GTA 5 removed from Target Australia

Started by Sethala, December 06, 2014, 01:19:10 AM

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Valthazar

Pretty sure this is the press release Sethala is talking about.  It says how, "Mr. Cooper said Target would continue to sell other R-rated DVDs and games."

http://www.target.com.au/medias/marketing/corporate/PDF/media-release/GTA-Media-Release-v2.pdf

Hemingway

Quote from: ladia2287 on December 15, 2014, 10:45:20 PM
I gather the petition came about simply because Target staff weren't enforcing the rule and a couple of kids managed to buy it, and the hysterical parents brigade kicked up a stink because it was either that or learn to tell their children they couldn't have it. As to why the game has attracted such a rating, I haven't played it myself so I don't actually know. If there is any nudity or anything that could remotely be construed as pornographic though, that might be the explanation right there.

Have you seen the actual campaign that led to its removal? If not, I recommend you take a look. It has nothing to do with parents and children, and it makes no mention of failure to enforce rules.

Kythia

Out of curiousity - are there any themes/actions possible/depictions in a game that you (vous.  Everyone in this thread) flat out think shouldn't be sold?  Not age restricted or similar, just outright banned? Anything GTAV could have contained that would make this a reasonable step?
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Caehlim

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 12:43:49 PMOut of curiousity - are there any themes/actions possible/depictions in a game that you (vous.  Everyone in this thread) flat out think shouldn't be sold?

Hmmm... honestly, no not really.

Certainly there are things that I personally wouldn't like and would be very uncomfortable with, but not that I think would justify restricting the freedom of consenting adults to use computerized algorithms to generate pixels on a screen which your imagination can turn into a narrative. That comes a little too close to 'thought police' for me to be comfortable with it.

Unless (as per current laws) it involves depictions of real people that are being shared without their permission (or if they are too young to give appropriate consenting permission) or literally incites to violence or defames real living persons or includes classified military secrets. In those cases, yes it should be banned, because it is then not something in the imagination but something capable of affecting the real world.
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Valthazar

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 12:43:49 PMOut of curiousity - are there any themes/actions possible/depictions in a game that you (vous.  Everyone in this thread) flat out think shouldn't be sold?  Not age restricted or similar, just outright banned? Anything GTAV could have contained that would make this a reasonable step?

I don't think there was anything controversial in GTA V that consenting adults couldn't enjoy as a fictional video game.

The only real controversial mission was By the Book, where one of your characters (Trevor) tortures another character via waterboarding, beating him with a wrench, electrical shocks from a car battery, and extracting a tooth using pliers.  If his pain tolerance becomes too high, you (the player) need to administer an adrenaline shot to calm him down.  The goal of this mission is to physically torture him enough to get information out of him, but not torture him too much so as to cause his death.

GTA IV was a little less extreme in this regard.  The most controversial mission was I'll Take Her which involved viewing an ad for a car sale online by a woman, going to check out the car pretending to buy it, and then kidnapping the woman in the back trunk of the car.  When she starts getting rowdy in the car during the kidnapping, Niko gives her a swift hit to the head, knocking her unconscious.  Afterwards, you (the player) need to hold her hostage as ransom to rescue your friend in prison.

Kythia

Quote from: Caehlim on December 16, 2014, 01:03:47 PM
Hmmm... honestly, no not really.

Certainly there are things that I personally wouldn't like and would be very uncomfortable with, but not that I think would justify restricting the freedom of consenting adults to use computerized algorithms to generate pixels on a screen which your imagination can turn into a narrative. That comes a little too close to 'thought police' for me to be comfortable with it.

Fair enough.  Follow on then, which I've only just thought of: If you owned a chain of shops, lets call them "Barget", would you refuse to sell the content you describe above - the stuff you would be "very uncomfortable with".  Despite not thinking it should be banned, you could still not want to be part of selling it.
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Caehlim

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 01:17:39 PMFair enough.  Follow on then, which I've only just thought of: If you owned a chain of shops, lets call them "Barget", would you refuse to sell the content you describe above - the stuff you would be "very uncomfortable with".  Despite not thinking it should be banned, you could still not want to be part of selling it.

