Posted on 07/21/2005 11:00:49 AM PDT by Mike Bates
The maker of the popular video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" has halted production of the PC version of the game and predicted millions of dollars in lost sales due to a re-rating of the title to adults only.
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) revised the game's rating Wednesday amid a controversy over sexually explicit material in the game. The additional material is unlocked by a software modification dubbed Hot Coffee, allegedly created by hackers and readily available on the Internet.
Explicit Add-Ons
The rating revision hurts game maker Take-Two Interactive Software because stores in the U.S. won't be allowed to sell the game to anyone under 18 years old. The revised rating may also cause video game makers to spend more on increasing security in their products to avoid similar tampering with their software code.
Trouble with "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" started shortly after the PC version was released in June. Someone posted Hot Coffee on the Internet, a software modification that allowed users to play sexually explicit mini-games on the title.
The modification caused an uproar, culminating in a call by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for increased legislation and stiffer penalties to keep violent or pornographic video games away from kids. The New York senator also prodded the ESRB to revise its mature rating on "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" to adults only, which the group did.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
well...
virtual nookie is probably less damaging to the psyche than:
virtual grant theft
virtual hit-and-run felonies
virtual drive-by shootings
virtual drug running
virtaul (name your poison)
Nothing to do but laugh at the feigned outrage, and the publicity machine this game is getting. It's getting a second chance as a new release pretty much.
Sorry but I have been in the software business for over 25 years and I have to call BS on your comment.
They'll take out the "content" that "Hot Coffee" is using and rerelease the game.
They'll take a big hit on having to recall games from store shelves and create new CDs.
Since it's a third party application that is modifying the game code, rather than just entering some form of cheat code, I think the ESRB is wrong to change the rating despite the fact that the content is part of the game that's just been disabled.
Take-Two will likely be a bit more careful to strip developers toys out of their games in the future.
The game will still be sold with the content if was intended to ship with. They'll likely get a good advertising boost out of all this, and the version that's being made into Adults Only will be come a collector's item.
Oh geez this is just William J Lepetomaine "we've got to do something to protect our phoney-baloney jobs" nonsense.
Oh yeah, I'm just a newbie to Vice City (which I got for 17.00) but I'm hooked. You get your first person shooter fixes, though it's quite a bit different and a little hard to get used to. You also get brass knuckles, baseball bats, machetes, mac-10s, shotguns, pistols, Japanese long swords (can't remember the name), and a whole panoply of cars (and motorcycles) to 'jack.
I jacked a bus yesterday, was driving around blowing everything and anything out of mah way. I'm having trouble with this mission where I'm supposed to do a hit on somebody's wife and make it look like an accident... can't quite seem to kill the byotch, and when I do I haven't gotten away in time and when her car blows up, I get wasted too. But I will. I'll git her.
It's pretty cool. get a used version. I'm also working on Soldier of Fortune II. When I get sick of GTA I switch over and blow away some Russkies. It's almost more violent in terms of blowing limbs off & stuff.
And I hope every single GTA fan remember WHO was pushing for this.
katana, tachi, or no-dachi
I dont see how hackers could have inserted code into the discs they marketed.
Rockstar has some shady people working there... Kind of like Girls Gone Wild.
"...And if you have unrestricted net access, there's much better porn you could get instead. "
There is porn on the internet?
the code exists in the console version of the games, not just the PC version; it is not a mod, it's more like a cheat code to unlock the sex mini-game
well, I'm still conquering UT-2004-EC edition
Lol, it was ok for teens to shot cops, carjack, beat hookers to death and go on a kill crazy rampage but throw in some virtual sex and it's Katie bar the door. I can't believe Rockstar rolled over on this one.
So the preverted programmers blamed hackers....yeah, that's the ticket.
Maybe if they had featured Janet Reno, Mz Rodham wouldn't have gotten on their case.
I have the PS2 versions of Vice City and San Andreas. The games are hilarious and makes fun of everything. Vice City is a parody of 1980's Miami Vice, the Mafia, and Scarface. San Andreas parody's the early 90's gangsta lifestyle in South Central LA, as well as Vegas and San Francisco.
Tommy Vercetti is played by Ray Liotta from Goodfellas. The crooked cop in SA is played by Samuel L Jackson.
They probably developed it, then decided it wasn't good enough then changed the game to not hit it. Yanking code out is often harder than just making it so there's no path to the code, you never know what other stuff might be hitting some part of the code or datafiles.
Of course the funny part is I heard about the mod from Clinton, probably never would have encountered it without her busybody BS.
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