The Australian gaming community has responded – in the trolliest way possible – to Target Australia’s decision to yank award winning mugging simulator GTA V from its shelves by launching their own petitions.

In case you missed it, Target this week yielded to the pressure of “consumer feedback” demanding all copies of the game be stricken from its shelves over concerns that a fictional gaming series about murdering people had explicit depictions of violence, sexuality and polygon humans getting blown up by rocket launchers.

Launched last weekend, a Change.org petition signed by thousands of Australians cited its “sexual violence, sexual exploitation” and “the abuse of women as ‘entertainment” as grounds for removal.

Target quickly obliged.

As we reported on Wednesday: “The game, which carries an R Rating in Australia, has been out for quite some time as it stands. But this new push comes after the re-release of it, with updated graphics and features for new generation consoles Xbox One and Playstation 4. The new, updated version of the game contains a first-person mode, which is where this new round of controversy stems from. The petition cited this YouTube video as a specific example, wherein a player picks up a sex worker in-game, before running her over, blowing her up and lighting her on fire with a hand grenade, and repeatedly shooting her with an assault rifle.”

As we noted then the game can’t currently be bought by people under the age of 18, is no more dangerous to society than a YA fiction blockbuster about wild running youths slaying each other and neither requires/rewards players for killing sex workers.

Fans of the game have responded with appropriate incredulousness to the moral double standards video games are often held to, launching their own tongue in cheek change.org petitions asking for Target to change its “violent name and aggressive logo” and to stop stocking erotic fiction novel, Fifty Shades Of Grey.

As they note: “As Target Australia has “protected” the children by banning GTA V, we think it to be only fair and consistent to BAN “Fifty Shades of Grey”. We must “protect” the children…”

