‘She's Not Gonna Take Your Games Away’ Says Jim Sterling; GTA 5 Gets Banned

Back during SGC 2013, Jim Sterling and Adam Sessler came to the defense of the Feminist Frequency campaign that’s led by Jonathan McIntosh and voiced by Anita Sarkeesian, to say how these kind of campaigns against the gaming industry – painting it as a misogynistic and sexist environment – wasn’t going to take your games away. So why did a petition just get an R18+ game banned from Target and Kmart stores in Australia, on account of the game promoting violence against women?

[Roccetarius]

Seems like Jim's words are returning to bite him. Madam Sessler was not much better, but this was just a matter of time.

[kingPoS]

It seems he's set on doing things his way...

If things in Australia they keep this up, in a few years, very few would even bother to publish a violent title over there for fear of legal issues and/or offending someone sensibilities.

An inverse form of censorship if you will...
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Madam Sessler... lol

Gateway MT6706 2008

[BigBosss]

am I the only one who thinks this guy is annoying

[WalterWJR]

No he also has nearly $10k worth of patrons donating to him per month, which is ridiculous.

[dieger]

Why?

[Blues Cowboy]

"So why did a petition just get an R18+ game banned from Target and Kmart stores in Australia, on account of the game promoting violence against women?"

Because Australia has a much tougher line on videogame censorship. It always has. Hardly anyone involved in any of these stores will have heard of "Feminist Frequency," Sterling or any of these actually fairly niche points of view.

Linking completely unrelated things together is great for hits, I guess.

[creatchee]

@Blues
Agreed. I swear that conspiracy theory logic has become the norm these days amongst certain gamers.

[kurruptor]

There's no link between McIntosh or Sarkeesian and the game ban in Australia. The article even admits that.

[Godmars290]

Pretty sure he's talking about the metaphorical "her". Anti-gaming feminist in general

[kurruptor]

It is a bad metaphor. Also jumping to conclusions. Australia has a history of banning games with sexual content. This isn't something new.

Sterling and Sessler weren't proven wrong.

[rainslacker]

I think in this case it wasn't really feminist gamers that were trying to ban the game, but overly protective parents who blame others for societies woes.

Anyhow, the game wasn't banned in Australia, just taken off the shelves at a couple of stores.

[LightofDarkness]

It got taken out of Target and Kmart in Australia. Big whoop. There are plenty of other avenues to get the games, even in Australia. Have some perspective guys, this is a false equivalency and an example of the "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" fallacy, and not at all a poor reflection on Jim Sterling. This has nowt to do with Sarkeesian et al and much more to do with the constant, unwavering controversy surrounding GTA.

[Blues Cowboy]

Hear hear. GTA has always been controversial and there will always be those who play it safe.

[Spotie]

But why now? The game's been out for some time now.

[WilliamUsher]

Except... GTA V is been out for an entire year already. Why wasn't it banned before?

[InTheLab]

Australia just being Australia. Has nothing to do with the twin hypocrites Sterling and Sessler.

Warned you people since 2008 about Sessler. Been warning you about Sterling when he joined the Escapist. Now, there's a thousand fools paying money on Patreon to see him Bash EA and MS but praise the people behind the anti-gamergate movement.

[Death]

The thing that irks me about comments like this is people assume you are for or against gamergate. There are quite a few people that can form their own opinions and don't care about gamergate.

The irony is those that feel gaming journalism is corrupt need to understand the majority of game journalists are fans that decided one day an internet connection and passion for games is all they needed to be journalists. Fan based sites and the internet killed "real" journalism which was marketing driven in the first place. When ad revenue and subscriptions determined a mags success everyone had to atleast appear to be professional. With web based content that relies purely on hit revenue any integrity was thrown out the window. You want to point the finger at bad journalism? Great, it starts with the idiots that give these so called journalists hit revenue.

