Grand Theft Auto (and Sodomy)

Way to go, Take-Two. I really give them credit for coming up with
the best way to market their game--controversy. Now with the
rating board threatening to slap them with the most restrictive rating
ever for a main-stream game, they should have no problem selling the
game.

I pity the rating board. They don't even realize that they're
being played like a puppet. Now they (and the entire media) are
just being recruited as part of the publicity team for the game title.

---

From the Los Angeles Times:

Hidden Sex Scenes Spark Furor Over Video Game

By Alex Pham

Times Staff Writer

July 21, 2005

The oversight board that puts parental ratings on video games took the
unusual step Wednesday of slapping its strongest warning on a
bestselling title as the game maker admitted putting explicit,
interactive sex scenes on the disc.

Retailers began pulling copies of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"
from their shelves after the Entertainment Software Ratings Board
revoked the game's "Mature" rating and raised it to "Adults Only."
Publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said it planned to rework
"San Andreas" ? the top-selling video game of 2004 ? and reissue it
later this year.

The ratings board is similar to the Motion Picture Assn. of
America's rating board. A "Mature" rating is analogous to an R movie
rating, and "Adults Only" is equivalent to NC-17. Most retailers refuse
to sell "Adults Only" games.

Executives at New York-based Take-Two had denied for weeks that
company programmers were responsible for the graphic sex scenes, which
can be unlocked with software that was widely available on the
Internet. But Wednesday they acknowledged that the game's designers had
created the scenes, dubbed "Hot Coffee."

"The editing of any game is a highly technical process," said
Take-Two spokesman Rodney Walker. "We liken it to a painter who paints
one painting and paints over it on the same canvas."

Walker's explanation did little to mollify critics, who point to
the "Grand Theft Auto" series to highlight the issue of violence and
sexuality in video games. The games celebrate nihilistic killing, and
Take-Two has reveled in its image as the bad boy of a $25-billion
global game industry that's trying to gain respectability to match its
profits.

"It looks like Take-Two Interactive purposefully conned the video
game industry rating board and parents across the country," said
Washington state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson. " 'San Andreas,' as a
top-selling game in the country, now is in the hands of thousands of
children who can practice interactive pornography. There should be
legal consequences ? so [the company doesn't] laugh all the way to the
bank."

"San Andreas," which retails for about $50, has sold more than 12
million copies worldwide since its launch in October. "Mature" rated
games are intended for players older than 17. Many retailers keep such
games under lock and key and have policies requiring clerks to check
the identification of buyers.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which accounts for as much as 20% of video
game sales in the United States, began removing "San Andreas" from its
shelves Wednesday, as did Best Buy Co.

"Our policy is not to carry any adult titles on our shelves," said
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk, who said buyers "can certainly bring
the product back" for a refund.

Take-Two said it would make a patch available for downloading so that customers could block the sex scenes.

Word of the scenes began spreading over the Internet last month
after Dutch programmer Patrick Wildenbourg began distributing software
that he said unlocked them.

Many video games have secrets to which players gain access as they
progress. They might, for instance, win extra powers or reach hidden
levels.

"Hot Coffee," by contrast, is an interactive sex game, featuring oral sex and intercourse.

Wildenbourg, who removed his software from the Internet on Wednesday, declined to comment.

As late as last week, Take-Two had insisted that the sex scenes
were "the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to
significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the
game." Hackers, the company said, created the scenes by "disassembling
and then combining, recompiling and altering the game's code."

The scenes prompted an outcry from game critics, including Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who last week called for a federal
investigation into "Hot Coffee."

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board began a review to
determine whether the scenes were part of the game's original code and
warranted a re-rating of "San Andreas," versions of which play on Sony
Corp.'s PlayStation 2, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox and personal computers.

"After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that sexually
explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the
final discs of all three platform versions of the game," said Patricia
Vance, president of the ratings board. "Clearly the [original] rating
was incorrect, and it needed to be corrected."

Take-Two's Walker said Wednesday that the sex scenes were never
meant to be seen by the public and that they were revealed only when an
outside programmer, called a "modder," wrote software to unlock them.

"The mod community scratched the painting, revealing the earlier work," he said.

Analysts estimated that modifying and remarketing "San Andreas"
would cost Take-Two about $40 million in lost sales. Shares of Take-Two
fell 11% in after-hours trading.

