Restore Grand Theft Auto V to Australian store shelves
The Issue
Target and Kmart, please read this petition and reconsider your stance on sexism and explicit content in GTA V.
Last December, there was a petition lodged towards Kmart and Target Australia to get the video game Grand Theft Auto V removed from Australian store shelves. The petition got just under 50,000 signatures, prompting the companies to remove the game - this despite the fact that the petition was plainly written by people who have never played Grand Theft Auto V. The entire petition was based off of sheer misinformed conjecture.
Here's the thing, though: the removal of the game was completely wrong. Yes, I am a gamer; yes, I am male; and yes, I do play GTAV. But I'm not looking at the issue from that perspective; I'm looking at it as a neutral party.
The main concern with the petition was that GTAV was sexist and that you could do many evil things to women with no repercussions. Okay, fine, if you think something in a game is sexist, you definitely have the right to speak out about it, and in most cases I would even endorse it. I am all for equal rights for everyone. However, if you're going to accuse something of being sexist, don't fill your petition with equally sexist bias and patent falsehoods.
What am I talking about? Well, I'll go through each point raised in the petition and address them all in turn.
From the original petition: "It's a game that encourages players to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points – and now Target are stocking it and promoting it for your Xmas stocking."
No, it does not. In fact, by and large, it doesn't encourage the murder of anyone outside of hostile characters. In fact, you might say that, as far as murder of innocents is concerned, the game goes the other way with its Wanted system, whereby murdering innocents will attract police attention which increases in force the longer you continue your killing spree. There even comes a point where the game stops at nothing to take you down, even going as far as sending SWAT and FIB (FBI) teams after you to get you to stop.The game in no way distinguishes between men and women; killing a woman is just as likely to attract the cops as is killing a man. In fact, only two women die throughout the entire main plot of the game, compared to literally hundreds of men.
Furthermore, the game does not distinguish at all between the murder of men and the murder of women, and you definitely do not get health points for killing women. As for "sexual violence," it is IMPOSSIBLE to commit such acts in the game. Any and all sexual content in the game is between two consenting adults, usually after the player pays for it.
On a personal level, it disturbs me that the creator of the petition is perfectly fine with violence against men, but when it comes to violence against women, the poster freaks out. So you're implying that violence against men is A-OK, but violence against women is not? No. That's not the way the world works. Violence is NOT OK. Period.
From the original petition: "One of many fan clips on YouTube shows the woman being run down, run over, set alight and, still screaming, repeatedly shot. This misogynistic GTA 5 literally makes a game of bashing, killing and horrific violence against women. It also links sexual arousal and violence."
Guess what? You can do that with men too. I present, for your delectation, a clip that opens with multiple men being murdered in exceedingly violent ways. Brutal deaths aren't restricted to women. In fact, if the clip you linked to is misogynistic, then the clip I linked to is misandric. Running someone down, setting them on fire, and then shooting them is something you can do to literally anyone. And "links sexual arousal and violence"? How? Where did you get this? If you're aroused by violently killing someone, you need help.
From the original petition: "We have firsthand experience of this kind of sexual violence. It haunts us, and we've been trying to rebuild our lives ever since. Just knowing that women are being portrayed as deserving to be sexually used by men and potentially murdered for sport and pleasure – to see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainments is sickening and causes us great pain and harm."
While I sympathize with your cause - sexual violence is a huge problem and I can only imagine the nightmares it causes - at NO POINT does the game portray women as "deserving" to be sexually abused. As mentioned before, it is impossible to commit sexual violence against anyone in the game, and none of the three characters can even hit on any women who aren't prostitutes; instead, if you choose to greet them, your character simply speaks a generic, polite greeting. Please actually play the game before you accuse it of having something it does not have.
From the original petition: "This game spreads the idea that certain women exist as scapegoats for male violence. It shows hatred and contempt for women in the sex industry and puts them at greater risk. Women in the industry are 40 times more likely to be murdered by a man than any other group of women."
I suppose this is directed at the fact that you can engage the services of a prostitute and then murder her to get your money back. Once again, nowhere in the game does it show any sign of contempt for sex workers. Yes, you can kill prostitutes and get your money back "after the fact," but nowhere does the game encourage this and, when it does happen, it is treated the same as any murder committed by the player: if it's seen by a bystander, the cops come and try to stop the player.
Again, I defy you to back up your claims with something more substantial than sheer conjecture. I speak from hundreds of hours of experience with the game, having played both online and offline in roughly equal measure (online more than offline). Nowhere in either of these modes can I find anything that "spreads the idea that women are scapegoats for male violence," nor any part that "shows hatred and contempt for women in the sex industry."
