Slashdot Mirror
House Calls for Investigation Into Rockstar Games
Spad writes "The BBC is reporting that the U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted for an FTC investigation into Rockstar Games following the GTA:SA 'Sex scandal'. Their basic premise is that Rockstar intentionally deceived the ESRB in order to 'peddle sexually explicit material to our youth'." Gamespot has coverage as well. From the BBC article: "The release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was widely anticipated, but an adults-only rating would have severely limited its sales in retail outlets...It appears that the publisher has blatantly circumvented the rules in order to peddle sexually explicit material to our youth, and they should be held accountable. A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit."
The FTC has better things to do than become parents to all the nation's kids. This is just another election ploy by the house to get votes from the "conservative" and "religious" demographics.
- AMW
I said it before and I'll say it again, to be fair they should prosecute Maxis too!
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Let the witch hunt begin!
-Turkey
Shooting hookers
Shooting cops
Running over pedestrians
Stealing cars
Throwing grenades
Stealing tanks and smushing old ladies
Joyriding
Speeding
Killing hundreds, literally
All ok.
But how dare they show some cartoon boobie!
I guess they had to have SOMETHING for the press, though.
There are a number of easier ways to get porn - most people wouldn't consider a video game quality porn, anyway.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
Go, and play the game. Find the hot-coffee mod for yourself. Look at it. Then be ashamed, while games like Playboy: The Mansion, and XXX Volleyball are still on store shelves (rated M for Mature).
Be very fucking ashamed at yourselves.
Informatus Technologicus
...justify your comfy jobs by going after a video game maker. Ignore the fact that the evil sex bits needed some pretty fancy dancing to have them show up.
Won't somebody think of the children?!
Trolling is a art,
the adults only rating should be used more often...
its not used because it would mean that the 15 year old with his b-day $$ cant go but the latest gore spiller. if the rating was used more we might actually see parents take a larger intrest in what their kids are playing when the parent themselves has to buy the game vs the teenage kid.
though it will still do nothing for the idiots that just buy what ever game their kid is begging for and let them play it regardless.
A game that depicts and rewards as much violence as the GTA series has, has missions where killing cops and civillians gains you status and money, and is generally about the rise to power of a crime lord, and they're worried about a sex scene that porn collectors wouldn't waste the time to download. Geez, priorities are out of whack.
A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit. So pick a relatively small company to go after, since the bigger ones are so much harder. You think Rockstar is the only or even one of the worst companies making money from deceit? Think again
Here's a stupendous quote from the Honorable (guffaw!) Fred Upton, representative from Michigan:
"It appears that the publisher has blatantly circumvented the rules in order to peddle sexually explicit material to our youth, and they should be held accountable. A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit."
Never mind that this title wasn't supposed to be sold to youths (17+), or that it already boasts loads of sexual and violent content.
That said, the facts don't even matter here. Rockstar had a software quality SNAFU that is providing politicians a soapbox opportunity. Betcha those easter eggs will get fewer and farther between, eh?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I want to be there when they "review" the evidence. Wonder if it will be on C-Span.
"A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit."
A government or political party, on the other hand...
Anyone remember that scandal about Karl Rove? Leaking the name of a CIA agent?
Doesn't the House have slightly more important things to be doing than starting an investigation against a video game?
Someone in the White House may have placed individuals who gave intelligence at risk, breaking the law in the process. So Congress responsds by... INVESTIGATING TITTIES IN A VIDEO GAME!
Yes, I know, not directly. It still seems like they're looking for something - anything - to replace Karl Rove with in the news.
Man, they've all been like that. It's an entire series of games all about doing illegal stuff, and shooting cops, "making use of" prostitutes, etc.
It's been there since the first one, but nobody even lifted a finger -- government wise -- until now. It's been like three or four years.
Wow.
Luke
----
Tired of answering tons of basic computer questions for friends and family? Send them to ChristianNerds.com instead!
There's not really a mystery here. Rockstar put in a sex minigame. A hacker unlocked it. It was not accessible without a patch or hack, which probably violates the EULA.
Also, what is the big deal here? The game was already rated 'M for Mature'; that's 17+, according to the ESRB. In a majority of states, you can already play the sex mini-game legally in real life. Is there some reason sex should be legal at 16, but a sex-themed video game should be illegal until you're 18?
God forbid that kids see a bit of sex intermixed with their violence! It saddens me that a game centered around killing people, stealing cars, picking up prostitues, buying and selling drugs and various other criminal activities draws relatively little outcry from parents and even the staunchest conservatives, but that as soon as said game is discovered to contain some mildly-explicit sex scenes everyone goes crazy. Kids whose parents are naive enough to allow their children to play such a violent game are probably looking at internet porn already anyway, so it's nothing they haven't seen before.
True, Rockstar did keep the sex scenes a secret and deceived the ratings board. For this they should maybe be fined (or whatever the normal course of action for that type of thing is). However, the outcry that these sex scenes have caused is ridiculous and there are much better things that congress could spend its money inquiring about.
Anyone who honestly believes that the violent nature of GTA is fine for kids but that the sex isn't needs to very promptly re-examine his or her values.
Who remembers the old Rings of Power cheat that showed you the boobies on startup.
/. and the public in general, I won't admit how much those boobies meant to me when I was 10, but I hope todays kids, all grown up, will think back and fondly remember the illicit gaming provided boobies, like I do rings of power.
For the good of
If anything, I say rockstar deserves a medal!
Slashdot plays into the "bread and circuses" mentality that has gripped our nation for the past couple of decades. This is a real non-event designed to buy political karma for a select few, and drum up business for the folks on the other side of the argument.
