In a statement to Kotaku Australia, Kmart has joined Target as the second major retailer in Australia to ban GTA V from their stores. For those unaware, the game recently came under fire from a petition started on the 29th of November to urge Target to remove the game from sale, because it allegedly "encourages players to commit sexual violence and kill women". 41000 signatures later, Target released this statement, saying that they would indeed take the game off the shelves. For a more detailed overview of the Target story, you should read this article.
Kmart's statement to Kotaku Australia regarding the banning of GTA V from their stores went as follows:
“Following a significant review of all content in Grand Theft Auto Games Kmart has taken the decision to remove this product immediately. Kmart apologises for not being closer to the content of this game.”It's strikingly similar to Target's press release, although I imagine that if they were actually 'closer' to the content of GTA V, they probably wouldn't have pulled it so quickly.
It's also worth mentioning that Kmart and Target are both owned by Wesfarmers, one of Australia's largest public companies. So it makes sense that they would remove it from all the store chains they happen to own. In fact, it seems according to an anonymous source that contacted Kotaku Australia, that even GTA IV and its DLC are being taken off the shelves at Kmart, but without the press release informing the public of such. We can only hope that other unaffiliated retailers don't follow suit.
I don't plan to turn this into an opinion piece, but this editorial that I wrote about Target removing the game, effectively covers how I feel about Kmart doing the same. What do you think about this? I would love to hear people's opinions on all of this, especially fellow Australians.
