Take-Two: Removing GTA V from stores ‘flies in the face of everything that free society is based on’

Publisher Take-Two has slammed Target and Kmart’s decision to pull GTA V from its shelves.

The two Australian retailers took the game off its shelves last week due to consumer pressure regarding the game’s content.

"It’s one thing for someone to not want to buy a piece of content, which is completely understandable," president Karl Slatoff said at the BMO Capital Markets conference, according to GamesIndustry.biz.

"And that’s really the solution. If you don’t like it and it’s offensive to you, then you don’t buy it. But for a person or a group of people to try to make that decision for millions of people… We have 34 million people who bought Grand Theft Auto, and 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 is based on. It’s the freedom of expression, and to try to squelch that is a dangerous and slippery slope to go down."

He added that this won’t have an adverse impact on Take-Two’s commercial performance. "Our business is going to be completely unaffected by this; it doesn’t make a difference to us. At the end of the day though, it’s not something you want because it’s a poor leadership decision."