[DragonKnight]

"The irony is those that feel gaming journalism is corrupt need to understand the majority of game journalists are fans that decided one day an internet connection and passion for games is all they needed to be journalists."

Wrong. Have you seen the majority of "fans" who call themselves game journalists try to play Bloodborne? The non-journalist actual gamers could make it passed the first boss, the "fans" known as gaming journalists couldn't.

"Fan based sites and the internet killed "real" journalism which was marketing driven in the first place."

Wrong again. The old guard are still around and have no excuse for shoddy journalism and corruption. Fansites didn't prevent them from being ethical, unbiased, and pro-consumer. They went that route themselves.

"When ad revenue and subscriptions determined a mags success everyone had to atleast appear to be professional."

Wait, there's no gaming site that makes money off of ad revenue anymore? WOW!

"Great, it starts with the idiots that give these so called journalists hit revenue."

Wrong. Again it's all about choice. These sites choose how they want themselves to be perceived, they choose how they want their stories to be done, and they choose the level of corruption they accept. There's no forced corruption brought about by gamers.

[Halo2ODST2]

Well Jim did just got fired from the escapist, no wonder, siding with radical feminists

[Death]

Wrong or you don't agree? You have a different opinion than mine, it doesn't make either of us right or wrong.

Here's something to support my opinion, back in 1995 when the original Playstation launched, how many reviewers were out there? This isn't accurate since it misses the mags that existed but it gives you a pretty good idea. http://www.metacritic.com/g... Battle Arena Toshinden had 4 critic reviews.

20 years later, how many reviewers do we see for the PS4 launch games? http://www.metacritic.com/g...
That's 88 critic reviews vs the 4 we seen 20 years ago. With the big name mags going under and game journalism as we knew it disappearing, who do you honestly think is typing on those extra 84 keyboards? If we do background checks on these critics how many do you think took journalism classes in college? How are they getting paid and is this their actual job? The majority of these unethical reviewers are people like you and I that have jobs and belong to a website where we can spew our two cents with no restrictions and no consequences. If you choose to place value in the opinions of these people, that is your choice. I have and always will choose to think on my own. I don't hold them responsible for their actions since I don't have much faith in their opinions and don't empower them to make my decisions.

What you are asking these people, what you are requiring them to do, is operate on a standard you are not willing or are incapable of doing yourself. You believe their words and even your words are worth more than everyone else. They are not.

[Wargrave]

Because there is a world of difference between views on feminism, even by those who identify themselves as one. It's like saying American's dislike war and then invade a far off country. There is a a large division in any group large enough in ideology, goals and means to get there.

On another note, Anita Sarkeesian has never said, or even hinted, that she wants to take your games away. No amount if images with red lines around out of context quotes will change that.

[DragonKnight]

"It's like saying American's dislike war and then invade a far off country. There is a a large division in any group large enough in ideology, goals and means to get there."

Bad example. The government decided for the people to engage in war, the people didn't say "we don't like war, but we gots ta kill dem terr'ists."

"On another note, Anita Sarkeesian has never said, or even hinted, that she wants to take your games away. No amount if images with red lines around out of context quotes will change that."

Actions speak louder than words. She has said she's pro-censorship. She has said she wants many themes to go away. So basically this is what she's saying.

She wants games to move away from every trope she talks about in her video series. She is an advocate for shaming tactics and censorship, which you can see is true in her GaymerX panel discussion with Carolyne Petit and Katherine Cross in which she flat out says it. She consistently posts on her twitter, and has even said in her videos, that the tropes she discusses in her videos have negative and real consequences against women in the real world.

So basically, her end goal is a development environment in which developers have been shamed into not making games with themes she doesn't like, which is a form of censorship with the end result of ideas and games never being made, therefore games being taken away preemptively. She can do nothing about games that are already made, she can prevent them from being made in the future.

Her posse is already going to Washington to try and get legislation enacted that would allow women to claim that they are afraid of someone online and have that person banned forever from whatever site said "fear" occurred on, and likely law enforcement getting involved if the individual tried making another account. How's that for wanting the free and open exchange of ideas?

