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

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-in-my-country dept.

MojoKid writes "There's no such thing as an official Grand Theft Auto game until there's been a bit of controversy leading to its removal from at least one set of store shelves. It's a right of passage for the GTA series, if you will, and GTA V just earned its place among the franchise's previous titles by ruffling feathers in Australia, leading to its ousting from Target stores. At issue this time around is the "game's depictions of violence against women." Jim Cooper, general manager of corporate affairs for Target, explained that customers have voiced a "significant level of concern about the game's content." Separate reports say Target Australia received a petition with nearly 40,000 signatures demanding the game be removed. According to the petition, the game gives players plenty of "incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points."

7 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Meanwhile by Rik+Sweeney · · 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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    Summation 2
  2. Grammar Nazi to the rescue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Right of passage? Rite of passage!

    1. Re:Grammar Nazi to the rescue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      they should of checked there dictionary.

  3. Why only women? by TheDarkMaster · · 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
    1. Re:Why only women? by rikkards · · 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

    2. Re:Why only women? by Anonymous Coward · · 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

  4. Re:Innaccurate by Anonymous Coward · · 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....