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Rockstar Games: Hot Coffee = Hot Water [UPDATED]

Someone emailed to ask my opinion on the whole Grand Theft Auto: SA thing (in which a hidden mini-game with explicit sexual content was found through a third party mod).

The "Hot Coffee" mod saw players taking their girlfriend home and then having sex with her in a mini-game that, while present on the game DVD, only came to light after a PC modification unlocked the code. The data was subsequently found to be resident on the PS2 and Xbox discs and could be unlocked on PS2 using Datel's Action Replay cheat-finder product.

Quick take; Rockstar Games is the worst thing to happen to the video game business. At first they denied they put the hidden content in, blaming it on hackers, but later it became apparent that wasn't the case.

This isn't just a matter of having to change a rating on a game - The ESRB wants the rating changed from M (mature, 17 and over) to A/O (Adults Only, meaning video game porn). And while you can argue until the cows come home that the ESRB, politicians and the media are overreacting because there are games with head-shot kills and incredible violence and they're worried about some characters in GTA humping, the long story short is, Rockstar Games fucked up. Not only does the rating have to be changed, meaning the game has to be pulled from shelves (Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and Best Buy are all pulling) and sent back, but a lot of stores aren't going to carry the newly rated version. I can see where some video game chains don't want to carry something labeled as porn (also, there are financial ramifications).

If the mod/mini game was a publicity stunt by RG, it's biting them in the ass BIG TIME. And it's giving a huge black eye to the gaming industry, which doesn't have a good eye to spare, really.

I do think politicians should stay out of the gaming business and let parents determine what their kids can and can't play. It's part and parcel of the nanny state of liberalism, coupled with the prurient state of conservatism, that leads to ratings and enforcement of those ratings via retailers. It shouldn't be up to Joe Lieberman or Gary the EB Games clerk what our children can purchase. That's a parenting decision that shouldn't be legislated.

And does anyone else think this is like changing the rating of a movie after everyone's already seen it? "Oh, I'm sorry. That movie should have been rated NC 17. Wipe your mind and come see it again!" The rating change is probably a futile answer to a complex problem.

Hilary Clinton: "There is no doubting the fact that the widespread availability of sexually explicit and graphically violent video games makes the challenge of parenting much harder.."

How? How does it make it harder? Don't give me that "takes a village" crap, either. The challenge of parenting includes boundaries, guidelines and oh, not buying things for your kids that you don't want them to have, not letting play those games in your house and monitoring what they do/watch/listen to at their friend's houses if that kind of thing worries you so much. It also involves teaching your kids that just people who die on tv or in video games...wait for it...don't die in real life! It's fake! And here's a challengve: Instead of being so shocked that your kid is robbing pixelated taxi drivers and humping cartoon hos that you run to Congress to enact a law to forbid it, you TAKE THE GAME AWAY FROM HIM. How hard is that? And if it offends you so much that he's playing at someone else's house, don't let him go there. It's as simple as saying NO, something a lot of parents these days have forgotten how to do.

But back to Rockstar Games: The fact that they denied this easter egg of a treat was their doing is wrong on their part. Maybe they thought that when the content was discovered (which they knew it would be) it would bring publicity (no such thing as bad publicity!) to their product, thus boosting any lagging sales. But what they didn't think about was how this would affect the stores that carry their products and the gaming industry as a whole.

I think the problem lies with the fact that the general consensus among the non-game playing public is still that video games are for kids, are something only children play. They see a game with violence or nudity and they gasp in unison as they imagine nine year old kids killing soldiers and watching Lara Croft's jiggling breasts. The people who are horrified over M rated games need to look at some stats and see who the biggest game players are. (see, also: Think of the Childrens)

And if Hilary is so upset that violent and sexual video games have "fallen into the hands of young people across the country" maybe she and her cronies should be addressing the parents of those young kids. Someone is buying the games, and they are being played in someone's house. Don't blame the industry, blame a lack of supervision, blame lenient parents, blame lazy parents who don't take the time to see what's entertaining their children.

Or, perhaps we can look at some of the parents and congratulate them for teaching their kids the difference between reality and some pixels on a screen.

Either way, Rockstar Games has fucked over their own industry with this fiasco.

Rockstar CEO Paul Eibeler: "We are deeply concerned that the publicity surrounding these unauthorized modifications has caused the game to be misrepresented to the public and has detracted from the creative merits of this award winning product."

