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News GTA 5 pulled from shelves in Australian Kmarts

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 4 Dec 2014.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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    Of course that's the reason, although Kmart only did so after a big campaign to get the game removed because of the game’s depiction of violence against women, I wonder if Kmart will also do a significant review of all the content in all the other games they stock that have violence in them and remove them as well, or is it because the violence depicted in those games is only against men and no one cares enough to complain about it so the game stays on the shelf, I could shout 'It's a case of double standards' but there are no standards until enough people complain and it will affect their sales.
     
    Last edited: 4 Dec 2014
  3. ViPPeR_666

    ViPPeR_666 What's a Dremel?

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    It's all up to them if they wanna lose money, it's not like people stop playing the game because Kmart won't sell it.
     
  4. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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    And a quick check at Kmart's online store shows GTAV is still available there so it seems the game is only removed from high street stores :rolleyes:
     
  5. SMIFFYDUDE

    SMIFFYDUDE Supermodders on my D

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    Not on kmart.com.au it isn't
     
  6. loftie

    loftie Multimodder

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    So for anyone who has played it, is there any violence toward women beyond the fact, like in any gta, that you can go around and beat anyone to a bloody mess?
     
  7. andrew8200m

    andrew8200m Multimodder

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    "The petition that led to Target's initial decision was launched by female survivors of violence and listed on change.org"

    Of course it was..

    What is wrong with a customer making its own decision to buy or not? Does Call of duty and other war games get pulled by petitions launched by "help the heroes" or silimar? Does it heck.

    Don't like it? Don't buy it. Leave the retailer to have an unbiased opinion and treat the sale as a box because ultimately until someone opens there mouth and has a moan that is all it ever is.
     
  8. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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    Kmart.com

    So only in .au do Kmart care about the depiction of violence against women in the game, obviously not a global policy of Kmart's then.
     
  9. Almightyrastus

    Almightyrastus On the jazz.

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    What about all the other games that they are selling which contain massive amounts of violence towards men?
     
  10. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Political correctness has been going way OTT in recent years, not a week goes by that some group of people take umbrage to something or someone, and feel it's their duty to impose that view on other people.
     
  11. Porkins' Wingman

    Porkins' Wingman Can't touch this

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    qft
     
  12. B1GBUD

    B1GBUD ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Accidentally Funny

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    The best option is to let everything offend you.....

     
  13. shinji2k

    shinji2k Minimodder

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    I understand the sentiment and I agree that we need better representation of women in games. But I'm not sure what this group hopes to achieve by getting one game pulled from a couple stores. Sure GTAV could have better depictions of women, maybe even the occasional female lead, but overall the game if pretty fair in how sociopathic you want to be. While it's great to critique or raise awareness or even encourage people to boycott, preventing adults from making their own decisions is just going to make more enemies and not get people to support your cause. I can't even think of a time when someone like Sarkeesian actually called for GTAV to be pulled from the shelves.
     
  14. Troglodyte

    Troglodyte What's a Dremel?

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    Anything to do with how sexist Aussie guys are ( its a possibly stereotypical view i've heard) and the amount of domestic violence in the country ? ( excepting Aussie modders!) .
     
  15. Cheapskate

    Cheapskate Insane? or just stupid?

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    GTA5 equips +100 street cred.
     
  16. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    Hmmm. Bow to women's rights group demand and get free international publicity. Make the business look like a corporate hero supporting women's safety and social justice VS the lost revenue of dropping one component of one product line that they carry, which probably has a relatively low margin and is already way past its sales peak.. It's a no brainer.

    Kmart knows it's demographic. If that demographic was made of GTA players, this would not have happened.

    Corporations make money. They don't give a **** about anyone's plight.
     
    Last edited: 5 Dec 2014
  17. Adnoctum

    Adnoctum Kill_All_Humans

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    Kmart in Australia isn't the same company as Kmart US. It is a chain owned by Australian company Wesfarmers, who also own Target stores in Australia. GTAV has also been removed from Target.