"It was a very poor exercise of judgment and a very costly one,"
said Michael Pachter, a video game industry analyst at Wedbush Morgan
Securities in Los Angeles. "It's an embarrassment for management
because obviously a maverick developer in their studios decided to put
this stuff in there. I can only fault the management team for not
putting systems in place to vet their games."

Take-Two is no stranger to controversy. Previous installments of
"Grand Theft Auto" have been adored by hard-core gamers but excoriated
by parent groups and lawmakers for their depictions of violence and sex.

In one, players could have sex with a prostitute and then beat her
to death and take back their money. That game was rated "Mature"
because players did not see the sex. Instead, they saw a parked car
rock back and forth.

Some lawmakers criticized the ratings board for failing to detect
the sex scenes in its initial evaluation of "San Andreas" last year.
Although the system is voluntary, most game publishers seek a rating
from the organization, which evaluated more than 1,000 titles last year.

"It should not have taken this long," said Rep. Joe Baca
(D-Rialto). "This is evidence that the voluntary ratings system does
not work."

Video game industry executives tried to assure parents that the "San Andreas" incident was an anomaly.

The ratings board "has been in business for 11 years, and there
has never yet been an incident of this kind," said Doug Lowenstein,
head of the Entertainment Software Assn., the industry's trade group.
"You're looking at well over 10,000 games rated. If you look at that
track record, you can say parents have every reason to be confident in
the ratings system."

Some consumers weren't completely reassured.

"As a parent I've lost some confidence in the [ratings board's]
ability to police the industry," said Dennis McCauley, editor of
GamePolitics.com. "But [the board] did take a big step today, and I
have to give them credit for that."

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Hah, I want the game now :biggrin:

Im not sure where your located on this year BUT here in the US that has
been already discoverd a long time ago. It was on G4 like.... 3 or 4
weeks ago. They even showed it on TV to show it was real (with censors
because they need to block out polygraphic pron). It was quite
entertaining.

---

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad

Yeah, it's not news, but now the general public (instead of just the gamers) is also aware of it.

Let the downloading begin!

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

(post link when you find) :heee:

[edit]

http://forums.myg0t.com/showthread.php?threadid=14677

My question is: Why was that junk there in the first place? Why the
F*$% would rockstar put it in? Does it make the game "cooler"? Does it
give the game "street credit"? What kind of F*$%-up world do we live in
here?

---

Posting And You

The possibilities are either than it was meant to be removed but never
was, that it was a rogue
element within rockstar that snuck it in without permission, or that it
was put there on purpose as a potential late arriving publicity boost.
If we look at another rockstar game such as Manhunt, that received a
very significant boost of sales after a kid murdered another kid and
had it linked to the game. In fact in many places it saw what was an
old game, returning to the top 10's without any price cuts or other
marketing gimmicks applied. While obviously that was not done on
purpose by rockstar, it is a prime example of controversy sparking
revitalised sales of a game. "Accomodating" for that in advance is a
risky, but potentially worthwhile move for such a company, so it
wouldn't be a huge surprise if this prove to be the case.

---

[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

"It looks like Take-Two Interactive purposefully conned the video
game industry rating board and parents across the country," said
Washington state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson.

BULLs**t. I'm surprised the game isn't always rated what it is now, as
Rockstar has repeatedly stated that the game isn't made for children,
that its made for adults. If any parents allowed their children to buy
it before this, it'd be no different if they bought it afterward. THE
GAME IS NOT MEANT FOR CHILDREN, yet parents repeatedly buy it for
children then have the gall to complain about it. All I'd like to say
to those parents who bought the game for little Johnny and are now
complaining about how they were deuped, SHUT THE f**k UP!!

End of rant/

---

Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

The rating standard is pretty f**ked up, if you consider it closely. It's not as bad to carjack and slaughter people with machine guns, but it's a major problem to have sex.

It wasn't even violent sex. It's just plain, good, natural kinda sex (the kind that all of us are most likely going to experience at one point or another in our lives). Is that so bad compared to murder?

Our priorities are all mess up.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

reminds me of the southparl movie, "horrific violence and sex is ok. As long as there is no dirty words"

Good point satchmo. This is the first thing I've seen in a long
time where sex wasn't used as a gimick but it was just a simulation of
real life. GTA didn't put that in the game to help push the
title, it was some hidden code that got left behind. People get
upset about that, while their kids are watching Sex in the City or the
OC. Also, PG-13 movies have lots of sex in them. Isn't the
Island PG-13? I saw more sexual content in that commercial than
you could find in GTA.

