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Rockstar Investigated Over GTA - Vice City

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the operation-overkill dept.

Jubii writes "Seems the State of Florida is about to investigate Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for possibly violating state hate crime laws. This comes right after Rockstar and Take-Two issued an apology and a promise to remove offensive dialog found in the game. This could cause significant changes for 'mature' games in the future." Since Rockstar has already apologized and pledged to update the game, is it just me, or is the state of Florida only looking to line its pockets with some best-selling game profits? Update: 12/12 00:19 GMT by S : Haitian community leaders aren't satisfied either, saying "the manufacturer's pledge to change future editions did not solve the problem with games on store shelves now."

3 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So frecking useless! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I didn't see any pimps in Vice City, but I sure ran over my share of whores (to get my money back of course).

  2. Re:Crossing the Line by illuminata · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, I checked in to what you said because it did ring a bell somewhat, and you're not wrong. But that ruling was overturned.

    In short, St. Louis County tried to limit the access of mature games to children, won its initial case, but had it overturned. Here's more information.

    --


    Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
  3. Re:Hate crime by Bazzargh · · Score: 2, Informative
    What was going through his mind was probably that this was a gang member from one minority group (Cubans) talking about a gang from another minority group. Unless street gangs have suddenly adopted a forward-thinking racial integration policy, they may well refer to each other like that.

    Here is the script. The "single line" most objected to is probably this one:

    UMBERTO: Hey, ladies. You know what I'm gonna do?
    UMBERTO: I'm gonna kill me a Haitian. And then?
    UMBERTO: And then I'm going to make love like a man.

    GTA:VC isn't alone in depicting gang characters as speaking like this. Its heavily influenced by films like the one this line came from:

    TONY: So nothin'. Fuckin' I just don't like Columbians that's what. They're animals!

    ...which is from Scarface. Its hardly an incitement to race crime, its just a depiction of the speech patterns of an obvioulsy repellent character.