bluntly, this is the free market at work. consumers are telling retailers that they don't like a product. retailers are responding by removing said product.
freedom of speech has never meant "unrestricted right to sell my product at stores". Rockstar continues to be free to create their prostitute murder simulators. consumers remain free to tell retailers they don't like such products.
This is not the free market at all. The game was removed after an online petition signed almost entirely by people who never would have bought the game anyway.
It was these 40,000 Outragies (my term for people who have so little going on in their own lives that they have to constantly desperately search for things to be outraged about) that signed this petition that caused Target/Kmart to pull from their shelves, and had nothing to do with sales, which, although I haven't checked, I'm sure are gangbusters.
This is not the free market at all. The game was removed after an online petition signed almost entirely by people who never would have bought the game anyway.
What difference does that make? The petitioners were probably far more likely to shop at Target-AU for other stuff than gamers were. Although a few gamers have popped up and said they bought games at Target-AU, most get them elsewhere. If you've got a mother with kids who doesn't game but spends thousands of dollars at your store each year, and a gamer who goes elsewhere for his games anyway, who are YOU going to listen to? The mom, that's who.
There's a lot more non-gamers than gamers out there. Gamers are a tiny, tiny percentage of Target-AU's customer base. Moms with kids are a much larger percentage. It's crappy business sense to listen to gamers and ignore non-gamers unless you're Gamestop.
Shambala on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
This is not the free market at all. The game was removed after an online petition signed almost entirely by people who never would have bought the game anyway.
What difference does that make? The petitioners were probably far more likely to shop at Target-AU for other stuff than gamers were. Although a few gamers have popped up and said they bought games at Target-AU, most get them elsewhere. If you've got a mother with kids who doesn't game but spends thousands of dollars at your store each year, and a gamer who goes elsewhere for his games anyway, who are YOU going to listen to? The mom, that's who.
There's a lot more non-gamers than gamers out there. Gamers are a tiny, tiny percentage of Target-AU's customer base. Moms with kids are a much larger percentage. It's crappy business sense to listen to gamers and ignore non-gamers unless you're Gamestop.
So why are Australian retailers the only ones doing anything at all?
bluntly, this is the free market at work. consumers are telling retailers that they don't like a product. retailers are responding by removing said product.
freedom of speech has never meant "unrestricted right to sell my product at stores". Rockstar continues to be free to create their prostitute murder simulators. consumers remain free to tell retailers they don't like such products.
This is not the free market at all. The game was removed after an online petition signed almost entirely by people who never would have bought the game anyway.
It was these 40,000 Outragies (my term for people who have so little going on in their own lives that they have to constantly desperately search for things to be outraged about) that signed this petition that caused Target/Kmart to pull from their shelves, and had nothing to do with sales, which, although I haven't checked, I'm sure are gangbusters.
People who presumably shop at Target informed Target that if they sold something they didn't want they might stop shopping there.
Target, doing whatever internal math, decided that would hurt their bottom line.
This is not the free market at all. The game was removed after an online petition signed almost entirely by people who never would have bought the game anyway.
What difference does that make? The petitioners were probably far more likely to shop at Target-AU for other stuff than gamers were. Although a few gamers have popped up and said they bought games at Target-AU, most get them elsewhere. If you've got a mother with kids who doesn't game but spends thousands of dollars at your store each year, and a gamer who goes elsewhere for his games anyway, who are YOU going to listen to? The mom, that's who.
There's a lot more non-gamers than gamers out there. Gamers are a tiny, tiny percentage of Target-AU's customer base. Moms with kids are a much larger percentage. It's crappy business sense to listen to gamers and ignore non-gamers unless you're Gamestop.
So why are Australian retailers the only ones doing anything at all?
It's just a couple of Australian retailers. The ones who heard from their customers. What's confusing about that? The ones whose customers didn't complain are still selling the game. That makes perfect sense.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
People trying to claim this is censorship because it "punishes" the people who made it are barking up the wrong tree. Nobody is punished for this and it is not a blanket decision to remove R18+ games. This is literally an entirely meaningless gesture to anything on a game that has well past sold through its main inventory and nobody substantial is going to be affected.
I am asking if you're okay with the way people blithely dismiss any and all concerns about consumer activism and what we're suppressing and why out of hand because well
To which many people responded "yes, I am". "Any and all" includes, to me, trampling on individual rights.
Individuals can force the free market to trample on individual rights. Are we okay with this?
I am OK with movements using their voice to influence corporations with the goal of trampleing on people's rights. I am not OK with the GOAL of trampling on people's rights. I would fight any such movement, not demonize their methods of enacting their goal.
I don't care about legitimate methods, I care about the goals.
bluntly, this is the free market at work. consumers are telling retailers that they don't like a product. retailers are responding by removing said product.
freedom of speech has never meant "unrestricted right to sell my product at stores". Rockstar continues to be free to create their prostitute murder simulators. consumers remain free to tell retailers they don't like such products.
This is not the free market at all. The game was removed after an online petition signed almost entirely by people who never would have bought the game anyway.
It was these 40,000 Outragies (my term for people who have so little going on in their own lives that they have to constantly desperately search for things to be outraged about) that signed this petition that caused Target/Kmart to pull from their shelves, and had nothing to do with sales, which, although I haven't checked, I'm sure are gangbusters.
this is precisely the free market.
in the thousands of years of human history, humans have debated over the worth and value of art, entertainment, and the values behind them. humans have expressed their approval and disapproval of these things through commercial transactions, through acquisition, through word of mouth, through protest, and through boycott.
individuals, shop owners, retailers, and corporations have all responded to how their customer base acts, either through pure monetary transactions or through reputation or through word of mouth.
it's the very reason "goodwill" exists as an economic concept. a corporation's assets are not just in the physical or the monetary; a corporation's reputation among its customers and the populace is called "goodwill", and it is actively accounted for in assessing a corporation's financial state.
as for your term "Outragies", take a step back for a moment and listen. in this particular case, women and sex workers interpret GTA as an attack on their person. i imagine that if a game or book or movie or song came out that directly attacked you for who you were, you would feel angry and would want to argue against that particular work. now apply that to people who, in their every living moment, possess the fear of being the target of sexual abuse, or have been such targets.
it is completely appropriate for such folks, and the people who support them and agree with them, to state that the kind of values expressed in the GTA games have little value. freedom of speech and the free market have never stood for the proposition that all values or ideas are of intrinsic or equal worth. as human beings, we decide and debate the value and worth of ideas every day. the right to speech is important and should never be infringed unless absolutely necessary. but that is a two way street. it means that people who disagree on the value of an idea can and should argue about such value.
in this particular case, women and sex workers interpret GTA as an attack on their person. i imagine that if a game or book or movie or song came out that directly attacked you for who you were, you would feel angry and would want to argue against that particular work. now apply that to people who, in their every living moment, possess the fear of being the target of sexual abuse, or have been such targets.