Its also strange that they are getting in all this fuss becuase it is
possible, through a large amount of cheat code inputing and stuff to
even see it (on the PS2). You have to download a MOD to get it to
work for the PC, and I must say that if some one wants to go through
all the trouble of finding and installing this MOD they might as well
take 15 seconds and find some porn on the internet.

As long as there is no dirty words

And did you know that one "f**k" is allowed per movie for a PG-13 rating, but more than one in a movie makes it an "R" rated film.

Does that make any sense to anyone? It's like it's okay to kill one person, but if you kill more than one, then you become a criminal.

I guess this thread is automatically rated "R" now, because I've typed "f**k" more than twice already.

---

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

how can this software be uploaded from the pc to the ps2? USB maybe? also in britain there hasnt been any controversy over there (that i know of) yet.

---

Bullet Control: $5000 for a bullet.
"I would blow your f**king head off! ...if I could afford it. I'm gonna get another job, start saving some money... then you a dead man!"

you can unlock it on the PS2 with lots of "cheat codes" typed into a game shark.

oh damn! its sounds so difficult and expensive and i was looking forward to getting it!!

gameshark? damn i know ive heard that before, what is it again? i was thinking you could just connect up a usb to the ps2 and upload the software straight into the san andreas save game file.

and it is strange that extreme and senseless violence is more exceptable then a completely natural biological function.

Excuse me, but is this correct:

<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">
<tr><td valign="top"></td>
<td valign="middle">
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that
may be suitable for persons of age 17 and older.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" valign="top">As opposed to the
stricter AO rating:

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top"></td>
<td valign="middle">
Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have
content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older.</td></tr>
</table>

If it is, then it's for sure in the top5 for the world's stupidest things ever!

So, you can get married when you're 16 in many US states and in the UK, but you're not going to be allowed to buy a game with pixel boobies in it if you're 17? How bizzarre (Yes I know the same thing applies to films with real nakedness throughout the world too...)

"The editing of any game is a highly technical process," said Take-Two spokesman Rodney Walker. "We liken it to a painter who paints one painting and paints over it on the same canvas."

That's a very artsy way of saying "we don't want to delete the naked skins until there's more media controversy/publicity surrounding the game"

What's weird is that they found the sex offensive. Ok, so blowing-up
legions of cops, stealing hard working pimps' cars and murdering
prostitutes with chainsaws is not offensive but casual sex is.

Aye, Conan had a joke about it. :smile: Something along the lines of ->

"Parents are outraged that the game Grand Theft Auto has scenes of sex
in it... parents say they bought the game so their kids could commit
violent carjackings, not to have sex!"

---

One day you'll know what you're talking about, I can hardly imagine

Maps! - Audio blog!

And I don't know how many of you guys have played it, but its not like
the female models even look like women. I've been into a few of the
strip clubs in the game and laughed so hard, its not like they're
seriously trying to make it sexually explicit, because if they were
they'd make the models look even remotely human. Or just put in some
real porn clip or something.

---

Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ticket_to_hell

I don't have GTA SA, but judging from what I hear this is no worse than
anything the game already has, and definitely no worse than tehe
"regular" programming on TV anyway. The americans overreact to
something. Again. :rolleyes:

Like a great man once said: "Boo f**kin' hoo".

Yeah Fraggard! Another reader of Maddox! I respect you now :smile:

Maddox said:
I want to shoot people in the face, bang
prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers
without this filthy smut in my game.

[size=24][color=#c8c5c8] :biggrin:

[/color][/size]

Yeah, I like maddox's style too. His page is for sure the best in the universe!

I'm buying his book the second it comes out :biggrin:

Me too, I even joined the mailing list.

I'm on the list as well....been reading his s**t for a couple of years now. Great stuff

He does write some good stuff. I'll be getting his book as well.

---

"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

Best article is when he rates kid's artwork :biggrin:

CLassic :smile:

Eh, Maddox is the King. But i dont particulary like it how he updates
liek once every 2-3 months now. It was much faster then that back in
the day.