[Death]

Your rights and freedoms end when they infringe on another persons rights. Anita is wrong on many levels, but holding people responsible for what they say and what they do online isn't one of them. Internet anonymity breeds stupidity. If your actions are preventing anyone from enjoying the same freedoms you do, you are not entitled to them. How is law enforcement keeping you from exchanging free and open ideas any worse than your behavior doing the same thing to others? I'm 100% for people being held responsible for their behavior online, why aren't you?

[DragonKnight]

Feelings aren't rights. Just as you said, your rights and freedoms end when they infringe on someone else's right? Welp, you feeling offended doesn't grant you the right to stop someone from exercising the right to freedom of expression. That's not how it works. You literally just said you're pro-censorship. I guess you love that GTA 5 was taken off of Target's shelves in Australia right? 45K feminists "felt" that the game promotes sexual violence against women and rather than exercise the right to not buy the game and not expose the people they personally know or are responsible for to the game, they instead used their feelings to infringe on the rights of consumers to buy the game at Target, limiting access because of how they feel not because of any rights or facts.

Being held responsible for behavior doesn't mean granting carte blanche to people to use their subjective emotions to end rights. You may want to live in a feminist dictatorship where your every action is governed by how the woman next to you happens to be feeling at any one time, but most people in the world don't want that.

[Death]

Live in a feminist dictatorship? What planet do you live on? A man telling a woman he is going to rape her, kill her and rape her again isn't simply offensive. If the man or woman being told this believes it is possible, it's verbal assault which is punishable by law. If you intimidate someone with the words you use, it's not just offensive.

I am absolutely pro-censorship. I censor things from my children daily. Does this mean I believe Target should pull GTA? No. I believe it is a parents responsibility to make sure their children are not exposed to content not suitable for their age. Do I believe you should be able to dictate what Target carries? No. You are just as wrong as the group telling Target to pull the game. Neither them or you should have that ability. Target should be able to carry what they want without outside pressure.

No one is saying women should get a blanket protection order that allows them to throw off any guy they think is offensive. I'm not sure why you feel the need to over exaggerate and sensationalize things. I can only guess it's because you feel your argument is weak and can't stand on it's own merits.

Are you even aware of what a feminist is? By definition it is a person who believe in the equal rights of women. I personally believe in the equal rights to all men and women regardless of their race, color, gender, age, or sexual orientation. In my eyes we are all created equal. If my beliefs make me a feminist than I guess it is one more label you can apply to me. I also believe you feeling women shouldn't be or aren't equal to men says a lot about you.

[Blues Cowboy]

You're saying that like she has any actual power to take your games away even if she wanted to, which she doesn't. She's a YouTuber pointing out tropes that videogames commonly use. That's it. Just like anyone else out there on the internet making videos about stuff they don't like.

Jack Thompson was a real threat to games before the court ruling guaranteeing their protection. Sarkeesian is just someone who makes videos about stuff. Let's get some perspective here.

[DragonKnight]

@Blues Cowboy: Starting with you since it won't take much to answer your point. You think she's "just" a youtuber but you'd be wrong. This woman is thinking bigger picture than youtube. She wants her videos taught in schools, and her friends are going to Washington to have legislation enacted to "protect" women from feeling scared online. These women are organized, they have increasing support, and they are proponents of shame tactics and censorship. Is it out of your scope to conceive of a situation in which these women don't want certain games out that they won't actively try to make sure that that happens? People like her have succeeded in getting GTA V off store shelves, and you don't think that it can go beyond that?

