrisy. The Fifty Shades novels are rife with extreme sex, violence and abuse, but women absolutely lap it up. It's probably the GTA of books for the female gender. Not a peep about it, though. Yet you'll find these books at child eye level all over Target and every other "family" store.

So what about the men?! by zmooc · 2014-12-05 01:10 · Score: 1

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. Sexist assholes.

By the way, I've never managed to really sexually assault a woman in the game. Is that even possible?

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0x or or snor perron?!

Re:Reality Check by nedlohs · 2014-12-05 01:54 · Score: 1

Holy shit, Rockstar Games must be rolling in cash if every single K-mart customer has bought a copy of GTA V.

Re:Why no GAY manwhores in GTA? by BitZtream · 2014-12-05 01:57 · Score: 1

GTA IV - The Ballad of Gay Tony

He was pretty much a manwhore and they based a whole DLC arc on his empire

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Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager

Good thing they still permit it in real life by gelfling · 2014-12-05 02:02 · Score: 1

Especially in Muslim communities. Because working to end that would be intolerant and also liable to cause people to rise up and kill other people too.

Re:Debian rejects game dueTo authors opinion on wo by DiamondGeezer · 2014-12-05 02:13 · Score: 1

I'd like to know the answer to this as well.

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Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question

Re:Hitman: Women in by Anonymous Coward · 2014-12-05 02:29 · Score: 1

My thoughts similarly. They want to ban GTA V because of violence against women? Ok, then also ban Call of Duty for violence against men.

"Hey, women can be soldiers too!"

They can. But just as those who are banning GTA V ignore the fact that you can also be violent against men in that game, I have chosen to ignore the fact that some of the people you are shooting at in Call of Duty might be women.

Would they ban a game based on Gov surveillance? by denis-The-menace · 2014-12-05 03:03 · Score: 1

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.

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Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration

Re:Depictions of violence... by BarbaraHudson · 2014-12-05 03:20 · Score: 1

BTW Canada has access to the exact same depictions of violence as the US, and yet they are not exactly known for their violent society.....

[_] because it's so cold here that the hotheads can't stay hotheads.
[_] because we have real beer and real bacon and poutine.
[_] because we don't get our news from Faux News so we don't think that violence awaits us on every corner.
[_] because mixing religion and politics is frowned upon here.
[_] because religion is not a hot-button topic here, same as same-sex marriage, same as abortion. We respect compromise.

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"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.

Misinformed mistake by Hashead · 2014-12-05 03:40 · Score: 2

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 on their own merits. Weather or not men are more violent than women, or women are more often victims of domestic abuse is irrelevant when these differences cannot be attributed to an unfair society. If it's not society's fault, then the assumption that this being a product of "patriarchy" is no longer valid, and 98% percent of their "evidence" is no longer admissible.

Re:Huh. I guess the gamer gators were right by Hashead · 2014-12-05 03:50 · Score: 1

For the record, #gamergate was never even remotely related to feminism or censorship. Some feminists made it about feminism when they allegedly received threats from alleged members of the #gamergate movement.

Violence Against Women by flanders123 · 2014-12-05 03:52 · Score: 1

So graphic violence against men is acceptable?

Re:violence against women by tbq · 2014-12-05 09:16 · Score: 1

so violence against men is socially acceptable?
Apparently.

Odd. by stonecypher · 2014-12-05 03:58 · Score: 1

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.

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StoneCypher is Full of BS

They are wrong by mark-t · 2014-12-05 03:59 · Score: 1

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.

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File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

Selective media censoring by stonecypher · 2014-12-05 03:59 · Score: 1

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.

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StoneCypher is Full of BS

Hype by Falos · 2014-12-05 04:16 · Score: 1

The game invites players to commit homicidal violence against anything resembling an obstacle. You could argue there's sadistic violence against Stuff In Your Way, particularly in reference to the torture scene, but again this is against any opponent or human, not the (fictional) women. You could even commend the indifferent equality.

This is hype and PR, dressed up with whatever victim buzzwords are the flavor of the month. And anyone dropping Lovejoy's Law is an idiot; children can't buy the game, it got rated 18+ in AU. Call the game a Terrorist Trainer, it'll be less bullshit.

violence against women by JustNiz · 2014-12-05 04:59 · Score: 1

so violence against men is socially acceptable?

Violence against men is just fine though by TheGoodNamesWereGone · 2014-12-05 05:03 · Score: 1

This is so stupid and wrongheaded on so many levels

Re:Confusing San Andreas with V by sudon't · 2014-12-05 07:10 · Score: 2

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, perhaps that's realism rather than sexism?
*smack*
Ow, just asking...

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-- sudon't

Air-ride Equipped

Re:Depictions of violence... by Triklyn · 2014-12-05 07:10 · Score: 1

you must kill them and eat their hearts to make you stronger... noob.

Re:Depictions of violence... by Triklyn · 2014-12-05 07:17 · Score: 1

so cold all you can do is stay inside
and drink and eat
falling asleep well before you can watch news of any kind.

you'd rather mix politics and crack rocks :)

you're too far apart for their to be hot-button topics of any kind. Also, you have a homogeneous population which probably doesn't disagree on anything.

there are good and bad points to diversity.

Re:Depictions of violence... by BarbaraHudson · 2014-12-05 07:54 · Score: 1

A "homogeneous population which probably doesn't disagree on anything." Seriously?

Tell that to the english and the french.

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"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.

Not surprised by pkinetics · 2014-12-05 07:56 · Score: 1

They've banned violent video games in the past. Phantasmagoria 1 and 2 were banned.

Re:Hitman: Women in by blackomegax · 2014-12-05 08:23 · Score: 1

FWIW there are no female soldiers in CoD games.

Absolutely by drolli · 2014-12-05 08:30 · Score: 1

It's ok in the game to beat up people, shoot them, drive them over with trucks, use granades in the middle of the city and help the mafia.

But heaven help, should the game allow show that Mafia people actually beat women. Everybody knows that organized crime and human trafficking are completely independen and that truely, there are 'honourable' mafiosi which just shoot among themself, without earning money from such things.

Re:Confusing San Andreas with V by Pentium100 · 2014-12-05 09:32 · Score: 1

If you can kill both men and women in a game, that means that there is no gender equality.

Killing men is OK. Killing women is not. I guess it's similar to the race equality where killing a white guy is OK, but killing a black guy is not (unless the player character is also a black guy).

Scapehorse? by GrooveNeedle · 2014-12-05 10:14 · Score: 1

Oh gee, let's drag this dead horse of a scapegoat and beat it some more.

Carmageddon! by oldmac31310 · 2014-12-05 10:25 · Score: 1

I think Carmageddon got this right years ago. You are rewarded for running over men, women, old ladies, dogs, cattle, manager types, cops and of course wasting your opponents. An equal opportunities game I'd posit.

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http://www.acetonestudio.com

American Idle? by antdude · 2014-12-05 12:56 · Score: 1

Heh!

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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).

Re:Depictions of violence... by qwak23 · 2014-12-06 09:11 · Score: 1

While this is progressing drastically off-topic, The beer thing, if ever true, is no longer true. If we're talking Molson v. Budweiser, sure.

Unibroue is great and I love them, but there are not many other great Canadian breweries. Sure, there are parts of the states where the only beer you're likely to find is Budweiser and Coors, but there are also a growing number of places where those beers are tucked in the back corner gathering dust.

Re:Depictions of violence... by Triklyn · 2014-12-08 03:38 · Score: 1

you mean anglo saxons vs the gauls?

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

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