---

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad

Now someone has turned on Sims2, because you can dl hacks/mods/whatever
to remove the pixel effect when they are nekkid and stuff. I would
elaborate but Ive drank a lot so instead I wish to shoot myself.

http://digg.com/gaming/GTA_called_out_for_sexual_content._Next_target...The_Sims_2%3F

As one poster on that site says...its "getting freaking ridiculous"

You dont have to change anything though. All you have to do is put them in the shower, then move the shower :razz:

---

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/8521/windows981dk.jpg

Nickelplate is my dad

Any one know of any kind of parent run/supported site that deals with
censorship or things related to the GTA thing, with a forum??

These people have lost it, and need to hear some other point of views.

So, you can get married when you're 16 in many US states and in
the UK, but you're not going to be allowed to buy a game with pixel
boobies in it if you're 17? (Yes I know the same thing applies to films
with real nakedness throughout the world too...)

Yet you can see a film with boobies (Wedding crashers for example).

But they show sex as an act where the woman have a braw on and its just "uh uh uh uh ahhh"

its scewed and mis leading.

GTA:SA is one of the most real looks at sex I have ever seen in the media.

Yet you can see a film with boobies (Wedding crashers for example).

Looks like I'm going to have to see that movie on the big screen :heee: .

---

Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Sorry for resurrecting this, but the fun's started for Rockstar.

A woman who bought GTA:SA for her 14-year-old grandson is suing Rockstar.

To paraphrase madox:

this poor old woman got her 14 a game that was ment for 17+ year olds,
then found out with just a simple thrid party device and about 10 lines
of code found on the internet (along with 44 billion porn sites) could
turn that simple family game, comprised of car jackings, cop killing,
and drug dealing into a sex filled flith bucket. Which is now
rated AO, for... get this, 18+ year olds!

I mean, come on, that ones in the bag.

Do these people not see that, like satch said, the sex is the only
thing normal about that game and that it was bumped up to an AO rateing
that changes the age limit one year?

How is some pixel tits worse than say, the island (I've only seen the
adds btw) which looks like it is full of sexual content. Just
becuase the camera doesn't show boobs doesn't make the sex in the movie
any less worse.

Im telling you, where living in a screwed up world wich in ran by idiots, being a bystander looking at yourself as one of the few normal persons.

---

RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

What a stupid f**king idiot. Anyone who sues someone for anything like
that should be shot, along with parent and religious groups who
complain about games made for ADULTS, not children.

For once I agree with Maddox.

---

Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

indeed, shooting everyone (who is wrong/stupid) would fix everything.

The world IS full of idiots and there's nothing you can do about it.
And all in all it's the fault of irresponsible parents for buying such
games for their 13 y.os but it's always easier to start a scandal than
to teach your kids wright from wrong. Just look at MAM (aka Mothers
Against Maddox - here's a petition against MAM; see what these
people have to say: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/pwbamam ).

indeed, shooting everyone (who is wrong/stupid) would fix everything.

Hehe, I see the irony in my comment. Well maybe not that far, perhaps
just stopping them from reproducing or something :biggrin: . It just gets me
steamed when people do something wrong themselves (ala buying a child
an adult game) because of rediculous assumptions (ala games are for
children), then have the hide to blame the thing that made them wrong
(ala the game and game makers).

Rockstar and the ratings boards all say that the game is for adults and
not children, yet parents STILL buy the game for their children and
then complain about the violence. The problem could be fixed if parents
would simply look at what they and their children buy. "Oh, the game is
rated for 17 years and over because of violence and adult themes. I
better not buy it for my 12 year old son".

---

Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Its not even that, a 14 y/o can play and handle GTA if has a level upbringing.

I mean, I watched forgin fims with sex and killing etc. with my parents
when I was like 10. I've been a fan of the GTA series since
GTAII, I've played HL for years. FPS since I was like... 8.
I've been around curse words since junior high.

Yet I'd say I'm one of the most rounded level headed people I know.

Parents cant cover their childerns eyes forever. They will always
have a friend with GTA or see a film or TV show away from home.
Rather than trying to hide the world from kids parents should instill
some decent traits into their children.

Here is a read-worthy article at ModDB.com about it. http://features.moddb.com/150/

---

"Azelito, stop being a f**king bitch. All I see you do is complain and insult people in your recent posts. We don't care, go find a razor you emo pansy..." -Windows98