Yesterday, we pointed out that the controversial “Ladies of Liberty City” video hosted at IGN, while quite unflattering, did perhaps reflect Grand Theft Auto IV’s subject material fairly — and could thereby stimulate mature discussion of the title. But we may have overestimated our country’s maturity level once again, as MTV Multiplayer soon got word that IGN had pulled the video.
Reaching out to IGN and parent company Fox for an explanation of the video’s content, MTV Multiplayer’s Stephen Totilo was told:
“IGN’s goal is to show our users all aspects of popular games on the market,” an IGN spokesperson just informed me by e-mail. “In this case, we crossed a line in how we portrayed some aspects of the game and we’ve taken this video down.”
There’s no way to tell who or what prompted the decision to remove it, but given how much Fox likes to stir up video game controversy, this outcome is somewhat surprising. If you’re still interested in seeing the sheer depravity possible in GTA IV, Boinkology is still hosting a low-res copy of the video.
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