Bullshit. You're sorry that it's going to cost you. Like this person says: They should have released two versions or deleted the mod - and NEVER called it a hack. And honestly, as much as I love video games and play my share of violent titles, I think GTA is BORING. With or without adult situations.

[Wrote this in a real hurry, will probably edit, clarify, proofread later. I meant for this to run about four sentences, tops.]

Update: I should mention that I don't think the rating system itself should be abandoned - it pretty much protects retailers against litigious parents who send their children off by themselves to the store with a wad of cash and then act horrified when they come home with something violent.

Also, Penny Arcade had something on this yesterday I wanted to link to, but their site is wonky this morning.

Much more at Somebody Bitchslap Rockstar

Update: IT WAS TEH HAX0RZ!

Comments

They've shot themselves in the foot. Watch as their revenue stream flows in a bit torrent once the game gets banned.

3rd person makes me dizzy anyway. I'll pass.

EGADS! You want parents to take responsibility for their children????

WTF is wrong with you???

In case there is any doubt, that was sarcasm. My kid (9) doesn't play any game on his GBA until its vetted by my much-better-half or me. He uses AOL to get to the web because their filters are the best value for the dollar, and it reports where he goes each session. That's just the way it ought to be.

Personally, I don't think the ratings system is a bad thing, and I don't think clerks should be selling M or AO games to kids under 17 (same thing with movies). Yeah, ultimately it's up to parents, but ratings are supposed to help parents know what's in games.

As for Rockstar, I think Penny Arcade summed it up nicely yesterday.

I wanted to link to PA but their site is wonky this morning.

I think you're right Michele, the argument over games/music/etc is resultant of what seems to be a widespread culture of parenting that involves being some kind of pussy. Parents somehow argue that corporations are responsible for the products their children use, only because this line allows them to completely disown the real problem: the fact that they don't care or don't 'have time' to care. It kind of worries me because one day soon I'll probably have a kid or two, and this parenting current will no doubt be as strong (stronger?) as it is now, making it all the more hard for me to be a good parent.

I consider myself a liberal but I agree with Michele that parents need to take responsibility for what there children do.

Unfortunately, it looks like our "denial" society is being spread around the world.

Greg Costikyan has a good blog article on the industry rules Rockstar broke by leaving the code in the game: Somebody Bitchslap Rockstar.

The title sums up my feelings nicely.

shank,
Don't worry about the "parenting current". When you become a parent, you'll be criticized no matter what you do.

michele,
AMEN! Preach Sister! I don't mean to be the bearer of disturbing news, but did you know that if you take away the "public morality" stuff in this post, your parenting philosophy is almost identical to James Dobson's ? For half of that post I felt like I was reading "The Strong Willed Child - The Unrated Director's Cut"!

Seriously - there are a whole lot of derelect parents out there. If you think something is a bad influence, filtering it out using some external force is not teaching your kids how to say "NO" themselves. And isn't that one of the major goals of parenting?

Bleh. The "explicit" sex scenes in San Andreas -- which consist of nothing more than animated dry-humping, and are therefore hardly explicit -- are not easter eggs (as you state), nor are they unlockables, hidden content or anything of the sort. They are dead code from a disabled feature. Games and other software are loaded with dead code, and it's indicative of the ignorance of those now criticizing Rockstar that no one understands how such dead code can be modded back into life again.

Should Rockstar have come clean from the outset? Certainly. Not that it would have stopped people like you, who think they're the worst thing to happen to the videogame industry, from tearing them a new one no matter how this played out.

The truth is that up until this point, Rockstar has been a huge boon to the video game industry, both in financial and creative terms. Unfortunately, by insisting on making games that come close to the content seen in film, they have managed to freak out every simpleton in a position of power (and many who are not) over the mistaken idea that video games are for children, and therefore should remain as bland as possible.

Like everything else that's happened to the lightning rod that is GTA this, too, shall pass. The old version of the game will make its way into the secondary market and sell like mad. The new version won't sell as well, but no one will care, since Rockstar already made big bucks in the first few months of its release. Another GTA game will amble along, the usual suspects will screech about how the sky is falling, Rockstar will move a zillion units and all will be forgiven by the bean-counters.

My issue is not with the content itself and what to call it, it's that Rockstar didn't come clean to begin with. This affects more than them - it affects a whole industry.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this doesn't hurt Rockstar one bit in the short term.