That becomes a much more complicated question.

As a private individual, I absolutely have the right to keep out of such things.

However if I were a business owner, then I immediately have a higher level of civic responsibility (within my own personal code of ethics at least). The existence of my store, may make it impossible for another store within the same niche to open within the same area. Thereby meaning that my actions have a greater effect on society and thus deserve closer consideration going beyond my personal comfort.

I don't think I have a simple answer for this, but it would involve a lot of careful consideration for me from an ethical standpoint to make a decision like that.
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Kythia

That's interesting, and not a thought I'd considered - that you could end up creating a de facto ban on the product.  Hmmmm.  Quite taken with that.

Could it not be argued that you have a similar role as a consumer though?  That if few enough people buy a product you're creating a de facto ban on it because stores will stop selling it?  Sure, your influence as a consumer is way less than as an owner, but the principle seems the same at first glance.
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Oniya

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 02:09:57 PM
That if few enough people buy a product you're creating a de facto ban on it because stores will stop selling it?  Sure, your influence as a consumer is way less than as an owner, but the principle seems the same at first glance.

This is, of course, the principle behind boycotts, as well as behind the supply and demand economy (no demand = no reason to supply).  However, it assumes that enough people are offended by the whatever to not buy it.  It's also the sort of thing that creates niche markets, which the Internet makes much easier to provide:  Can't find it locally?  Find it on a website!
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Kythia

Niche markets require a certain type of product though.  A title like GTAV costs millions to develop, it can't be a niche market.  Either it sells widely or it doesn't exist as it can't recoup its costs. 

But yeah, I'm actually kinda getting at the flip side of boycotts.  Caehlim doesn't want to buy a product.  Neither do some other people.  None of them really make a fuss or organise anything, they just quietly carry on with their lives sans product.  The product is unpopular, so is no longer sold.  That means the people who did want to buy it can't (and also reduces the chances of similar products being developed).  If there is a civic duty to avoid creating a de facto ban as a business owner, does that trickle downwards to a consumer?  I'm still noodling through this myself but it seems like:

If it does, we should, morally, buy everything.
If it doesn't why not?  What is the difference between a private individual and a business owner that gives different moral standards to their actions?

The causation is more obvious for a business owner, sure, and they have a larger effect.  But "I only do a little bit of wrong, and you have to look hard to even see it" is shaky ground.  I dunno.  Intuitively I think there is a difference, but I'm struggling to see exactly what it is.

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Vorian

To me the difference is, as a business owner, it's one person or a very small number of people making that decision for everyone. As a consumer - it's up to the people who are interested to fund the product, not the people who aren't.
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Oniya

If the private individual doesn't buy something because it goes against their personal code, and there's otherwise a substantial demand for it, then the product gets stocked and sold, and continues to be made.
If the business owner doesn't stock something because it goes against their personal code, and there's otherwise a substantial demand for it, then the product doesn't get sold and (since it isn't profitable to make something that doesn't sell) doesn't continue to be made.

It's less of a trickle-down as a trickle-up.
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Kythia

I dunno, neither of those really sit well with me.  Vorian's seems to be just a restatement of "The amount of harm I do is small, so we can ignore it", which would maybe work if responsibility can be so diffused as to disappear?  Hmmmm.

Oniya's relies on the "and there's otherwise as substantial demand for it" which is just another way of saying "I can do whatever I like so long as enough other people do the right thing" which is obviously problematic.

Or that's how I read them anyway.  If responsibility can't be diffused in to nothingness then I think I'm leaning towards thinking business owners shouldn't take consideration of a de facto ban - that is, there's no moral difference between a private individual's actions and those of a business.  Which, when I phrase it like that, seems correct.

Meh.  I've likely devoted far too much time to this and I think *looks around* I think this may be a colossal derailment? 

