Posted on 07/08/2005 6:30:56 PM PDT by Pharmboy
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A media watchdog group on Friday denounced the maker of the hugely popular video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" over graphic sexual content that allegedly exists in the game and can be unlocked with an Internet download. The game's plot is already objectionable to many people: Its main character carjacks for fun and profit and picks up women along the way.
But some say its content becomes sexually explicit if players download and install a modification to the game - one of many so-called "mods" available on Web sites maintained by video game enthusiasts.
"While San Andreas is already full of violent behavior and sexual themes, the pornographic sex scenes push it over the edge," said David Walsh, founder of The Minneapolis-based National Institute on the Media and the Family, which issued a "nationwide parental alert" Friday.
The controversy has prompted an investigation by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, which determines the rating on every video game sold. Rockstar Games issued a statement Friday, confirming the investigation and avoiding comment on whether its programmers created the sex scenes in the first place.
"We also feel confident that the investigation will uphold the original rating of the game, as the work of the mod community is beyond the scope of either publishers or the ESRB," the company said.
The mod's author - Patrick Wildenborg, 36, of Deventer, Netherlands - told The Associated Press on Friday that his code merely unlocks content that is already included in the code of each off-the-shelf game.
"If Rockstar Games denies that, then they're lying and I will be able to prove that," Wildenborg wrote in an e-mail. "My mod does not introduce anything to the game. All the content that is shown was already present on the DVD."
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Associated Press Writer Emily Johns in Minneapolis contributed to this report. at:
The bluenoses crack me up.
They just doubled the sales of the stupid game!
Rockstar Games would also like to thank David Walsh, founder of The Minneapolis-based National Institute on the Media and the Family, for increasing sales on its latest entry into the Grand Theft Auto series. Way to go, guys!
The minigame is unaccessable via normal gameplay. It took the release of the PC version, and reverse engineering by fans, to discover the game and release a patch that you have to download and apply on your own to unlock the minigame, which isn't even all that bad. You hit directional buttons in a certain time and pattern that does not correspond to the on-screen action. It's the same type of push-the-button game as a bounce-your-lowrider-in-time-with-the-music minigame early on.
Why is the code in the game in the first place? Because programmers have to amuse themselves during all-nighters in the months leading to a major title's release.
Because the marketing execs want to make money, so you gotta go for that all important tween and teen market.
GTA bump!!
Its a video game. Parents do the control over whether or not it gets bought. Keep the government and regulations out of my life.
the mods are an actual selling point. They are also not mods they are more easter eggs. Little treasures left by the programmers who work long hours and the eggs allow them to move though the game without actually testing.
finding mods is part of the hard core gaming.
Even windows has key sequences which give up little easter eggs.
The pinched-mouthed grannies of the holy crusade against sin can get their Depends in a bunch all they want, as far as I care.
Those games are NOT for children, and no responsible parent who keeps an eye on what their kids are up to would let the kids have them.
It's not as if they're being shoved in your mailbox like some AOL promotional CD. You have to BUY them - and I don't see anyone forcing people to buy them at gunpoint.
Can the outrage and let the market decide.
It's a good thing we have watchdog groups like this... Otherwise I might have to watch what my kids are doing myself... I have an Idea why don't we just take away free speech, choice, and hmmm remove all minorities while we're at it. Hey and while were at it we could round up all the adult game players and put them in camps too. Think it's crazy? Adolph Hitler didn't start killing Jews right off. Instead he started by labeling them and limiting their choices but that didn’t end up so bad did it?
Be careful how many rights you let slip away, it's much easier to give them up than it is to get them back.
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