[DragonKnight]

@Death: Paragraph 1: You've just described a situation in which a person's feelings override rights. I can literally say right now that I feel attacked by what you are saying and have your right to comment completely removed in the world you're advocating for. It is impossible, repeat IMPOSSIBLE, to say that an online threat is legitimate. Hell, it happened to Anita Sarkeesian herself with the Utah university and both the said University and the Police said there was no credibility to the threat. You're arguing for the idea that just because Anita said she felt threatened that the police, who don't believe the threat was credible, should still have arrested the man and the University should have broken the law and gone against Utah's State Gun Laws. You're advocating for the revocation or suspension of any number of rights/laws based on how ONE woman feels at the time.

Paragraph 2: You are responsible for a child's upbringing and that's a VERY different situation. You even just said it's not suitable for their age, and so that's not really censorship that's just a delay. I have every reason to believe that were your kids old enough you'd let them play those games, but those women don't care about that. They are grown women who removed the rights of consumers to, as adults, have access to GTA V from target. They limited the sale of a game, as adults with the freedom to NOT buy the game, from other adults because of how they felt. Not because of any rights violations.

"No. You are just as wrong as the group telling Target to pull the game."

Right, because saying that a person's feelings shouldn't be able to rescind rights is wrong. Ok, well I feel that you are a threat so I will now have cgoodno ban you from the site because of it. Sounds stupid doesn't it?

Paragraph 3: Umm, Celebgate & Gamergate buddy, look it up. They want blanket protection for women online and are going to Washington to get it using a court precedent. It's happening, whether you choose to believe it or not, they are trying to enact legislation for it right now.

"By definition it is a person who believe in the equal rights of women."

And by actions it's not. Right now, feminists have removed a game from store shelves. In the past, they've shut down male only shelters claiming they provide sanctuary to rapists, they've shut down conferences if even the title of the conference hints at male rights, they've said that male rape victims must have liked it, they have successfully had laws that reduce their sentences compared to men in countries like the U.K. Right, that's a lot of "equality" there.

"I also believe you feeling women shouldn't be or aren't equal to men says a lot about you."

Go ahead and quote me where I said that. Oh you can't, because you're drawing conclusions and making assumptions based on literally nothing more than the fact I don't like feminists trying to nanny/censor the world based on their feelings. The absolute irony of this whole thing is that if it were a Christian group that did this, you'd probably jump on the bandwagon of "Religion needs to be killed" sentimentality.

[mediate-this]

Anita is a fraud, a very good sociopath, manipulating people for her own agenda. Anita is not a GAMER!!!!!! Anita said point blank in a seminar that she is not a gamer or a fan, she just needed to study about games and do research on games.

I honestly believe anita will be the one kill gaming, f**k feminism. Over sensitive b****s

[Death]

DK, they can't pass a law that is deemed illegal by the Constitution of the United States. Anyone can make a motion or present a Bill to congress. It won't get approved if it violates existing laws which the proposal you give does. Last I seen there were 362 men in the House and 76 women. The Senate had 83 men and 17 women. I'm pretty sure your fears of a feminist movement sweeping through congress giving women some crazy unfair advantage over men is unfounded. Women were not even allowed to vote until 1920. To put that in perspective, it was during my grand mothers lifetime. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the time women and also African-Americans voting rights were actually protected. That was in my mothers lifetime. Your fictional universe where women have more rights is a long, long way off. I'll be dead before women and minorities in this country are actually viewed as equals to the majority of the populous.

You really want to play the quote card? Remember this gem from way back an hour ago, "You literally just said you're pro-censorship."? I don't remember saying that at the time.

As far as my views on Christianity, I am proud to say Christ is my Lord and Savior. I'm also pro-life if that is your next question.

Ok, that's kind of funny. Death is pro-life. ;)

[DragonKnight]

@Death Paragraph 1: "DK, they can't pass a law that is deemed illegal by the Constitution of the United States. Anyone can make a motion or present a Bill to congress. It won't get approved if it violates existing laws which the proposal you give does."

Oh, you mean your Constitution which is violated by your government on a daily basis, that has been practically null and void since The Patriot Act, and is constantly s*** upon all the time? That Constitution that hasn't protected a young teenage boy from being arrested while playing League of Legends for joking about shooting up a school around the time of Sandy Hook? That Constitution?