I sincerely doubt that they found 40 000 sex workers to sign a petition. Or indeed that they had any sort of verification process in place.
Secondly, in your own words, "they interpret". They make a subjective reasoning argument as to why other people should be censored. Which is kind of the whole problem with feminism as-is. There's no underlying black and white anymore. Sexism is now 100% subjective, and when you look at a feminist examining *any* piece of art, including art that has a strong female kicking male behind, they will do *any* mental backflip necessary in order to find *something* sexist.
The free market suggests one of two things:
That these people represent the kind of person who shops at target, or that these people represent the kind of person who will *now* shop at target.
Given that a lot of these loonies are the same ones boycotting Target and similar stores for selling firetrucks in a boys' toys section with boys on the box, or barbies in pink boxes, there's a good chance they don't fall in the former category, and there will need to be quite a few other petitions before they change their mind about the latter.
Why they would go to target to buy something Target no longer sells, is also something I don't really understand.
The big reason everyone is up in arms is explicitly that Target needed to qualify their pulling of the game *in response to a petition*. That petition is *not* market forces at work. Hell, I'd bet my life savings they've sold more than *twice* that many number of copies already in the previous year.
If Target decided to pull the box because of its own family values, nobody would be calling censorship. The part that is censorship is that one minority got to impose their will over a majority. The end. It's *exactly* the same as people who protested to have the statue of David or prevent Lolita from being screened. The only difference anyone's claiming is that competition exists and should be rewarded by market forces -- which I agree with, but this is a gnarly precedent nevertheless in a country that *still* routinely bans games despite an R18+ classification existing.
If Target decided to pull the box because of its own family values, nobody would be calling censorship. The part that is censorship is that one minority got to impose their will over a majority. The end. It's *exactly* the same as people who protested to have the statue of David or prevent Lolita from being screened.
That people think GTA V is exactly the same as David or Lolita with respect to this issue is one reason why people don't take gaming seriously.
in this particular case, women and sex workers interpret GTA as an attack on their person. i imagine that if a game or book or movie or song came out that directly attacked you for who you were, you would feel angry and would want to argue against that particular work. now apply that to people who, in their every living moment, possess the fear of being the target of sexual abuse, or have been such targets.
I sincerely doubt that they found 40 000 sex workers to sign a petition. Or indeed that they had any sort of verification process in place.
so what. no such requirement required, only that there are people who agree with the petition.[/quote]
Secondly, in your own words, "they interpret". They make a subjective reasoning argument as to why other people should be censored. Which is kind of the whole problem with feminism as-is. There's no underlying black and white anymore. Sexism is now 100% subjective, and when you look at a feminist examining *any* piece of art, including art that has a strong female kicking male behind, they will do *any* mental backflip necessary in order to find *something* sexist.
we can either go in a metaphysical direction, or we can call this what it is: a strawman.
there's no subjectivity about it: GTA V has the player solicit a prostitute for sex and then includes a mechanic where the player can kill the prostitute to get the player's money back. the game also includes a scene where a prostitute is punched in the face after making "annoying conversation". those are objective facts.
what's also objective is that actual people in the sex trade experience these sorts of harmful, degrading acts on a regular basis. actually, so do a lot of women, a lot of men, and a lot of transgender folks. so it's really not surprising when these folks see a game perpetuating the message that people in the sex trade are disposable punching bags.
there are no "mental backflips" necessary. you trying to label them as such is simply trying to hand wave away the fact that the position is a legitimate point. although you may not have experienced such abuse, there are people who have.
the other problem with your statement is that it implies that games are somehow immune to critique. not true at all. in fact, if we're trying to accept video games as an art form equal to books, movies, classical art, music, etc., we need to embrace such criticisms and honestly evaluate them, just like critiques of other forms of art.
and the last point i'll make here is this: your argument is lazy. rather than tackling the point head on, you simply dismiss it out of hand, despite the objective underpinnings involved. instead of honestly reflecting on whether these games might actually be misogynist or have other problems, you replace the whole thing with a strawman to beat on instead.
The free market suggests one of two things:
That these people represent the kind of person who shops at target, or that these people represent the kind of person who will *now* shop at target.
Given that a lot of these loonies are the same ones boycotting Target and similar stores for selling firetrucks in a boys' toys section with boys on the box, or barbies in pink boxes, there's a good chance they don't fall in the former category, and there will need to be quite a few other petitions before they change their mind about the latter.
what. i'd say something here about the gendered toys comment, but i'm not certain where to even begin. i would say, stop yourself and think about this one.
If Target decided to pull the box because of its own family values, nobody would be calling censorship. The part that is censorship is that one minority got to impose their will over a majority. The end. It's *exactly* the same as people who protested to have the statue of David or prevent Lolita from being screened. The only difference anyone's claiming is that competition exists and should be rewarded by market forces -- which I agree with, but this is a gnarly precedent nevertheless in a country that *still* routinely bans games despite an R18+ classification existing.
again, this ignores the fact that boycott and protest have long been a part of the free marketplace of ideas. they are forms of speech. Rockstar published a game with controversial content. a group responded to that content through a petition. that is dialogue. Target responded to the petition even when they did not have to. fellow retailers did the same. what you have just witnessed is the marketplace of ideas functioning in a free market. this is the single point i don't think Jerry understands. i agree that the government should not enforce barriers on speech, but society itself can and must engage in debate about the value of speech and ideas.
