Following what the company is calling “consumer feedback,” retail giant Target Australia has announced their decision to pull copies of the wildly popular, but highly controversial, game Grand Theft Auto V from shelves, amid concerns over the game’s depictions of sexually-motivated violence as well as its representation of women.
A Change.org petition calling for the game’s removal from sale was launched on Saturday, and had gained over 42,000 signatures. The petition, in part, called for Target to “Please put ethics before profits and make a strong statement that you do not condone sexual violence, sexual exploitation or the abuse of women as ‘entertainment’.“
The game, which carries an R Rating in Australia, has been out for quite some time as it stands. But this new push comes after the re-release of it, with updated graphics and features for new generation consoles Xbox One and Playstation 4. The new, updated version of the game contains a first-person mode, which is where this new round of controversy stems from. The petition cited this YouTube video as a specific example, wherein a player picks up a sex worker in-game, before running her over, blowing her up and lighting her on fire with a hand grenade, and repeatedly shooting her with an assault rifle.
Grand Theft Auto is no stranger to controversy as a whole, and in particular its depiction of women and players’ ability to enact violence against women has been cause for great concern. The very nature of the game, and its sandbox-style open world play, makes it difficult for developers to pick-and-choose what can and can’t be done; a game so heavily reliant on crime and the (albeit light) consequences of it can’t really back itself to be any kind of moral compass. If it can be done accidentally, indeed it has to be able to be done deliberately as well, such is the role that choice plays within the game.
But its the concerning abilities of actions regarding sex workers and the commonly known playing trope of “pick up sex worker, kill her to get your money back” – which for the record, and despite what the petition itself actually states, is an act of choice on behalf of the gamer, as the game does not require this to happen to advance any storylines, nor does it gift the player any advantage or “health points” – should never, under any circumstances, be condoned, tolerated, or promoted as entertainment.
The decision by Target to pull the game from shelves has ruffled the feathers of the gaming community, with Target’s Facebook page being inundated with complaints and anger, the general gist of which falls under the “don’t like it, don’t play it” category of choice-related arguments.
Hell, it may well be hypocritical of me to cast this particular eye across the game when a played-through copy of it sits no more than three metres away from me as I type this. But the bottom line here is that maybe, just maybe, it’s probably for the best that a game with depictions of such all-encompassing levels of violence – particularly against women – not be available to be grabbed from a shelf that’s four or five rows over from a rack of Wiggles DVDs.
Just a thought.
via SMH.