I have partner waiting on posts, I guess.  Maybe I should do that instead of this.
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Mathim

Bottom line, they're going to be losing money because of their poorly thought-out scruples. If they want to fuck themselves, I say let 'em. They'll never learn better of course, even with a hard lesson like this, but they'll feel it was a moral victory. Think of it like the Writer's Guild of America strike thing.

I never had any adults put the stuff I played into context and I watched Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, etc., and played every video game out there and I'm not the slightest bit inclined to go out and do violence, or even do activities that pose a significant risk (well, being a bicycle rider in general in my town is akin to masochism, but it's my only way of getting around) so I call bullshit on anyone who wants to blame a singular cause for anyone's violent behavior. And frankly, my parent was rarely around what with work and all, so I was basically raised by the idiot box and I'm no worse for the wear, apart from being obese (we're talking psychologically). If games were that bad, and were such an enormous part of my development, I should be a raving sociopath who would have committed a school shooting or something like that. There is no such thing as a boogeyman, or a magic bullet, and these batshit parent groups need to stop treating them like such. It doesn't work that way, and frankly I don't think the world's overwhelming tendency towards delusional fantasies and wishful thinking will help discourse on the subject get anywhere positive.

I've been really into Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas lately and frankly, there's everything I've heard GTA offers, i.e. killing strippers/hookers, propositioning and using them, etc., but they at least have the decency to make it more equal opportunity, by allowing the player to choose a male or female character, and having both male and female characters in the sexual escort service trade. Also I don't know if GTA has any significant consequences for acting like a complete asshole or trying to maintain some semblance of humanity, but Fallout does have a 'Karma' system for rewarding good actions and punishing bad ones, and almost every action has long-term consequences. Frankly I'll take the game that offers the same violence with more intellectual gratification any day. And I don't discriminate; if someone's coming at me with a laser rifle, I blow their head off whether they're male or female.
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Vorian

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 02:55:23 PM
I dunno, neither of those really sit well with me.  Vorian's seems to be just a restatement of "The amount of harm I do is small, so we can ignore it", which would maybe work if responsibility can be so diffused as to disappear?  Hmmmm.

That ... isn't the case at all. My not paying for something I have no interest in does not harm anyone, forcing me to pay for things I have no interest in would harm me. If there is a market willing to pay, I am not stopping them from getting what they're interested in in any way. I have no impact on the distribution, I'm just not part of the demand.

A store - if we accept the premise that their choice not to carry something presents a significant barrier to accessibility - is cutting distribution in spite of demand. That is actually harming people, to an extent. It is the right of a store to do so, but it calls for a bit more thought than the personal likes and dislikes of the owner.
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Oniya

Quote from: Mathim on December 16, 2014, 03:13:36 PM
I never had any adults put the stuff I played into context and I watched Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, etc., and played every video game out there and I'm not the slightest bit inclined to go out and do violence, or even do activities that pose a significant risk (well, being a bicycle rider in general in my town is akin to masochism, but it's my only way of getting around) so I call bullshit on anyone who wants to blame a singular cause for anyone's violent behavior. And frankly, my parent was rarely around what with work and all, so I was basically raised by the idiot box and I'm no worse for the wear, apart from being obese (we're talking psychologically). If games were that bad, and were such an enormous part of my development, I should be a raving sociopath who would have committed a school shooting or something like that. There is no such thing as a boogeyman, or a magic bullet, and these batshit parent groups need to stop treating them like such. It doesn't work that way, and frankly I don't think the world's overwhelming tendency towards delusional fantasies and wishful thinking will help discourse on the subject get anywhere positive.

