Slashdot Mirror
ESRB Revokes San Andreas Rating
Alex Blonski writes "In a stunning move, the ESRB has advised retailers to stop selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This report follows public pressure over the Hot Coffee debacle. Rockstar, the publishers of the game have given retailers the option of restickering the game with an 18+ rating or exchanging it for a new version with the controversial content removed. ESRB head Patricia Vance says '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 (i.e., PC CD-ROM, Xbox and PS2). However, the material was programmed by Rockstar to be inaccessible to the player and they have stated that it was never intended to be made accessible. The material can only be accessed by downloading a software patch, created by an independent third party without Rockstar's permission, which is now freely available on the internet and through console accessories. Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined.'"
I believe that Penny Arcade's news and comic today sum up this whole situation best.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
GTA San Andreas "Hot Coffee"
s /hotcoffee.wmv
Coral Cache of some of the content in question:
http://files.gtanet.com.nyud.net:8090/gtasa/video
Get it while it's hot?
Today's Penny Arcade news deals with this, where Tycho lays out the crucial difference between a "Mature" title and an "Adults Only" title : time.
Yup, that's it. Time. Pretty incredible.
-EvilMagnus
Yes, running around carjacking cars, shooting people, and beating up whores is American as apple pie but SEX?!?! OMFG...what are you people thinking?!
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
As an ex-game programmer, there's TONS of stuff we left in various games. Some intentional, some not so intentional.
I can't speak for how GTA is setup, but in our case some of the stuff went out because of a lock down in the code/data. When *any* change would be considered a potential to introduce bugs it was safer to lock down *everything* and go as it was.
"After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that sexually explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs". That's why they're changing the rating. Of course they don't rule on completely player-created content.
I am trolling
No, it's actually still possible on all of them one way or another:
n _Andreas/Appendices/Game_Mods
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_Sa
I will say that it's just plain lunacy to think that with all the violence in the game that a little pixelated sex should have a huge impact on the rating.
The thoughts and beliefs of a group of people is not in lock-step with the 300,000,000 other people in the surrounding 3,537,438.44 square mile radius. Things always look monolithic at a distance. They never actually are.
Additionally, even among those who believe in morality and standards, there is a great deal of disagreement on what those standards are, their origins, and their purpose.
on the sims2 there is a simple one word cheat you can type and eliminate the blurring, giving you access to far more nudity and sex than the hot coffie hack, to be fair the hot coffie section is more graphic. but the sims 2 is still rated T
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Try to RTFA next time.
From Rockstar's statement:
"...hackers created the 'hot coffee' modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game's source code. Since the 'hot coffee' scenes cannot be created without intentional and significant technical modifications and reverse engineering of the game's source code..."
They never said the content was inserted, they said the game was modified, which is true.
However, the nude skin for the female model WAS added by the modders, so even though they didn't say it, there WAS content inserted by the hackers.
maybe I should run out and buy copies of the game before the news gets around it may be worth something
And thanks to internet, they can learn how to use it coorectly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Ctrl-Shift C for the console, then "intprop censorgridsize 0"... it's a built-in command in the game, no external software/hack required. They found this about a day after the game came out.
Basically Wal-mart won't carry AO.
Senate Testimony to that effect
That is all.
While I agree with the rest of your post, this is also total BS. Despite what the sensationalist media wants you to believe, it's simply not true.
First, the necessary parts are not easily obtained (at least not legally). There are a fixed supply of auto-sears for civilians -- ones manufactured before 1986. Depending on the model, typical prices for this part alone are around $3,000.
Second, a firearm that is easily modifiable to full-automatic is also restricted. The BATF has been known to confiscate rifles after they were sold to civilians and later found to be easily converted.
Frankly, I can't tell you exactly how legal weapons are designed to prevent conversion to full-automatic, because the BATF considers that conspiracy to commit a crime (i.e. making a conversion to full auto). If you don't believe me, that's your choice. But, I'm not sticking my neck out to convince you.
Of course, with the knowledge, skill and necessary tools, you might be able to do so. But, the BATF has a threshold (in man-hours) that must be met, or a weapon cannot be manufactured in or imported into this country.
The game puts blurring on top of them, but they are actually nude under there. In fact, sometimes the blurring gets confused about sightlines and thinks an object is in the way and doesn't blur, when it's not. And you can see little naked sims.
I don't know how to make it happen, but I've had houses where if I'm looking from a certain angle, they leave off the blur when people get in the shower. I'm sure teenage boys have spent hours on this figuring this out, and can build a hour where it happens from all angles. ;)
The noblur patches just turn the blurring off. They don't add anything.
Not to be confused with the patches that correctly shade the nude models, or make 'nudity' a clothing option, which do add content.
And while the sim doesn't include any sexual animation, it does include what is refered to as 'adult themes'...namely, two guys passionately kissing.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
A Game Shark modifies memory locations within a game.
It's, gasp, modifying the game!
Cheat codes are things you type in in the game. There is no way, within GTA, to get to this minigame, via pressing buttons, documented or otherwise, or doing things with your character.
Seriously, we're having some sort of total terminology failure here.
Here is the actual facts. If anyone is found repeating anything else, they will be beaten publically, and a minigame around that will be included in the next GTA:
This minigame, like all minigame, is enabled when you do certain things. Rockstar removed these things from the game, and thus you cannot, under any circumstances, get to the minigame from within the game.
What all the mods do, either the Game Shark or the saved game hack, is tell GTA that you have, in fact, completed these nonexistent prerequisites.
There is a debate if one of the hacks adds a nude texture for the female, but I don't see any evidence of that.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?