Grand Theft Auto, at this point, is synonymous with controversy. It's the poster child for anti-video game violence lawsuits, and over the years, the question of whether or not the games should even be produced has been raised on more than one occasion. Nine times out of ten, the case boils down to "children shouldn't view this content," but lately, the controversy surrounding GTA has been a bit different.
Last week, Australian retailers began to pull GTA V from store shelves due to alleged 'violence against women' within the game. Of course, there's no real scripted violence against women within the game, but that's besides the point: the issue became about freedom to purchase whatever one wanted, and while subsequent sarcastic jokes may have muddled the issue a bit, it still came down to the basic freedom to own a product.
For what seemed like forever, the higher-ups behind the game stayed quiet. Of course, a lack of a statement is pretty typical in cases like these, but Take-Two President Karl Slatoff spoke about the issue at the BMO Capital Markets 2014 Technology & Digital Media Conference earlier today:
"It's one thing for someone to not want to buy a piece of content, which is completely understandable. And that's really the solution. If you don't like it and it's offensive to you, then you don't buy it.
"But for a person or a group of people to try to make that decision for millions of people... We have 34 million people who bought Grand Theft Auto, and if these folks had their way, none of those people would be able to buy Grand Theft Auto. And that really just flies in the face of everything that free society is based on. It's the freedom of expression, and to try to squelch that is a dangerous and slippery slope to go down.
"So it's really more disappointing for us in that regard than it is in the context of our business. Our business is going to be completely unaffected by this; it doesn't make a difference to us. At the end of the day though, it's not something you want because it's a poor leadership decision."
Let's be honest: Slatoff is right. While the possibility of violence against women (the original issue the petition was based on) is indeed possible in the game, it's neither required or encouraged. It's a game in which players can do anything, regardless of whether or not the target is female. Again, there's no scripted violence against women anywhere within the game, and there's no point in the story that forces players to hurt women in order to advance.
The issue becomes something else entirely when a small group of people are able to control the distribution of a product because they have a problem with it. Yes, there were many signatures on the petition, but there's a very slim chance that it outnumbered the people who were actually playing the game. Thankfully, the game wasn't outright banned in Australia, meaning that there are still other places to purchase GTA V (Slatoff even reminded fans of that fact), but it's still upsetting that such a small, vocal minority was able to ruin the fun of so many players.
Either way, GTA V is banned from K-Mart and Target in Australia. Does it really matter? Not really, seeing as how Rockstar is far from hurting and players still have plenty of options to pick up the game. That being said, Australia has a long history of censorship and bans when it comes to video games, and such an incident could spell danger further on down the line.
Let's just hope that nothing like this ever happens over here in the States.
