Take Two hit Courts over pulled GTA IV ads

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 06 May 2008 15:55

Your IT - Entertainment

Remember the Chicago Transit Authority decided to pull ads for the crime laden blockbuster GTA IV?  Well publisher Take Two, buoyed by the games success have come back swinging.

According to publisher Take-Two Interactive Software, the pulling of advertising for the game Grand Theft Auto IV was undertaken by the Chicago Transit Authority for no good reason.

The report from Reuters says that Take-Two have sued the transit authority in the Manhattan federal court on Monday.  Citing a violation of its free speech and contractual rights (US$300,000 of contractual rights to be exact), Take-Two state that the poster ads were pulled down after only a couple of days display.

The CTA were unavailable for comment, but president Rob Huberman had previously expressed the view  “… that M-Rated ‘violent video games’ ought to be banned from its premises as they compare similarly to X-rated movie”

GTA IV continues to break sales records around the world since its April 29th release.  Actually, so far only the UK sales seem confirmed, with no firm indication of US sales yet available.

In fact, some are scratching various parts of their bodies as we await the release of U.S. Sales figures.  The ever vocal Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter can't figure it out. “No sales numbers yet, again baffling," he told Silicon Alley via e-mail: "One would think Take-Two wants to brag, but apparently that's not the case.”