I knew I remembered reading something related to this, and it turns out that a recent study has shown more of a correlation between video game controls and aggressive behavior.  This isn't to say that it's a singular cause, but it means that something like Superman 64 or E.T. the Extra Terrestrial is more likely to cause an outburst than a bloody FPS with good controls.  (Side note - it's incredibly easy to find lists of the 'Top Ten Worst Videogame Controls', and impossible to find lists of the 'Top Ten Best Videogame Controls'.)

http://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/frustration-in-mastering-video-games-linked-to-aggression/
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
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Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Hemingway

I don't actually have a problem with Target pulling a product from their shelves. I think it's cowardly to pull a certain product but keep others which are as 'bad' - and arguably worse. It's my opinion, though, and Target and other retailers are under no obligation to listen to it. Target are probably going to lose more money to people who now avoid the stores on general principle, than they'll gain by . . . well, however they stand to gain from this. If Target pulled other mature titles from their shelves, they could likely stop selling games all together: most top-selling games fall into that category ( at least per Australia's ratings system ).

It might be a problem if you live in an area where Target is the only store that carries games, but that's somewhat of a separate matter - and certainly not a matter of civil rights.

Sethala

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 02:55:23 PM
Meh.  I've likely devoted far too much time to this and I think *looks around* I think this may be a colossal derailment? 

Still reading through the rest of the thread and thinking about what I want to say, but I wanted to pop in and say (as the TC) that no, this isn't derailment, this is the kind of discussion I was hoping for in the first place.

Sethala

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 12:43:49 PM
Out of curiousity - are there any themes/actions possible/depictions in a game that you (vous.  Everyone in this thread) flat out think shouldn't be sold?  Not age restricted or similar, just outright banned? Anything GTAV could have contained that would make this a reasonable step?

There are many things that can turn me off of a game and make me decide not to buy it, but assuming the game itself is mechanically competent (doesn't constantly freeze or break, has few noticeable glitches, runs at a decent framerate, etc), I don't think there's any content that could make it unsellable to people.  As Caehlim mentioned, there's a few exceptions if it involves real people, of course.

My response to your follow-up would pretty much echo Caehlim's.

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 02:09:57 PM
That's interesting, and not a thought I'd considered - that you could end up creating a de facto ban on the product.  Hmmmm.  Quite taken with that.

Could it not be argued that you have a similar role as a consumer though?  That if few enough people buy a product you're creating a de facto ban on it because stores will stop selling it?  Sure, your influence as a consumer is way less than as an owner, but the principle seems the same at first glance.

Honestly, the "de facto ban" is the main reason why I wanted to make this thread in the first place.  No, Target refusing to sell it doesn't make it a ban in all of Australia, but the initial petition to Target made it pretty clear that their goal was to get other stores to follow suit, which would end up in a ban of the game.

Regardless, the difference between a store not selling it and an individual not buying it is that, on an individual level, each person gets to make their own decision on whether to buy the game, and even if the game offends some people - heck, even if it offends a majority of people - it's possible to survive and exist because the section of people that aren't offended and decide to buy it are enough to sustain it.  When it happens on the store level however, now everyone, whether they want to buy the game or not, doesn't buy it, which takes away from the individual's ability to support something that not many people support.

Also, note that if this becomes widespread practice, it can lead to game developers self-censoring their games in order to meet some sort of "political correctness guideline", with the fear that if they go too far out of bounds, they don't sell the game, not because there's no interest in the game but because they don't have any one to sell their game through.  Anyone concerned with the possibility of games as art (or any medium as art, really) should be very aware that encouraging self-censorship is a sure way to kill off the artistic quality of games.  Art, after all, needs to have the option to be offensive and challenge our perceptions and thoughts.

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 02:29:52 PM
Niche markets require a certain type of product though.  A title like GTAV costs millions to develop, it can't be a niche market.  Either it sells widely or it doesn't exist as it can't recoup its costs. 

But yeah, I'm actually kinda getting at the flip side of boycotts.  Caehlim doesn't want to buy a product.  Neither do some other people.  None of them really make a fuss or organise anything, they just quietly carry on with their lives sans product.  The product is unpopular, so is no longer sold.  That means the people who did want to buy it can't (and also reduces the chances of similar products being developed).  If there is a civic duty to avoid creating a de facto ban as a business owner, does that trickle downwards to a consumer?  I'm still noodling through this myself but it seems like:

If it does, we should, morally, buy everything.
If it doesn't why not?  What is the difference between a private individual and a business owner that gives different moral standards to their actions?