"Last I seen there were 362 men in the House and 76 women. The Senate had 83 men and 17 women. I'm pretty sure your fears of a feminist movement sweeping through congress giving women some crazy unfair advantage over men is unfounded."

Which is why men get less harsh prison sentences than women? Oh wait. Which is why men win custody battles all the time? Oh wait. Which is why men win divorce settlement cases all the time? Oh wait. I can keep going to prove to you that a majority male government does nothing to prevent feminist driven policies.

"Women were not even allowed to vote until 1920."

Myth. Women of wealth were voting well before 1920 and don't even try to act like men always had the right to vote either. Voting started out as something only nobility could do, then it extended to those with military service, then to men and women of wealth, then to ordinary men, then to women, then to minorities.

"Your fictional universe where women have more rights is a long, long way off. I'll be dead before women and minorities in this country are actually viewed as equals to the majority of the populous."

Can a woman or person of color work and receive the same wages for the same amount of work? Yes. Is a woman or person of color entitled to representation in cases of legal matters? Yes. Can a woman or person of color own property and vote? Yes. Can a woman or person of color freely choose to express themselves as they wish? Yes. Can a woman or person of color receive government aid should the need arise such as in the case of welfare, food stamps, etc..? Yes.

WOW LOOK AT ALL THE INEQUALITY!!! Oh wait, you think equality has to do with stopping people from being able to say things that might hurt someone's feels as they walk down the street. May as well cut out that "freedom of expression" idea that has always been so problematic.

"You really want to play the quote card? Remember this gem from way back an hour ago, "You literally just said you're pro-censorship."? I don't remember saying that at the time."

The absolute hilarity of you trying to use this against me is that you literally said you're pro-censorship after that comment. Try again?

"As far as my views on Christianity, I am proud to say Christ is my Lord and Savior. I'm also pro-life if that is your next question."

Then replace Christianity with another religion and the point remains the same.

[Death]

People still get pulled over for DWB's where I live. Please don't tell me you believe we are all treated equally. Do you not watch the news or stay up on current events? The simple fact the Senate and House are so unequal shows how wrong you are on your views of equality in this country. After two hundred years we finally have our first African-American president and have yet to see a female President. Women of wealth that had land ownership could vote prior to 1920. That by all means sounds like equality. Do you actually believe what you are saying or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? I'm really trying very hard to take you seriously, but you are making it very difficult.

[BattleTorn]

To be honest, I was expecting Anita to speak out against Target removing GTA V, because it was a prime opportunity for her to disprove everyone who suggests she is.

She didn't though

[Halo2ODST2]

Lol

[DragonKnight]

Yet.

[DragonKnight]

(Why did this post here?)

@Death: You did not just try to use the always easily debunked argument of Equality of Outcome. Tell me you didn't just try to equate Equality with a state in which all people are treated by all other people as equals, and where representation quotas are put in place and try to call that equality.

That's not equality. Equality is already in place. It's a system of laws and rights put in place to grant everyone equal opportunities to live, work, own property, and prosper.

The fact that it took 200 years to have a Black President is not a symptom of inequality. It's a symptom of choices. Do you think Obama was the first to try and run for President as a Black Man? The same applies to a female President. You shouldn't have a woman as President "just because." The office of President should be occupied by the individual with the most support and best ability to run the country, it shouldn't just be handed to someone based on their skin color or genitals. Wow.

To be clear here, your idea of equality, perfectly in tune with radical feminism, is one where your right to free expression is conditional upon how someone feels. It's a state in which there had better not be an unequal amount of people in any workforce because the population is around 50/50 between the sexes so obviously if the Senate has more men than women it must be due to inequality and not the fact that women just didn't want to be a part of the government.

