Naughty–San Andreas Now Rated Adult-Only
This just in: Gang wars, cop killing and random pedestrian crushings are okay; dry-humping is not.
A little article was published on CNN (of all sources, heh) about Rockstar’s baby Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas having explicit content, which now increases the game’s ESRB rating from that of “M” for Mature to “AO” or Adult Only. Why? Simply because it was found that a small mini-game, which was edited out of the released version’s actual gameplay, was discovered by the GTA Modding community. In this mini-game you have “explicit” sex with a female chatacter. Apparently the mini-game exists in not only the PC version, but the PS2 and XBox versions as well.
The mod is dubbed “Hot Coffee” and can be downloaded in a PC version and a Xbox version from Gamers Hell (at least for now as GTA Garage has already taken it down), and with a little bit more work, you can also do it with a PS2.
Considering the large uproar about the content on the GTA discs, the author of the mod as made the following statement:
“All the contents of this mod was already available on the original disks. Therefor the scriptcode, the models, the animations and the dialogs by the original voice-actors were all created by RockStar. The only thing I had to do to enable the mini-games was toggling a single bit in the main.scm file. (Of course it was not easy to find the correct bit). The Nude models that are used as a bonus in the Quick action version of the mod, were also already present on the original disk.
But all this material is completely inaccessible in an unmodded version of the game. It can therefor not be considered a cheat, Easter-egg or hidden feature. But is most probably just leftover material from a gameplay idea that didn’t make the final release. I would really like to stress that this material is only accessible after willfully applying the hot coffee mod (or something similar) to the game.” — PatrickW.
I think this is all absolutely ridiculous. I doubt even 5% of all people who owned the game even knew about this before the ESRB got involved, with them comes the media. Apparently killing cops/pedestrians/anything that moves is fine, as long as there isn’t semi-nude dry humping going on. Funnier still, they completely let a cut scene with fellatio pass under their nose then they originally classified it as a Mature game.
The ESRB didn’t do anything when the nude Sims patch was all the rage. Of course, the Sims patch is a bit of a different scenario as the explicit content in San Andreas is actually located on the game disc, whereas the Sims patch is a completely user-based modification. No matter how you look at it, though. the means are the same: you download something from the internet to unlock the ability to experience game content that wasn’t originally intended for consumers.
I could potentially buy a $15 copy of Starcraft, break the disc in half, and stab someone to death with it. Does that mean that PC games should be classified as lethal weapons? Obviously not.
I know that’s a far-fetched example, but you get the point and I digress.
After news (CNN, GameSpot, Geek.com. The Inquirer…) got out Take-Two interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, stated that it expects to suffer financially from this incident. They have lowered their expectations for the current quarter and even fiscal year expecting that many consumers will be returning the games for refund. They figure that their net sales could even decrease by more than $50 million during this quarter, ending July 31. [Source: CNN]
I don’t think that this will hurt them at all. I expect that there might be maybe 20 or 30 moms out there, everywhere, that are involved enough with their kids’ gaming habits they they’d even know which console they bought little Jimmy last Christmas. I think this just gives the game more hype. Since there is so much controversy already surrounding the Grand Theft Auto franchise as it’s reputation is basically built on killing cops and maniac driving, I think this will just fuel their sales. I guess we’ll see.
I really don’t think this is a big deal. The whole situation was probably just caused by a slow-news day, and Rockstar and Take-Two will not suffer at all. IF anything, this will help the GTA franchise live up to it’s name.
Update:
Apparently Hilary Clinton has called for a $90-million investigation on the effects of Kids playing video games, and she has taken a special interest in the GTA franchise. Read Steven Johnson’s open letter to the Senator. This is ridiculous.
“I know a congressional investigation into football won’t play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.”
Download The Mod:
PC version, Xbox version, PS2 hack
Other Links
- PatrickW: The original creator of the mod
- CNN: Sex scenes force re-rating of best-selling game
- GameSpot: Confirmed: Sex minigame in PS2 San Andreas
- The Inquirer: Rockstar reacts to storm in a hot coffee cup
- Geek.com: GTA “Hot Coffee” mod gets Washington steamed.