That people think GTA V is exactly the same as David or Lolita with respect to this issue is one reason why people don't take gaming seriously.
So, not someone who sees videogames as art, I take it? How slippery is your slope -- how do Dear Esther, interactive novels, comics, film, or literature rank?
there's no subjectivity about it: GTA V has the player solicit a prostitute for sex and then includes a mechanic where the player can kill the prostitute to get the player's money back. the game also includes a scene where a prostitute is punched in the face after making "annoying conversation". those are objective facts.
what's also objective is that actual people in the sex trade experience these sorts of harmful, degrading acts on a regular basis. actually, so do a lot of women, a lot of men, and a lot of transgender folks. so it's really not surprising when these folks see a game perpetuating the message that people in the sex trade are disposable punching bags.
The player can also murder and loot any man, including a police officer. But only the prostitutes are reasons to ban the game. Because objective sexism...
Completely ignoring the fact that there are in-game consequences to *all* of these actions.
I personally am unaware of any prostitute who was murdered for a refund multiple times in her career ("on a regular basis"), or indeed even a single incident that was caused by a videogame. Citation?
In my corner, we have huge tracts of evidence suggesting plain old violence and sexual assault are on the decline as videogame adoption is on the rise (correlation, I don't have evidence of causation) and people appear to be too lazy to *actually* hurt another human being. (Hell, have this one from Polygon, of all places http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/13/3983830/violent-video-game-sales-coincide-with-drop-in-violent-youth-crimes). But I'm eagerly waiting for your citation.
the other problem with your statement is that it implies that games are somehow immune to critique. not true at all. in fact, if we're trying to accept video games as an art form equal to books, movies, classical art, music, etc., we need to embrace such criticisms and honestly evaluate them, just like critiques of other forms of art.
It just so happens that we evaluate books and movies based on technique, plot, and then attach a subjective addendum regarding whether or not the critic liked them. We don't ban a movie because humans bleed in it, or because it has prostitution, or even violence against a sex worker. Hell, if you go to the 1980s/1990s, you'll find quite a few "problematic" sexist films that also have women kicking butt. And those critics back then? Yeah, they used words other than "gross" to review them, and didn't call for their banning. (Ok, so critics called for the banning of Battlefield Earth and The Room, but not because of politically sensitive content, which is what we're discussing here.)
Go and examine Sarkeesian's actual arguments. She says that representation itself (i.e. this game has prostitutes, regardless of how they're treated or portrayed, or how much enthusiastic consent they provide) is a problem. While also complaining that women are underrepresented. There is no black and white. Just batshit crazy.
Target responded to the petition even when they did not have to. fellow retailers did the same.
Actually, both Target and K-Mart Australia are controlled by the same group (Wesfarmers). The act was a vocal form of being seen to be doing something, however misguided, by Richard Goyder, because he's a vocal supporter of the white ribbon appeal. (Violence against Women.) Fellow retailers are continuing to stock the game.
isn't it funny how mike and jerry didn't even mention feminism and yet we have angry redditors coming out of the woodwork to complain about anita sarkeesian
it's almost as if "censorship" is a dogwhistle term for people who hate feminists! it's almost as if mike and jerry should have been aware of that
That people think GTA V is exactly the same as David or Lolita with respect to this issue is one reason why people don't take gaming seriously.
So, not someone who sees videogames as art, I take it? How slippery is your slope -- how do Dear Esther, interactive novels, comics, film, or literature rank?
Hi, not all art is created equally.
And also all art throughout history has been subject to criticism that can make making that art no longer commercially profitable.
This is called reality. This is called commercial art. You don't have a right to a distributor as an artist.
That people think GTA V is exactly the same as David or Lolita with respect to this issue is one reason why people don't take gaming seriously.
So, not someone who sees videogames as art, I take it? How slippery is your slope -- how do Dear Esther, interactive novels, comics, film, or literature rank?
Hahaha! This was the comment that made me burst into laughter and cemented in my mind that the poster had no idea what he/she is talking about. If you actually participate on these forums even a little bit, you would know who @TychoCelchuuu was... Maybe take a gander at our TWINE thread or the "what is a game?" Thread.
This is comedy GOLD. At least, as a PA forum inside joke.
Nobody is debating the merits or otherwise of GTA5.
Not one iota of this petition to remove it from sale cited framerates, crappy control schemes, repetitive gameplay, or, hell, the morally objectionable torture of a human being which you are *required* to do in order to play through the storyline. (This was a sticking point with several reviewers finding it difficult to morally justify, a few noted the artistic merit of a game that can emulate the human response such that it managed to engage their empathy.)
Every objective review I've read has delved into these topics. Because those things pertain to its quality, merit, and need to know. Not one of those reviews said that the game was unfit for sale, either. Like, say, a few have for Assassin's Creed: Unity.
But I really shouldn't be giving you the time of day. Here, we have a bunch of people who don't play videogames, successfully shaming an organisation into not stocking said videogame that they don't play (after a year of doing so), in order to visibly demonstrate that their squawks are worth more than the general public. And you guys are ok with that because ... this self-censorship doesn't offend you?
I suppose you were ok with Jack Thompson's crusade against GTA too. Or feminism vs Dickwolves remaining blameless after starting the controversy themselves.
Remember, they only wanted PA to self-censor. They didn't want the government to shut them down. It's not censorship okay, so why can't you just drop it and shut up because we unpolitely yelled at you to?
And also all art throughout history has been subject to criticism that can make making that art no longer commercially profitable.
This is called reality. This is called commercial art. You don't have a right to a distributor as an artist.
As a forward-thinking western democracy, we like to pretend as though there's this whole freedom thing, where someone is allowed to purchase and consume entertainment that doesn't have to be approved by a higher power. Be it a self-identifying demographic of victims, a governmental body or a religious group that's historically been married to positions of power.
