Target of Australia Pulls Grand Theft Auto 5 Off Shelves

GTA V in the crosshairs of another controversy issue.

News by Grayshadow on  Dec 03, 2014

Target of Australia has pulled Rockstar’s popular and notoriously acclaimed game, Grand Theft Auto V, from its stores after a petition was launched claiming that the game encouraged violence against woman.

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General Manager of Corporate Affairs, Jim Cooper, stated that “We’ve been speaking to many customers over recent days about the game, and there is a significant level of concern about the game’s content…We feel the decision to stop feelingGTA 5 is in line with majority view of our customers.”

The Change.org petition widely cited as being the primary cause for the decision has over 40,000 signatures called “Target: Withdraw Grand Theft Auto 5, this sickening game encourages players to commit sexual violence and kill women”. “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 promoting it for your Xmas stocking…This is Grand Theft Auto 5” the petitioners claim.

In 2013 Australia created the R 18 Plus rating for adult, allowing them to be sold within the country without heavy censorship. This was present in the Australian version of Left 4 Dead where Valve removed the blood and gore of the game so it could be sold within the country before the R 18 Plus rating was introduced. 

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Grand Theft Auto V released on September 17, 2013 for Xbox 360 and PS3 to highly positive reviews and feedback from fans despite the problematic online issues and lack of heist multiplayer options. GTA V was recently rereleased for Xbox One and PS4 with updated graphics and a new first-person mode and has received similar positive feedback to its initialrelease. It’s currently slated for PC on January 27, 2015. 

Do you think that Target of Australia was wise to remove GTA V due to this petition or do you think that the Australian consumers will find another outlet to obtain GTA V? With Toys R Us removing Breaking Bad toys from their stores and now Target of Australia doing the same perhaps online petitions aren’t so worthless after all.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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Adam Siddiqui

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