From the original petition: "Games like this are grooming yet another generation of boys to tolerate violence against women. It is fuelling the epidemic of violence experienced by so many girls and women in Australia - and globally."
I remind you that this is a game blatantly marketed towards adults. In the United States, the game is rated MA17+ (Mature) by the ESRB, and most stores flat-out refuse to sell the game to anyone under 17 without parental permission. In Australia and many other markets where the game is sold, it's flat-out illegal to sell the game to minors, or to purchase it on behalf of a minor. Therefore, if a minor ends up with a copy of the game, it's the fault of the parents, as the child simply cannot acquire a copy by themselves. Most retailers make no bones about it, and nor does the game developer: Grand Theft Auto V is not a toy and should not be sold to minors, which is precisely why it isn't.
From the original petition: "Target, you pride yourself on being a family company, caring for local communities, and have a strong ethical sourcing policy. How can you do this while contributing to hostile and callous attitudes toward victims of violence and, more broadly, to all women?"
It's not Target's fault that parents choose to buy the game for their children, sometimes against the law. They're not forcing anyone to purchase the game - you simply can if you want to. And I think I've debunked the idea that the game has a callous attitude towards women and violence against them enough.
Again, I want to state that I do sympathize with the creator of the original petition, to a certain extent: having been the victim of violence in my youth I can definitely understand the urge to protect others from it. However, this petition and its success is nothing short of absurd, especially considering that literally the ENTIRE thing is based purely off of conjecture and bias, and not off of cold, hard facts. You would think that a large corporate retailer would base their decisions off of things that can be factually, incontrovertibly proven and not blatant lies written by someone who is quite clearly biased.
So Target Australia and Kmart, please, please, I urge you to reconsider your stance. Look at the facts, maybe have someone play the game a bit, and make your decisions based off of provable evidence.
For a different argument against the removal of GTA V from Australian stores, please check out John Bain's video about it. Mr. Bain (online alias TotalBiscuit) is one of the industry's most experienced and respected game critics and formulates his opinion on the matter from not only hands-on experience with the game, but also from decades of firsthand involvement with the industry and those in it.
Thank you for reading and signing this petition,
Greg Pass
Petition Closed
The Issue
Target and Kmart, please read this petition and reconsider your stance on sexism and explicit content in GTA V.
Last December, there was a petition lodged towards Kmart and Target Australia to get the video game Grand Theft Auto V removed from Australian store shelves. The petition got just under 50,000 signatures, prompting the companies to remove the game - this despite the fact that the petition was plainly written by people who have never played Grand Theft Auto V. The entire petition was based off of sheer misinformed conjecture.
Here's the thing, though: the removal of the game was completely wrong. Yes, I am a gamer; yes, I am male; and yes, I do play GTAV. But I'm not looking at the issue from that perspective; I'm looking at it as a neutral party.
The main concern with the petition was that GTAV was sexist and that you could do many evil things to women with no repercussions. Okay, fine, if you think something in a game is sexist, you definitely have the right to speak out about it, and in most cases I would even endorse it. I am all for equal rights for everyone. However, if you're going to accuse something of being sexist, don't fill your petition with equally sexist bias and patent falsehoods.
What am I talking about? Well, I'll go through each point raised in the petition and address them all in turn.
From the original petition: "It's a game that encourages players to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points – and now Target are stocking it and promoting it for your Xmas stocking."
No, it does not. In fact, by and large, it doesn't encourage the murder of anyone outside of hostile characters. In fact, you might say that, as far as murder of innocents is concerned, the game goes the other way with its Wanted system, whereby murdering innocents will attract police attention which increases in force the longer you continue your killing spree. There even comes a point where the game stops at nothing to take you down, even going as far as sending SWAT and FIB (FBI) teams after you to get you to stop.The game in no way distinguishes between men and women; killing a woman is just as likely to attract the cops as is killing a man. In fact, only two women die throughout the entire main plot of the game, compared to literally hundreds of men.
Furthermore, the game does not distinguish at all between the murder of men and the murder of women, and you definitely do not get health points for killing women. As for "sexual violence," it is IMPOSSIBLE to commit such acts in the game. Any and all sexual content in the game is between two consenting adults, usually after the player pays for it.
On a personal level, it disturbs me that the creator of the petition is perfectly fine with violence against men, but when it comes to violence against women, the poster freaks out. So you're implying that violence against men is A-OK, but violence against women is not? No. That's not the way the world works. Violence is NOT OK. Period.