We in fact pretend as though we're above trying to brainwash our citizens quite often. Indeed, we didn't censor the film that triggered the Arab Spring either, and that was a horrible piece of filmography that almost nobody watched, with a lot more fallout involved than a petition (although a lot of correct-thinking people also identified that if it worked, it wouldn't be their final demand, nor would it stop the protests already in progress -- the similarities here are endless).
Australia already strictly violates that by refusing classification, now we have other people trying to impose their morality. What happens when 40 000 islamists sign a petition to refuse sale of alcohol?
No, you don't have a right to a distributor as an artist. But you have a right to an exhibition under a western democracy, and you certainly have a right to sell the art if there are buyers of it, assuming that nobody was harmed in its creation and its creation didn't involve illegal activities.
Depicting someone being harmed, or depicting illegal activities, isn't the same thing as doing them.
What you find important about a specific game others will not. What others find important about a specific game you will not. No review is objectively correct. They're all subjective. Your claim that no one who signed the petition plays video games is not only based on nothing but also extremely unlikely. And through it all you've continued to fail to show how this is actually censorship.
Target wasn't shamed in to anything. They saw that their bottom line might be hurt selling a product so they stopped. They do that with products every day.
No, you don't have a right to a distributor as an artist. But you have a right to an exhibition under a western democracy, and you certainly have a right to sell the art if there are buyers of it, assuming that nobody was harmed in its creation and its creation didn't involve illegal activities.
And Rockstar still has the right to sell their art to buyers. So by your own definition, still not censorship.
Here, we have a bunch of people who don't play videogames, successfully shaming an organisation into not stocking said videogame
So you would need to be a user of child porn to petition a store to not carry it? Is this supposed to be logic or something? "As a consumer of child porn, I'm writing to tell you that the actors in that video were not actually preteens, they merely looked like it. Therefore your store must continue to carry this work of art. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about and has no right to comment." Is that it?
No, you don't have a right to a distributor as an artist. But you have a right to an exhibition under a western democracy, and you certainly have a right to sell the art if there are buyers of it, assuming that nobody was harmed in its creation and its creation didn't involve illegal activities.
A right to an exhibition? If by exhibition you mean you have the right to hang your paintings of slash porn on the walls of any building you own or otherwise have a legal right to hang paintings in. You have the right to make your family listen to your crappy rap music recordings if they'll put up with that, but not the right to have them played by any radio station that you don't own. So yeah, RockStar has the right to sell its games out of its own offices, and that I would agree with. But that's it. Finding your buyers is your problem, not anyone else's.
Target wasn't shamed in to anything. They saw that their bottom line might be hurt selling a product so they stopped. They do that with products every day.
Please explain how a Change.org petition changes their bottom line? Or how not referencing the change.org petition while pulling the product would have been the wrong thing to do?
What they've done is demonstrate quite clearly that because of Richard Goyder, they're willing to give some consumers more air time than others in deciding how the company is run. And not in the economically responsible way of asking the shareholders, either.
They will eventually suffer at the hands of the people they're trying to appease, if all it takes is a petition; that's not a threat, it's an observation.
"If the Morality Police were worried about Hot Coffee, there is a lot here will provoke moral hysteria."
Written by a woman. Examines its technical, plot, graphical, and open world achievements relative to the previous game (note that comparing things to eachother is one of the best ways of being objective). Finds that it is in every way an improvement. Written by a reviewer that quite obviously does her job -- that's about the highest praise I can give a games journalist.
Doesn't say "I like, I dislike, I find problematic, I find gross". Especially doesn't say "is bad, is problematic, is gross, is sexist because it just is". Both the video review and the written review focus on the game. And not on an ideology of why you should feel shame in buying it. In fact, the video review casts a wide enough lens on a game this large that a potential consumer might be able to decide if the game is for them. Something that games journalism pretended to be about.
I can disagree with the rating of 10 (I'm waiting for the PC edition so you can't have my number, my favourite open world game was Saints Row 2, and GTA 4 left a bad taste in my mouth, but based on what I've seen, I'm willing to give 5 a try), and a lot of it looks like paid advertising (congratulations, that's what games journalism *is*), but I can't disagree with the criteria along which the review was performed, or that the reviewer *actually* made legitimate comparisons to the previous title.
Note this is IGN in Australia. Hence doubly relevant.
Doesn't say "I like, I dislike, I find problematic, I find gross". Especially doesn't say "is bad, is problematic, is gross, is sexist because it just is". Both the video review and the written review focus on the game. And not on an ideology of why you should feel shame in buying it. In fact, the video review casts a wide enough lens on a game this large that a potential consumer might be able to decide if the game is for them. Something that games journalism pretended to be about.
Ah. So you're saying that reviewers have to change their writing style to one that you approve of? You're expressing this opinion as a consumer of game reviews?
Target wasn't shamed in to anything. They saw that their bottom line might be hurt selling a product so they stopped. They do that with products every day.
Please explain how a Change.org petition changes their bottom line? Or how not referencing the change.org petition while pulling the product would have been the wrong thing to do?
What they've done is demonstrate quite clearly that because of Richard Goyder, they're willing to give some consumers more air time than others in deciding how the company is run. And not in the economically responsible way of asking the shareholders, either.
They will eventually suffer at the hands of the people they're trying to appease, if all it takes is a petition; that's not a threat, it's an observation.
The petition comes from customers expressing their dislike of a product. Target is smart enough to know that if they sell things people do not like they run the risk of losing customers. No one is giving them more "air time." You're every bit as free to create and sign a petition. And yes, while ultimately it's probably a dumb business move, it still isn't censorship.
I can disagree with the rating of 10 (I'm waiting for the PC edition so you can't have my number, my favourite open world game was Saints Row 2, and GTA 4 left a bad taste in my mouth, but based on what I've seen, I'm willing to give 5 a try), and a lot of it looks like paid advertising (congratulations, that's what games journalism *is*), but I can't disagree with the criteria along which the review was performed, or that the reviewer *actually* made legitimate comparisons to the previous title.
Note that what you and the reviewer consider to be "legitimate" comparisons is entirely subjective.
And Rockstar still has the right to sell their art to buyers. So by your own definition, still not censorship.