    Is this personal bigotry, or do you have any links for this? Because my link shows the horrific toll that domestic violence takes on women and children isn't significantly different in Australia than it is in other similar developed countries, such as the UK. Attitudes to violence aren't significantly different either.
    In other words, large numbers of men everywhere don't seem to be able to use their fists for gripping controllers instead on intimidating their "loved" ones. It's all very shameful. But perhaps the peaceful utopia of Belfast has insulated you from what happens in other countries?
     
    Last edited: 5 Dec 2014
  18. Adnoctum

    Adnoctum Kill_All_Humans

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    This may not be a popular opinion, but Kmart/Target did the right thing.

    There was no profit, whether in money or in public opinion, to dragging this out by being stubborn. The money made from GTAV sales couldn't even compare to money lost from easily outraged mums taking their shopping elsewhere.

    It doesn't matter if it was in reaction to an ill-informed social media campaign. 50000-odd vocal fools isn't easily ignored on social media, especially if these vocal fools are your key demographic: female parents aged 25 to 65.

    I would also like to make the point that Kmark/Target can sell or not sell whatever they like. They are not obligated to sell a product. Although this goes both ways, because we as consumers are not obligated to buy at Kmart/Target.

    It only smacks of hypocrisy because they are still selling R18+ rated DVDs, an example of this is Game of Thrones.
     
  19. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Yea because domestic violence is exclusively men abusing women isn't it.
    Ohh wait it's not is it, what with 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men being the victim of domestic abuse in their lifetime, who knows if those numbers are entirely accurate what with men being less likely to fess up to being a victim.

    But you go ahead and frame it as something that only men do to women if it serves your narrative.

    And now, we as consumers aren't able to make that decision for our selves because some self righteous busy bodies decided they wanted to force their opinion on us.

    Why not start a petition to get those banned as well, I'm sure people will love having people dictating what they can or can't do with their own lives.
     
    Last edited: 5 Dec 2014
  20. Adnoctum

    Adnoctum Kill_All_Humans

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    That is a mighty fine strawman you have constructed there, because you are arguing against a position I didn't take. My comment is that a large numbers of men, not all men or most men, are violent towards their spouses and children.
    When making such a statement, I don't have to qualify it with a counter-balancing statement because I'm not the BBC. When I say that apples are really tasty, should I also have to say that oranges are tasty too, perhaps not as much as apples, but tasty in statistically significant amounts?

    I never said that oranges weren't tasty. I think we can all agree that fruit can be very flavourful.

    Because in the opinion of Kmart/Target (whose only opinion matters in this case) the wants and desires of self-righteous busy-bodies outweigh those who wish to purchase physical retail copies of R18+ computer games, which I think you'll agree is a consumer base that is considerably smaller than self-righteous busy-bodies.

    Your opinion, my opinion, doesn't matter because Kmart/Target makes these decisions about what they stock. They don't stock alcohol, cigarettes, pornography or adult toys. So they already make buying decisions for purchasers by choosing not to stock certain items. Go elsewhere if you want to buy these items.

    Games is a declining sector of sales for Kmart, so why would they look to defend a product or justify its sale? The Wesfarmers annual report for Kmart states: "Strong sales growth performance was achieved across the apparel and home categories, partially offset by declines in video games and DVDs in the entertainment category" (p41).
    For Kmart, dump it and move on to more profitable product areas.

    It a fact of life that squeaky wheels get the oil, and self-righteous busy-bodies tend to be noisier than everyone else, especially when yelling "Think of the Children!"
    It would be more upsetting if there weren't ample retailers selling physical and digital copies of GTAV, both in Australia and internationally.

    In the interest of fairness and presenting counter-points, this group of people with "firsthand experience of this kind of sexual violence" also had a right to bring their concerns over a specific product to the attention of a retailer. 41,000 other people agreed with these concerns, and apparently so did Wesfarmers.
     

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