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Hot Coffee Cooling Off
The storm of media and cynicism that was "Hot Coffee" is, thankfully, coming to an end. To wrap things up, reactions were mixed to the re-rating of GTA. Some thought it too much, some too little too late. With the removal of the M rating, ESRB president Patricia Vance considers the matter closed. Even those in the industry itself seem glad that it's over, though the folks quoted for the 1up story seem cynical about the whole thing. "[Rockstar] TOTALLY screwed the modding community, as far as I am concerned. Because they could have just removed the content. They tried to get cute and leave it in. In my experience that sort of thing is always deliberate. Anyway, the point is that most game developers are recalcitrant and immature jerks. When mom tells us we can't do something, we're sure as hell going to do it. If you get my meaning. I think 'mom' in this case was the ESRB." As a sidenote, stock in Take-Two Entertainment dropped by almost five percent at close of market today, on the news that even Gamestop is dumping the now AO-rated GTA title.
I'm just waiting for the lawsuits. I'm sure that some offended conservative group is trying to find distress Moms who's little babies downloaded the patch to modify the game and were sullied. Poor little Johnny.
So they add a new label and it's done with. It's the same game it was last week, the same game it was last month and the same game it'll be tomorrow.
GTA:SA will sell no matter the age rating, anyone who wanted it already had it or knows where to get it. It's like closing the stable door once the horse has bolted.
The "it's for the children" groups will see this as a victory. The game industry will shrug and go "oh well" and the gamers will go "STFU and get over it, it's a game".
That's how life works. Give it a month and they'll find another way to attack GTA, do very little (oh they changed a letter and added another to the rating GASP! Think of the ink it'll use!), rinse and repeat.
Maybe we should start pointing out how GTA:SA is infact a POSITIVE story about a guy trying to get out the ghetto and deal with corrupt officials with too much power.
I like muppets.
In the short term, this whole deal seems to have backfired on Rockstar and they'll have to spend some money recalling shipped stock and then manufacturing and shipping the "clean" version. LOL, now mom and dad can safely buy GTA for junior and his 5th grade buddies! They should pick up the clean copies of 50cent's new album while they're at it.
Seriously though, Rockstar can still turn this into a New Coke style winner. Now they've essentially been given the green light to sell two versions of GTA: SA. They can sell the safe clean version at Wal-Mart and the uncut, girls gone wild, hentai version online. See now, they can just unlock the Hot Coffee minigames and add more if they want. With the AO label, they can totally cut loose and with all of the free publicity the market is already primed. It's almost as if they get to do the launch all over again. The only ones who could stop them from doing this might be Sony and Microsoft on the consoles since they have to be licensed to publish on those platforms. On the PC though, anything goes. Played right, R* may have opened the door a bit for AO versions of popular games to start appearing on consoles. As for the ESRB and modders everywhere, I think they've just been played...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
My favorite thing to do in GTAIII was sit up in the parking garage (that way the helicopters couldn't get you) and shoot people in the head with the sniper rifle. My roommate enjoyed doing that so much I eyed him suspiciously him when the DC sniper stuff started.
Hahaha, check out Maddox's article on this whole thing! Always hilarious... http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ti cket_to_hell