Cool. Can I come back when this petition is used as ammunition to strong arm other retailers from stocking the game or get the rerelease refused classification? (We have a long and colourful history in this country of absolutely zero consistency when it comes to refusing sale for videogames, Ninja Gaiden was sold here without decapitation, Ninja Gaiden Black was refused classification, Ninja Gaiden 2 & 3 were a-ok with decapitations in super hi-res.)
If such a situation *does* emerge, do I have your guarantee that you'll admit you were wrong and it's now censorship? Do I even have your guarantee that the outcome was worth fighting against from the precipitating event?
Or are you just trying to poke a hole in the censorship debate until it gets to that point?
Target coming out and giving attention to the change.org petition is really what I object to, myself. It sends all the wrong messages to all the wrong people.
Ah. So you're saying that reviewers have to change their writing style to one that you approve of? You're expressing this opinion as a consumer of game reviews?
That's censorship, dude.
/sigh ... Ok. I'll bite.
Please explain where I start up a petition trying to shut down a review because I disagree with it, or because other people reading the review hurts me? Please explain how I'm imposing my "review-morality" on even a single other user of the internet??
There's a difference between acting as a consumer and acting as a moral compass for every consumer's freedoms.
No-one said 100%, or escalated any facet of the language beyond what you literally already said. Nor was the context changed.
You said you had read at least one objective review.
My question, in case it was not clear, was what you were defining as an objective review and whether you had an example of such to share, because I couldn't think of ever having read a game review that I would consider objective.
That is not a strawman. It is asking you to define a term you used and provide an example of it.
The review you provided is very clearly subjective straight away as it delves into favourite moments, nor could I find anything significantly objective scrolling through it, except I guess the literal describing of certain things within the game (such as the tattoo an NPC has).
It seems, to me, as though we are working with very different definitions of the word "objective".
And Rockstar still has the right to sell their art to buyers. So by your own definition, still not censorship.
Cool. Can I come back when this petition is used as ammunition to strong arm other retailers from stocking the game or get the rerelease refused classification? (We have a long and colourful history in this country of absolutely zero consistency when it comes to refusing sale for videogames, Ninja Gaiden was sold here without decapitation, Ninja Gaiden Black was refused classification, Ninja Gaiden 2 & 3 were a-ok with decapitations in super hi-res.)
If such a situation *does* emerge, do I have your guarantee that you'll admit you were wrong and it's now censorship? Do I even have your guarantee that the outcome was worth fighting against from the precipitating event?
Or are you just trying to poke a hole in the censorship debate until it gets to that point?
Target coming out and giving attention to the change.org petition is really what I object to, myself. It sends all the wrong messages to all the wrong people.
Ah. So you're saying that reviewers have to change their writing style to one that you approve of? You're expressing this opinion as a consumer of game reviews?
That's censorship, dude.
/sigh ... Ok. I'll bite.
Please explain where I start up a petition trying to shut down a review because I disagree with it, or because other people reading the review hurts me? Please explain how I'm imposing my "review-morality" on even a single other user of the internet??
There's a difference between acting as a consumer and acting as a moral compass for every consumer's freedoms.
Sure, you can come back and declare censorship when there's actual censorship happening. Though I'll have nothing to admit being wrong about because what's happening here and now by your very own definition isn't censorship.
And signing a petition is part of acting as a consumer. It's letting a company you patron know in more direct terms that they sell something you find objectionable. There's nothing objectionable or wrong about communicating with a company this way.
Ah. So you're saying that reviewers have to change their writing style to one that you approve of? You're expressing this opinion as a consumer of game reviews?
That's censorship, dude.
/sigh ... Ok. I'll bite.
Please explain where I start up a petition trying to shut down a review because I disagree with it, or because other people reading the review hurts me? Please explain how I'm imposing my "review-morality" on even a single other user of the internet??
There's a difference between acting as a consumer and acting as a moral compass for every consumer's freedoms.
arguing with gamergate (and make no mistake, that's what we're doing) is 100% of the time a fruitless endeavour, but i do kind of want to know why their big email campaigns were okay by this standard
i guess it's because they weren't trying to impose their morality on anyone else, but rather to enforce neutrality? the idea what they consider to be a neutral position might be what someone else considers to be a moral position, and that in fact it might be impossible not to take up some moral position or other, seems unlikely to come up
I can disagree with the rating of 10 (I'm waiting for the PC edition so you can't have my number, my favourite open world game was Saints Row 2, and GTA 4 left a bad taste in my mouth, but based on what I've seen, I'm willing to give 5 a try), and a lot of it looks like paid advertising (congratulations, that's what games journalism *is*), but I can't disagree with the criteria along which the review was performed, or that the reviewer *actually* made legitimate comparisons to the previous title.
Holy moly, have you really expended this much time and energy defending he content of a game you HAVEN'T EVEN PLAYED yet?
I mean, if you make an argument that people who don't play videogames shouldn't be able to influence Target, like so:
Here, we have a bunch of people who don't play videogames, successfully shaming an organisation into not stocking said videogame that they don't play (after a year of doing so), in order to visibly demonstrate that their squawks are worth more than the general public.
then surely by that logic we can ignore all of your arguments too?!?
Here, we have a bunch of people who don't play videogames, successfully shaming an organisation into not stocking said videogame that they don't play (after a year of doing so), in order to visibly demonstrate that their squawks are worth more than the general public.
then surely by that logic we can ignore all of your arguments too?!?
Heh, this whole "censorship" argument has zero to do with logic and everything to do with this new gamer religion. These guys are cult members, pure and simple.
I want to once again thank Jerry and Mike for encouraging this sort of bullcrap in the gaming community. Because clearly what we needed was more of this. Bravo, guys. Just effing bravo.
To be fair, I have no idea why those people who signed petition think that they have the right to decide what's good or bad for people who are over 18. You think that this game is bad for kids? Great, don't let your child play it. Other people have the right to decide for themselves what's good or bad.
With that said, I can't say that it's a real censorship, since you can still buy the game elsewhere.
To be fair, I have no idea why those people who signed petition think that they have the right to decide what's good or bad for people who are over 18. You think that this game is bad for kids? Great, don't let your child play it. Other people have the right to decide for themselves what's good or bad.