The causation is more obvious for a business owner, sure, and they have a larger effect.  But "I only do a little bit of wrong, and you have to look hard to even see it" is shaky ground.  I dunno.  Intuitively I think there is a difference, but I'm struggling to see exactly what it is.

Sadly, this is simply because no matter how artistic your work is, someone still needs to pay rent and buy food.  Some countries have created funds to give to movie makers so that they can make movies without worrying about making a movie with enough widespread appeal to be profitable, because they want to encourage the growth of their culture through art, and I could easily see a country deciding to do the same for video games at some point down the line (especially with how easy it's becoming to make a game on your own).

Regardless, the difference in the examples you're giving are still different, because a single person not wanting to buy a game does not prevent anyone else from buying it, while a store deciding not to sell a game does prevent everyone from buying it.

There might also be something to be said about the decision to pull the game due to the outcry of a vocal minority, while the silent majority are happy letting the game exist or buying it.

Sethala

#44
Apologies for the triple post, but something that's somewhat relevant:

After allowing the game Hatred to be on their Greenlight system, Steam has decided to completely pull the game and decided to not sell it.

Now, for those who don't know what Steam is, imagine if every Target, Walmart, Kmart, Best Buy, and pretty much every other big-box retailer suddenly merged into one monolithic entity.  That's Steam's popularity in a nutshell.  They are, hands down, THE biggest PC game retailer.  They're influential enough that some people refuse to buy a game if it's not on Steam.  They're big enough that some other online game stores don't sell you a game, they sell you a voucher to buy the game through Steam.  Unlike with GTA being pulled from one store in one country, this is definitely going to have a rippling effect.

What's Hatred, then?  Basically, it's as if someone turned the mass-murder-simulator portion of GTA into a game on its own, where the objective is to just go out and kill as many innocent virtual people as possible before getting killed yourself.  The game came under a lot of fire just due to its subject matter, and some news sites fabricated a story about the creator of the game being a neo-Nazi (The creator himself denies it and calls the accusation ridiculous, and I have seen no reason to doubt that).

Once again, TotalBiscuit does a pretty fine job summarizing the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFb06S6F0gA

Edit: I just found out that Steam reinstated Hatred's Greenlight page earlier today, after community outcry.

Caehlim

#45
Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 02:29:52 PMWhat is the difference between a private individual and a business owner that gives different moral standards to their actions?

The same difference between a U.S. citizen and the President when we're talking about voting. Each citizen has a tiny bit of political power, which they choose to invest in a person that they think is worthwhile. So long as we keep doing this, the president is determined by the mandate of the entire society. However what if the existing president takes the power that's been entrusted to them and decides to send the military in to seize polling booths and rig the election? (We could make this a more subtle example and compare it to gerrymandering which would probably be a more accurate representation but this example is more dramatic and simple to understand).

This might seem a strange analogy, but in conscientious consumerism each person's dollars are their votes for what receives resources. If someone takes the votes that have already been given for them to exist (the money that the community has already spent at Barget on other products that has allowed it to spread far and wide) and then uses that to influence future spending on other products it removes the democratic nature of conscientious consumerism.

It's not that it's a little wrong for a consumer to determine what should be sold and this is magnified up to a business owner. Rather it's that it's right for a consumer to determine what should be sold, and the business owner could be taking this choice away from them that makes it wrong.

Edit: Just as a note, I'm arguing from a capitalism viewpoint because that's the society we live in and the sort of situation where this sort of boycott/lobbying is played out. Personally, I don't actually share the opinion that we should be in a capitalist society, but if we are going to do it I at least think we should do it right.

