When some video game outlets such as Polygon and Kotaku support the banning of video games at major retailers, we’ve entered a very dangerous place. We’ve had people like Jim Sterling explain away that the removal of GTA V from Kmart and Target isn’t censorship, as well as everyone’s favorite social justice warrior, Jonathan McIntosh, ridiculing gamers over the retail chain’s decision. Well, there’s one group who isn’t skirting around the issue and it’s the company who publishes GTA. Their president sees the situation for what it is: a slippery slope.

While the Game Journo Pros have attempted to stay silent on the issue as much as possible (given that attacking the feminist group calling for censorship of games like GTA V would be breaking their own narrative), Take-Two Interactive president Karl Slatoff dropped some honest comments during the BMO Capital Markets Technology and Digital Media Conference, saying [via Techraptor]…



“It's one thing for a person 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; if it's offensive to you, then you don't buy it,"



He explains that pulling GTA V from Target and Kmart is small fries, and doesn’t hurt Take-Two’s bottom line at all. However, he drives the point home saying…



“...we have 34 million people who have bought Grand Theft Auto V. 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's based on," ... "It's the freedom of expression, and to try to quelch that is a very dangerous and slippery slope to go down.”



It’s true that this is starting to turn into a slippery slope. Already there’s a new petition up [via Kotaku In Action] aiming to get GTA V removed from Canadian retailers. If they succeed then it’s just another notch on the win for those who want to destroy the gaming industry and rebuild it in the image of a radical social justice empire.

Previously, we had vocal pundits like Angry Joe and Jim Sterling exclaiming that the current third-wave feminist movement and radical social justice warriors weren’t out to “take away your games”. However, that’s exactly what it looks like.

(Don’t forget to enable subtitles/CC)

SJW Assault (Subtitled) Make sure subtitles/CC is enabled. Parody clip from the French film The Assault.

The video above may be a parody of the situation at hand, but keep in mind that the rhetoric in the petition that got GTA V pulled in the first place is the identical rhetoric from people like Sarkeesian and McIntosh.

In fact, it was once pointed out that violence in games like Hitman and GTA can be committed against both men and women equally, and that trying to paint the picture that violence against women is different than violence against men is sexist. Here was Sarkeesian’s response…



“There’s no such thing as sexism against men. That's because sexism is prejudice + power. Men are the dominant gender with power in society.”



Yahoo!’s CEO Marissa Mayer and General Motors’ CEO Mary T. Barra have more power, wealth and influence in America than most average men in the country. I imagine only a damsel in distress would adopt the Sarkeesian and McIntosh point of view, considering that “dominance” and “power” are a product of perception. Is a man that isn’t as physically strong as a woman still more dominant? Is a woman with the power to buy influence and status less powerful than a poor, physically strong man?

Anyway, if this attack against the gaming industry is bothersome to the average gamer, it has to be irksome to the people who actually make games… oh wait, it is.