With that said, I can't say that it's a real censorship, since you can still buy the game elsewhere.
And the people who run Target have the right to say "we don't want to sell this game".
To be fair, I have no idea why those people who signed petition think that they have the right to decide what's good or bad for people who are over 18. You think that this game is bad for kids? Great, don't let your child play it. Other people have the right to decide for themselves what's good or bad.
With that said, I can't say that it's a real censorship, since you can still buy the game elsewhere.
And the people who run Target have the right to say "we don't want to sell this game".
Of course they do, it's their store. And I can certanly see where they are coming from. But I can't fathom how people other than the direction of the Target and Kmart can agree with people who created that petition.
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This is not the free market at all. The game was removed after an online petition signed almost entirely by people who never would have bought the game anyway.
It was these 40,000 Outragies (my term for people who have so little going on in their own lives that they have to constantly desperately search for things to be outraged about) that signed this petition that caused Target/Kmart to pull from their shelves, and had nothing to do with sales, which, although I haven't checked, I'm sure are gangbusters.
What difference does that make? The petitioners were probably far more likely to shop at Target-AU for other stuff than gamers were. Although a few gamers have popped up and said they bought games at Target-AU, most get them elsewhere. If you've got a mother with kids who doesn't game but spends thousands of dollars at your store each year, and a gamer who goes elsewhere for his games anyway, who are YOU going to listen to? The mom, that's who.
There's a lot more non-gamers than gamers out there. Gamers are a tiny, tiny percentage of Target-AU's customer base. Moms with kids are a much larger percentage. It's crappy business sense to listen to gamers and ignore non-gamers unless you're Gamestop.
So why are Australian retailers the only ones doing anything at all?
People who presumably shop at Target informed Target that if they sold something they didn't want they might stop shopping there.
Target, doing whatever internal math, decided that would hurt their bottom line.
It was literally the free market at work.
It's just a couple of Australian retailers. The ones who heard from their customers. What's confusing about that? The ones whose customers didn't complain are still selling the game. That makes perfect sense.
Except Internet drama.
I'll disagree but fair enought.
this is precisely the free market.
in the thousands of years of human history, humans have debated over the worth and value of art, entertainment, and the values behind them. humans have expressed their approval and disapproval of these things through commercial transactions, through acquisition, through word of mouth, through protest, and through boycott.
individuals, shop owners, retailers, and corporations have all responded to how their customer base acts, either through pure monetary transactions or through reputation or through word of mouth.
it's the very reason "goodwill" exists as an economic concept. a corporation's assets are not just in the physical or the monetary; a corporation's reputation among its customers and the populace is called "goodwill", and it is actively accounted for in assessing a corporation's financial state.
as for your term "Outragies", take a step back for a moment and listen. in this particular case, women and sex workers interpret GTA as an attack on their person. i imagine that if a game or book or movie or song came out that directly attacked you for who you were, you would feel angry and would want to argue against that particular work. now apply that to people who, in their every living moment, possess the fear of being the target of sexual abuse, or have been such targets.
it is completely appropriate for such folks, and the people who support them and agree with them, to state that the kind of values expressed in the GTA games have little value. freedom of speech and the free market have never stood for the proposition that all values or ideas are of intrinsic or equal worth. as human beings, we decide and debate the value and worth of ideas every day. the right to speech is important and should never be infringed unless absolutely necessary. but that is a two way street. it means that people who disagree on the value of an idea can and should argue about such value.
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I sincerely doubt that they found 40 000 sex workers to sign a petition. Or indeed that they had any sort of verification process in place.
Secondly, in your own words, "they interpret". They make a subjective reasoning argument as to why other people should be censored. Which is kind of the whole problem with feminism as-is. There's no underlying black and white anymore. Sexism is now 100% subjective, and when you look at a feminist examining *any* piece of art, including art that has a strong female kicking male behind, they will do *any* mental backflip necessary in order to find *something* sexist.
The free market suggests one of two things:
That these people represent the kind of person who shops at target, or that these people represent the kind of person who will *now* shop at target.
Given that a lot of these loonies are the same ones boycotting Target and similar stores for selling firetrucks in a boys' toys section with boys on the box, or barbies in pink boxes, there's a good chance they don't fall in the former category, and there will need to be quite a few other petitions before they change their mind about the latter.
Why they would go to target to buy something Target no longer sells, is also something I don't really understand.
The big reason everyone is up in arms is explicitly that Target needed to qualify their pulling of the game *in response to a petition*. That petition is *not* market forces at work. Hell, I'd bet my life savings they've sold more than *twice* that many number of copies already in the previous year.
If Target decided to pull the box because of its own family values, nobody would be calling censorship. The part that is censorship is that one minority got to impose their will over a majority. The end. It's *exactly* the same as people who protested to have the statue of David or prevent Lolita from being screened. The only difference anyone's claiming is that competition exists and should be rewarded by market forces -- which I agree with, but this is a gnarly precedent nevertheless in a country that *still* routinely bans games despite an R18+ classification existing.
we can either go in a metaphysical direction, or we can call this what it is: a strawman.
there's no subjectivity about it: GTA V has the player solicit a prostitute for sex and then includes a mechanic where the player can kill the prostitute to get the player's money back. the game also includes a scene where a prostitute is punched in the face after making "annoying conversation". those are objective facts.
what's also objective is that actual people in the sex trade experience these sorts of harmful, degrading acts on a regular basis. actually, so do a lot of women, a lot of men, and a lot of transgender folks. so it's really not surprising when these folks see a game perpetuating the message that people in the sex trade are disposable punching bags.
there are no "mental backflips" necessary. you trying to label them as such is simply trying to hand wave away the fact that the position is a legitimate point. although you may not have experienced such abuse, there are people who have.
the other problem with your statement is that it implies that games are somehow immune to critique. not true at all. in fact, if we're trying to accept video games as an art form equal to books, movies, classical art, music, etc., we need to embrace such criticisms and honestly evaluate them, just like critiques of other forms of art.
and the last point i'll make here is this: your argument is lazy. rather than tackling the point head on, you simply dismiss it out of hand, despite the objective underpinnings involved. instead of honestly reflecting on whether these games might actually be misogynist or have other problems, you replace the whole thing with a strawman to beat on instead.
what. i'd say something here about the gendered toys comment, but i'm not certain where to even begin. i would say, stop yourself and think about this one.
again, this ignores the fact that boycott and protest have long been a part of the free marketplace of ideas. they are forms of speech. Rockstar published a game with controversial content. a group responded to that content through a petition. that is dialogue. Target responded to the petition even when they did not have to. fellow retailers did the same. what you have just witnessed is the marketplace of ideas functioning in a free market. this is the single point i don't think Jerry understands. i agree that the government should not enforce barriers on speech, but society itself can and must engage in debate about the value of speech and ideas.