For the most part, all the kids that were going to buy San Andreas have already bought it, so I don't see much lost revenue there. Besides, kids who want a game aren't going to let something as silly as a rating stop them. They'll get their hands on it if they want it, and the rating only makes them want it more. More importantly, with all this media hubbub and the ratings change, I suspect there's now going to be a rush of adults who would've never bought it before who will buy it now just out of curiousity. I think this played right into their hand.

Longer term, this may have an impact, but right now if I were Rockstar, I wouldn't be overly concerned.

I agree with Michele that Rockstar blew it by not coming clean immediately, but I don't think this will affect their profits one bit. The fact that this game blows monkey chunks of vomit will affect its profit potential long-term, but the Hot Coffee mod will probably only increase their profits from the game.

Dave's right. I played GTA: III & Vice City to death, but never even thought of buying SA. Now I'm thinking about it.

Of course, if it's just dry humping, I might not.

Who would think a game that you are a gang member and assigned to kill people would ever be for children in the first place? If a parent decides this game is suitable for their child, the "sex scenes" are fine too.

Barry: The improved gameplay (you can SWIM now!) alone is worth it if you enjoyed 3 and Vice City.

Really, I don't see the point of the analogy with the movie, though. A movie is, after all, non-interactive content, with no way to have disabled features you have to download an un-advertised third-party tool from the internet to see.

Nobody could "accidentally" come across this content, and any "kid" who both had SA, and internet access, and the lack of supervision required to see simulated not-very-explicit sex on the game, could use that same internet access to get real hardcore tab-A-in-slot-B-and-hey-look-bodily-fluids porn involving actual human beings, from the same Internet.

Yeah, Rockstar should have been more forthcoming and clear from the beginning. But looking at the way the crusaders who led this whole fiasco portrayed things, I imagine the Rockstar people, quite reasonably, thought that nobody would listen to them or care about the important difference between unlockable live code, and dead code someone else patches back in.

I'll be buying GTA:Whatever-the-next-sequel-is, personally.

"There is no doubting the fact that the widespread availability of sexually explicit and graphically violent video games makes the challenge of parenting much harder.."

How? How does it make it harder? Don't give me that "takes a village" crap, either. The challenge of parenting includes boundaries, guidelines and oh, not buying things for your kids that you don't want them to have, not letting play those games in your house and monitoring what they do/watch/listen to at their friend's houses if that kind of thing worries you so much. It also involves teaching your kids that just people who die on tv or in video games...wait for it...don't die in real life! It's fake! And here's a challengve: Instead of being so shocked that your kid is robbing pixelated taxi drivers and humping cartoon hos that you run to Congress to enact a law to forbid it, you TAKE THE GAME AWAY FROM HIM. How hard is that? And if it offends you so much that he's playing at someone else's house, don't let him go there. It's as simple as saying NO, something a lot of parents these days have forgotten how to do.

Okay, as much as I disagree with HC on a lot of things, I think you're being simplistic, Michele. Look at her statement. You could as easily insert any technological innovation into the subject place and it would still hold true. "The fact that internet Pr0n is so widely available ..." "the fact that half-naked women on the covers of "men's magazines" are so widely available ..." The fact that Eminem is pushed like candy by MTV ..." "The fact that TV shows portray parents as doddering fools and children as semi-enlightened avatars (cf the Simpsons) ..."

Even for a parent who knows how to say "no" and monitor all these things, the mere fact that you are having to monitor significantly more things makes the challenge harder. Take a trip back to the 1970s when we were young. what did our parents have to monitor? The creepy guy down the street, maybe some albums. But what kind of freakin' video games did they have to worry about? Pong? Donkey Kong? Not really until Leisure Suit Larry, and that wasn't easy to get ahold of. Until cable there were basically three channels of white bread programming. How easy was it to get your hands on "Faces of Death?" Not very for those of us who didn't work in a video store owned by a perv.

Does that mean we should pass laws against violence in video games? No. But her statement is far more true than you give her credit for (he says through clenched teeth).

i got all excited here cos i thought they'd put hillary in the game doing nasty lesbian things as payback to bill... but no, she appears to be genuinely righteous in her wrath. Give the woman a cigar. And remember Leisuresuit Larrie.

Lara Croft's boobs jiggle?