From the original petition: "One of many fan clips on YouTube shows the woman being run down, run over, set alight and, still screaming, repeatedly shot. This misogynistic GTA 5 literally makes a game of bashing, killing and horrific violence against women. It also links sexual arousal and violence."
Guess what? You can do that with men too. I present, for your delectation, a clip that opens with multiple men being murdered in exceedingly violent ways. Brutal deaths aren't restricted to women. In fact, if the clip you linked to is misogynistic, then the clip I linked to is misandric. Running someone down, setting them on fire, and then shooting them is something you can do to literally anyone. And "links sexual arousal and violence"? How? Where did you get this? If you're aroused by violently killing someone, you need help.
From the original petition: "We have firsthand experience of this kind of sexual violence. It haunts us, and we've been trying to rebuild our lives ever since. Just knowing that women are being portrayed as deserving to be sexually used by men and potentially murdered for sport and pleasure – to see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainments is sickening and causes us great pain and harm."
While I sympathize with your cause - sexual violence is a huge problem and I can only imagine the nightmares it causes - at NO POINT does the game portray women as "deserving" to be sexually abused. As mentioned before, it is impossible to commit sexual violence against anyone in the game, and none of the three characters can even hit on any women who aren't prostitutes; instead, if you choose to greet them, your character simply speaks a generic, polite greeting. Please actually play the game before you accuse it of having something it does not have.
From the original petition: "This game spreads the idea that certain women exist as scapegoats for male violence. It shows hatred and contempt for women in the sex industry and puts them at greater risk. Women in the industry are 40 times more likely to be murdered by a man than any other group of women."
I suppose this is directed at the fact that you can engage the services of a prostitute and then murder her to get your money back. Once again, nowhere in the game does it show any sign of contempt for sex workers. Yes, you can kill prostitutes and get your money back "after the fact," but nowhere does the game encourage this and, when it does happen, it is treated the same as any murder committed by the player: if it's seen by a bystander, the cops come and try to stop the player.
Again, I defy you to back up your claims with something more substantial than sheer conjecture. I speak from hundreds of hours of experience with the game, having played both online and offline in roughly equal measure (online more than offline). Nowhere in either of these modes can I find anything that "spreads the idea that women are scapegoats for male violence," nor any part that "shows hatred and contempt for women in the sex industry."
From the original petition: "Games like this are grooming yet another generation of boys to tolerate violence against women. It is fuelling the epidemic of violence experienced by so many girls and women in Australia - and globally."
I remind you that this is a game blatantly marketed towards adults. In the United States, the game is rated MA17+ (Mature) by the ESRB, and most stores flat-out refuse to sell the game to anyone under 17 without parental permission. In Australia and many other markets where the game is sold, it's flat-out illegal to sell the game to minors, or to purchase it on behalf of a minor. Therefore, if a minor ends up with a copy of the game, it's the fault of the parents, as the child simply cannot acquire a copy by themselves. Most retailers make no bones about it, and nor does the game developer: Grand Theft Auto V is not a toy and should not be sold to minors, which is precisely why it isn't.
From the original petition: "Target, you pride yourself on being a family company, caring for local communities, and have a strong ethical sourcing policy. How can you do this while contributing to hostile and callous attitudes toward victims of violence and, more broadly, to all women?"
It's not Target's fault that parents choose to buy the game for their children, sometimes against the law. They're not forcing anyone to purchase the game - you simply can if you want to. And I think I've debunked the idea that the game has a callous attitude towards women and violence against them enough.
Again, I want to state that I do sympathize with the creator of the original petition, to a certain extent: having been the victim of violence in my youth I can definitely understand the urge to protect others from it. However, this petition and its success is nothing short of absurd, especially considering that literally the ENTIRE thing is based purely off of conjecture and bias, and not off of cold, hard facts. You would think that a large corporate retailer would base their decisions off of things that can be factually, incontrovertibly proven and not blatant lies written by someone who is quite clearly biased.
So Target Australia and Kmart, please, please, I urge you to reconsider your stance. Look at the facts, maybe have someone play the game a bit, and make your decisions based off of provable evidence.
For a different argument against the removal of GTA V from Australian stores, please check out John Bain's video about it. Mr. Bain (online alias TotalBiscuit) is one of the industry's most experienced and respected game critics and formulates his opinion on the matter from not only hands-on experience with the game, but also from decades of firsthand involvement with the industry and those in it.
Thank you for reading and signing this petition,
Greg Pass
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Petition created on January 18, 2015