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So, not someone who sees videogames as art, I take it? How slippery is your slope -- how do Dear Esther, interactive novels, comics, film, or literature rank?
The player can also murder and loot any man, including a police officer. But only the prostitutes are reasons to ban the game. Because objective sexism...
Completely ignoring the fact that there are in-game consequences to *all* of these actions.
I personally am unaware of any prostitute who was murdered for a refund multiple times in her career ("on a regular basis"), or indeed even a single incident that was caused by a videogame. Citation?
In my corner, we have huge tracts of evidence suggesting plain old violence and sexual assault are on the decline as videogame adoption is on the rise (correlation, I don't have evidence of causation) and people appear to be too lazy to *actually* hurt another human being. (Hell, have this one from Polygon, of all places http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/13/3983830/violent-video-game-sales-coincide-with-drop-in-violent-youth-crimes). But I'm eagerly waiting for your citation.
It just so happens that we evaluate books and movies based on technique, plot, and then attach a subjective addendum regarding whether or not the critic liked them. We don't ban a movie because humans bleed in it, or because it has prostitution, or even violence against a sex worker. Hell, if you go to the 1980s/1990s, you'll find quite a few "problematic" sexist films that also have women kicking butt. And those critics back then? Yeah, they used words other than "gross" to review them, and didn't call for their banning. (Ok, so critics called for the banning of Battlefield Earth and The Room, but not because of politically sensitive content, which is what we're discussing here.)
Go and examine Sarkeesian's actual arguments. She says that representation itself (i.e. this game has prostitutes, regardless of how they're treated or portrayed, or how much enthusiastic consent they provide) is a problem. While also complaining that women are underrepresented. There is no black and white. Just batshit crazy.
Actually, both Target and K-Mart Australia are controlled by the same group (Wesfarmers). The act was a vocal form of being seen to be doing something, however misguided, by Richard Goyder, because he's a vocal supporter of the white ribbon appeal. (Violence against Women.) Fellow retailers are continuing to stock the game.
it's almost as if "censorship" is a dogwhistle term for people who hate feminists! it's almost as if mike and jerry should have been aware of that
Hi, not all art is created equally.
And also all art throughout history has been subject to criticism that can make making that art no longer commercially profitable.
This is called reality. This is called commercial art. You don't have a right to a distributor as an artist.
This is comedy GOLD. At least, as a PA forum inside joke.
Target did pull the box because of their own values. Specifically, they valued money over making sure you could buy GTA there.
Also, that a minority might be getting what they want does not make it censorship. At all. Still.
Not one iota of this petition to remove it from sale cited framerates, crappy control schemes, repetitive gameplay, or, hell, the morally objectionable torture of a human being which you are *required* to do in order to play through the storyline. (This was a sticking point with several reviewers finding it difficult to morally justify, a few noted the artistic merit of a game that can emulate the human response such that it managed to engage their empathy.)
Every objective review I've read has delved into these topics. Because those things pertain to its quality, merit, and need to know. Not one of those reviews said that the game was unfit for sale, either. Like, say, a few have for Assassin's Creed: Unity.
But I really shouldn't be giving you the time of day. Here, we have a bunch of people who don't play videogames, successfully shaming an organisation into not stocking said videogame that they don't play (after a year of doing so), in order to visibly demonstrate that their squawks are worth more than the general public. And you guys are ok with that because ... this self-censorship doesn't offend you?
I suppose you were ok with Jack Thompson's crusade against GTA too. Or feminism vs Dickwolves remaining blameless after starting the controversy themselves.
Remember, they only wanted PA to self-censor. They didn't want the government to shut them down. It's not censorship okay, so why can't you just drop it and shut up because we unpolitely yelled at you to?
As a forward-thinking western democracy, we like to pretend as though there's this whole freedom thing, where someone is allowed to purchase and consume entertainment that doesn't have to be approved by a higher power. Be it a self-identifying demographic of victims, a governmental body or a religious group that's historically been married to positions of power.
We in fact pretend as though we're above trying to brainwash our citizens quite often. Indeed, we didn't censor the film that triggered the Arab Spring either, and that was a horrible piece of filmography that almost nobody watched, with a lot more fallout involved than a petition (although a lot of correct-thinking people also identified that if it worked, it wouldn't be their final demand, nor would it stop the protests already in progress -- the similarities here are endless).
Australia already strictly violates that by refusing classification, now we have other people trying to impose their morality. What happens when 40 000 islamists sign a petition to refuse sale of alcohol?
No, you don't have a right to a distributor as an artist. But you have a right to an exhibition under a western democracy, and you certainly have a right to sell the art if there are buyers of it, assuming that nobody was harmed in its creation and its creation didn't involve illegal activities.
Depicting someone being harmed, or depicting illegal activities, isn't the same thing as doing them.
What does an objective review of a video game look like? Do you have any examples?
Target wasn't shamed in to anything. They saw that their bottom line might be hurt selling a product so they stopped. They do that with products every day.
And Rockstar still has the right to sell their art to buyers. So by your own definition, still not censorship.
So you would need to be a user of child porn to petition a store to not carry it? Is this supposed to be logic or something? "As a consumer of child porn, I'm writing to tell you that the actors in that video were not actually preteens, they merely looked like it. Therefore your store must continue to carry this work of art. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about and has no right to comment." Is that it?