Edit 2: Also, there is a noteworthy exception to the above. Regardless of whether they're profitable or not, responsible stores should always stock essential items in their field of purview (life-saving medicines for example should be available in a pharmacy). To continue the democracy analogy this is similar to the way that the constitution keeps certain vital things existing even when they're not immediately popular enough to receive votes.
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Kythia

#46
No, I think the analogy works well, Caehlim.  In a country of 100 registered voters, each of them contributes one per cent of the decision to who becomes president, but that doesn't mean the president gets the sum of that and hence has 100% decision over who becomes president. 

However, I'm not entirely certain that I agree with your outcomes.  In a democracy, each person has a 1% vote on whether flibbets should be banned or not (to take a non-existent situation where the morality isn't obvious).  They pass their share of that decision on to the radically anti-flibbet presidential candidate and so long as he ends up with 51% of the decision then flibbets will be banned.  Equally, each consumer has a whatever per cent influence on whether a particular game is banned.  They pass their share of that decision on to retailers by "voting with their wallets".  In certain cases that can give a store a 51% decision on whether a game should be banned.

We now know, to ground the analogy again, that Target is the type of chain that will ban things in response to petitions.  Consumers can use that information to determine the extent to which they want Target to be "in power".  Sure we didn't know that in advance of this happening, but there are many presidential decisions we don't know how they will turn out - or even that they will have to be made at all - prior to an election.  We take our best guess and accept that the system is to some extent retroactive.

EDIT:

In essence, I think your analogy doesn't entirely hold because some decisions are passed on.  Sure, "Who becomes President" isn't, but Obamacare was.  People had an x per cent stake in it, if enough of that stake is transferred them Bam! communist pinko socialists win and democracy falls. (as I understand it)

I think the transfer to Target is of the second type.  That people are in essence saying "I can't be bothered to deal with wholesellers.  You do that for me, decide which games to make easily available".  If enough people do that in an area then yes, a de facto ban could happen.  But people have voluntarily created that decision.  Perhaps through a tyranny of small decisions sure, but they've still done it.
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Sethala

Quote from: Kythia on December 16, 2014, 11:59:28 PM
No, I think the analogy works well, Caehlim.  In a country of 100 registered voters, each of them contributes one per cent of the decision to who becomes president, but that doesn't mean the president gets the sum of that and hence has 100% decision over who becomes president. 

However, I'm not entirely certain that I agree with your outcomes.  In a democracy, each person has a 1% vote on whether flibbets should be banned or not (to take a non-existent situation where the morality isn't obvious).  They pass their share of that decision on to the radically anti-flibbet presidential candidate and so long as he ends up with 51% of the decision then flibbets will be banned.  Equally, each consumer has a whatever per cent influence on whether a particular game is banned.  They pass their share of that decision on to retailers by "voting with their wallets".  In certain cases that can give a store a 51% decision on whether a game should be banned.

Kythia, you may be confusing things a bit.  Let's say that, instead of Grand Theft Auto, the game being pulled is Blandworld.  Blandworld came out some time ago, and some people bought it, but most people ignored it because it's not a very good game.  Even though it featured several revolutionary new ideas, the game was mediocre at best and reviews were usually pretty bad.  After a while, no one bought it, so Target decided to quietly pull the game out of stores, selling off whatever copies it had to an outlet store chain.  This is a clear example of what happens when people "vote with their wallet"; no one wanted the game, no copies were sold, so the game was pulled.  GTA, however, is a massively large seller, so if the store were worried about profits on that game alone, there's no reason to take it away (as an aside, even though the game's been out for a year, it was only recently released on the next-gen systems last month, so it's still "new" in that sense).

Kythia

See my edit - sorry, realised late that I hadn't fully explained myself and I guess we crossed posts.
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Sethala

Sorry, I didn't see your edit when I made my post.  However, I think you lost me somewhere in the analogy, and I'm not quite sure how this relates to the election idea.  I am assuming that GTA is selling roughly as well as other highly-rated video games in Target, and I haven't seen anything suggesting that GTA sales in Target before the ban were unusually low, so it's not like it's the result of consumer decisions to not buy the game that caused it to be pulled.