Your idea of equality is a state in which people will be thought policed, and shamed, to treat everyone exactly the same no matter what circumstances exist and the complexities of social interaction there are. Your form of equality lumps together so many alien concepts that are actually inequalities but you don't care so long as the end result matches what YOU THINK is equality.

Newsflash, DWB isn't a symptom of social inequality. It's a symptom of racist douchebags who will still be racist douchebags no matter what laws you try to put into place. They'll just get better at not being caught.

More men than women in the Senate is not social inequality. There hasn't been a single feminist in the world that can prove women are literally being prevented from joining government. Their entire argument hinges on emotional appeal and weak willed people to believe that there's some kind of hostile environment that women avoid rather than the STUDIED fact that women tend to choose more emotionally or spiritually fulfilling jobs, which no one would ever accuse public service of being.

And when you're going to try and say something like "women couldn't vote before 1920" then get called out on it, try not to nitpick because you were wrong and equate the state of society nearly 100 years ago to today's society. 400 years ago slavery was a thing, wow the Present Day is filled with such inequality because of people who've been dead for centuries.

[MoveTheGlow]

Australia is Australia. They've banned games for years without anyone's help. Nothing new. When criticism gets turned into policy, it's a shame, but criticism shouldn't be blamed for bad policy-making. The statement of a problem does not imply a particular solution inherently, and I bet Sarkeesian would rather that designers took those critiques into account than angry people running rampant over game sales post-creation.

[WilliamUsher]

You do know that the guy who runs Feminist Frequency and writes for Anita supports GTA V being banned right?

It's literally linked right there in the article.

It's hard to believe that gamers are defending one of the biggest properties being taking off shelves due to a radical social movement.

I can't believe there are people who attacked Jack Thompson for wanting to do the same thing, but are now giving a free pass to the same kind of movement under a different name.

This is insane.

[aliengmr]

For a movement so concerned with "proper games journalism" it sure produces a ton of conspiracy laden, crap articles.

Businesses get to decide what they want to sell. VERY different from making them illegal. GTAV wasn't banned a couple stores that make little to no revenue on video game sales, decided to not sell a game. Along the way they decided to generate a little internet buzz and viola...

Gamers aren't the center of the retail universe. You don't get to dictate what stores can and cannot sell.

[Kenshin_BATT0USAI]

This whole #gamergate thing aside, I can't believe some of you are actually defending this. Absolutely ridiculous.

[aliengmr]

And I can't believe that all of a sudden people are freaking out over a game getting banned in Australia.

Its one outlet too, not the entire country. Its not like the government is banning the game.

A private company has the right to sell what it wants to sell. Its one of the realities of the business side of games. You can't force people to sell your game or buy it.

Besides its not like Target and Kmart are expecting massive sales on the game at this point which is probably why they "suddenly" decided to pull a PR move.

[rainslacker]

It's a couple of companies doing what they feel is right based on what their customers apparently want. I don't support it personally, but if they want to make some misguided attempt at appeasing a rather small sub-set of their customers for what I assume is them avoiding controversy, then so be it.

I never saw this as a GG or feminist thing really. The original petition wasn't even tied to either group. It was apparently started by a concerned parent. The allegations presented in the petition were downright wrong, but that's just par for the course for these kinds of attacks on games.

[angelwrath]

Wow, Jim sure has last a lot of weight

[McToasty207]

Not sure if any of the people commenting on this are actually Australia and thus perhaps don't understand the ramifications of GTA being banned in Target and K-Mart, which is to say none. Both stores predominately sell clothes,bed linen, technology and some video-games which are always marked up substantially. People who buy games there tend to be uninformed parents or grandparents buying little Timmy GTA for Christmas which actively spits in the face of having an R18 game rating. This is one of the least substantive arguments I've ever read and frankly is just that 1/2 gaming media complaining at Sarkesian again. I don't even like the women but frankly this debate is getting old and stale, do some videogames have misogynistic elements? Yeap! Do some movies? Yeap! Is this an Issue? Yeap! ARGUMENT OVER.