A right to an exhibition? If by exhibition you mean you have the right to hang your paintings of slash porn on the walls of any building you own or otherwise have a legal right to hang paintings in. You have the right to make your family listen to your crappy rap music recordings if they'll put up with that, but not the right to have them played by any radio station that you don't own. So yeah, RockStar has the right to sell its games out of its own offices, and that I would agree with. But that's it. Finding your buyers is your problem, not anyone else's.
Please explain how a Change.org petition changes their bottom line? Or how not referencing the change.org petition while pulling the product would have been the wrong thing to do?
What they've done is demonstrate quite clearly that because of Richard Goyder, they're willing to give some consumers more air time than others in deciding how the company is run. And not in the economically responsible way of asking the shareholders, either.
They will eventually suffer at the hands of the people they're trying to appease, if all it takes is a petition; that's not a threat, it's an observation.
Ah, yes. If only we can step away from the 100% objective strawman for a second.
http://au.ign.com/articles/2013/09/16/grand-theft-auto-v-review
"If the Morality Police were worried about Hot Coffee, there is a lot here will provoke moral hysteria."
Written by a woman. Examines its technical, plot, graphical, and open world achievements relative to the previous game (note that comparing things to eachother is one of the best ways of being objective). Finds that it is in every way an improvement. Written by a reviewer that quite obviously does her job -- that's about the highest praise I can give a games journalist.
Doesn't say "I like, I dislike, I find problematic, I find gross". Especially doesn't say "is bad, is problematic, is gross, is sexist because it just is". Both the video review and the written review focus on the game. And not on an ideology of why you should feel shame in buying it. In fact, the video review casts a wide enough lens on a game this large that a potential consumer might be able to decide if the game is for them. Something that games journalism pretended to be about.
I can disagree with the rating of 10 (I'm waiting for the PC edition so you can't have my number, my favourite open world game was Saints Row 2, and GTA 4 left a bad taste in my mouth, but based on what I've seen, I'm willing to give 5 a try), and a lot of it looks like paid advertising (congratulations, that's what games journalism *is*), but I can't disagree with the criteria along which the review was performed, or that the reviewer *actually* made legitimate comparisons to the previous title.
Note this is IGN in Australia. Hence doubly relevant.
Ah. So you're saying that reviewers have to change their writing style to one that you approve of? You're expressing this opinion as a consumer of game reviews?
That's censorship, dude.
The petition comes from customers expressing their dislike of a product. Target is smart enough to know that if they sell things people do not like they run the risk of losing customers. No one is giving them more "air time." You're every bit as free to create and sign a petition. And yes, while ultimately it's probably a dumb business move, it still isn't censorship.
Edit:
Note that what you and the reviewer consider to be "legitimate" comparisons is entirely subjective.
Cool. Can I come back when this petition is used as ammunition to strong arm other retailers from stocking the game or get the rerelease refused classification? (We have a long and colourful history in this country of absolutely zero consistency when it comes to refusing sale for videogames, Ninja Gaiden was sold here without decapitation, Ninja Gaiden Black was refused classification, Ninja Gaiden 2 & 3 were a-ok with decapitations in super hi-res.)
If such a situation *does* emerge, do I have your guarantee that you'll admit you were wrong and it's now censorship? Do I even have your guarantee that the outcome was worth fighting against from the precipitating event?
Or are you just trying to poke a hole in the censorship debate until it gets to that point?
Target coming out and giving attention to the change.org petition is really what I object to, myself. It sends all the wrong messages to all the wrong people.
/sigh ... Ok. I'll bite.
Please explain where I start up a petition trying to shut down a review because I disagree with it, or because other people reading the review hurts me? Please explain how I'm imposing my "review-morality" on even a single other user of the internet??
There's a difference between acting as a consumer and acting as a moral compass for every consumer's freedoms.
No-one said 100%, or escalated any facet of the language beyond what you literally already said. Nor was the context changed.
You said you had read at least one objective review.
My question, in case it was not clear, was what you were defining as an objective review and whether you had an example of such to share, because I couldn't think of ever having read a game review that I would consider objective.
That is not a strawman. It is asking you to define a term you used and provide an example of it.
The review you provided is very clearly subjective straight away as it delves into favourite moments, nor could I find anything significantly objective scrolling through it, except I guess the literal describing of certain things within the game (such as the tattoo an NPC has).
It seems, to me, as though we are working with very different definitions of the word "objective".
Sure, you can come back and declare censorship when there's actual censorship happening. Though I'll have nothing to admit being wrong about because what's happening here and now by your very own definition isn't censorship.
And signing a petition is part of acting as a consumer. It's letting a company you patron know in more direct terms that they sell something you find objectionable. There's nothing objectionable or wrong about communicating with a company this way.
arguing with gamergate (and make no mistake, that's what we're doing) is 100% of the time a fruitless endeavour, but i do kind of want to know why their big email campaigns were okay by this standard
i guess it's because they weren't trying to impose their morality on anyone else, but rather to enforce neutrality? the idea what they consider to be a neutral position might be what someone else considers to be a moral position, and that in fact it might be impossible not to take up some moral position or other, seems unlikely to come up
Holy moly, have you really expended this much time and energy defending he content of a game you HAVEN'T EVEN PLAYED yet?
I mean, if you make an argument that people who don't play videogames shouldn't be able to influence Target, like so:
then surely by that logic we can ignore all of your arguments too?!?
Only a mere 136 pins to go!
Heh, this whole "censorship" argument has zero to do with logic and everything to do with this new gamer religion. These guys are cult members, pure and simple.
I want to once again thank Jerry and Mike for encouraging this sort of bullcrap in the gaming community. Because clearly what we needed was more of this. Bravo, guys. Just effing bravo.
With that said, I can't say that it's a real censorship, since you can still buy the game elsewhere.
And the people who run Target have the right to say "we don't want to sell this game".
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Of course they do, it's their store. And I can certanly see where they are coming from. But I can't fathom how people other than the direction of the Target and Kmart can agree with people who created that petition.
Thank god for Jim Sterling.