While our nation continues to decline in its engineering education, falling behind "second world" nations, we focus on the nerd version of "Entertainment Weekly". Fortune had a wonderful article talking about this, and what the U.S. must do if it wants to stay #1... their focus was on engineering (imagine that... business folks recognizing the need for engineers).
Will we see this type of article on Slashdot? No. But will we see more articles like this one? Yup. Will we see stories on what breakfast cereal Google endorses? Probably.
Mod down accordingly.
Don't get me wrong, we need articles of all types to make the "Slashdot salad" complete. But it seems this site ignores articles that really make you think, and go for the gratuitous knee-jerk articles instead.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
If anyone UNDER 17 is playing a copy obtained by an underage person, the system failed.
If anyone UNDER 17 is playing a copy obtained by a "legal" of-age person, then that person is presumably guilty of contributing to delinquency or somesuch (IANAL).
As far as I know, Hot Coffee is only accessible through an extra, non-in-game process in any version. Source mod, cheat code, etc. Therefore, anyone accessing Hot Coffee is doing so in circumvention of the standard game code.
Now, after ALL THAT, here's what I want to know...why isn't Hot Coffee (and M-rated gaming in general) treated like drinking? If I drink too muck and then "manslaughter" someone, do I get to finger Corona? No!
In addition to GTA, I'm currently enjoying BloodRayne 2. I'm really enjoying the feeding fatalities. But if I go and slice up some poor schmoe, am I going to sue Majesco or Terminal Reality? No!
What happened to adults taking personal responsibility for their own actions? I should be smart enough and responsible enough to know when I'm taking *any* vice too far. Games, sex, drugs, speeding, etc.
GTRacer
- Pleased that Rayne is more or less realistically proportioned, unlike Lara
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
I'm writing because Rockstar Games North is at the center of the future. The Hot Coffee Mod has propelled you to the front lines of the culture wars. For many hundreds of years, crafty and selfish politicians have used the empty and meaningless phrase "family values" to enrage an otherwise apathetic public and solidify their power.
The most recent self-aggrandizing political power-monger to attempt a power grab by denigrating the invented enemies of children and the family is Hillary Clinton. How hypocritical for a woman whose own family life is a public embarrassment to now attack a supposed enemy of the family. But of course it's no coincidence - it is precisely because her own family life is a joke that she must become a defender of the family. For what better way to advance her political career?
You have a choice. Rockstar Games North has created the most aesthetically important piece of art since Andy Warhol was alive. Never in the history of the narrative form has a piece encouraged with such audacity the audience's identification with an anti-social character. And yet, it's a hit. Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular video game series of all time. The question people should be asking is why do so many people dream of being an outlaw in their personal life rather than what effect this piece of art is having on our children.
Then again, the outlaw has been a staple of the narrative form ever since the inception of the story. Men have always thrilled to tales of the criminal, the social deviant, and the outlaw. Obviously, part of the attacks on Grand Theft Auto are spurred by an anti-technological bias. It's likely that many who criticize have never even played a video game. It's even more likely that those who criticize have never played through a single game of Grand Theft Auto.
Many criticisms are based on single, isolated elements of the game, and yet where's the criticism of the game as a whole? Criticizing GTA for a single element is like criticizing Huckleberry Finn or The Catcher in the Rye for a single word.
The suggestion that Grand Theft Auto could somehow harm children is laughable. How is it possible for a video game to nullify the effects of poverty, racial discrimination, lack of opportunity, and - most importantly - the natural slights children experience as a result of interacting with other children? It's not possible. And for someone to suggest that a video game has a greater influence than any of these effects, combined or individually, on the personality of a growing child, is ridiculous. Your company is being attacked and demonized by individuals and organizations concerned only with increasing their own power. Clinton's and other groups' intentions are naked, obvious, and reprehensible.
How many of us experienced violent content in art while growing up? How many of us experienced sexual content while growing up? Almost all of us. The Bible itself is full of violence and sex. Yet most of us are law-abiding citizens. In fact, I believe if the GTA audience were researched, we'd find that they are less likely to commit a crime than the general population. How likely is someone to be a criminal when they have the tenacity to make it through a 40+ hour narrative? How likely are they to be a criminal if imaginary anti-social acts satisfy them?
You need to break yourselves off from Take Two and fight the good fight. You're established now. GTA will always sell. You can make other games that push the boundaries of the art form. And, if you follow this road, you'll have no competition. Almost all other companies will be cowed and scared.
Good luck. I hope you decide to fight.
Might I ask why they arent up in arms about God of War? It has explicit content as a minigame at the end of the first level. No patch is needed, no codes, just beat the first level on any difficulty. Also shouldnt the FTC have better things to do than go after one company that isnt necessarily that big when compared to HBO. HBO has porn on at 9pm at my house and anyone on the monthly "preview" can see it.
Someone should remind them that it's their future constituents their pissing off... game made for those above 17... I'm not a US citizen, thank god, but what's that 3-4 years before they vote? O wait most US citizens don't have a memory that long let alone their kids. Move along.
A psychopath can't tell the difference between right and wrong. A sociopath knows the difference - he just doesn't care.
US politicians saying that "a company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit"?
What next? Investigations into where all the money actually went in Iraq? Go do a search for: budget audit iraq.
"CPA staff identified at one ministry that although 8,206 guards were on the payroll, only 602 guards could be validated," the audit report states. "Consequently, there was no assurance funds were not provided for ghost employees."
If all the US people are bothered about is "sex scenes" in computer games, they really have skewed priorities.
Please stop drinking the kool-aid.
Hmm, maybe it's all the thimerosal in the vaccines - so lots of people nowadays have damaged brains and so can't really think straight?
/me wanders off, muttering darkly about journalistic standards. Meh. Who am I kidding? This is Slashdot.
What we need is an action center for congressional stupidity. That way when our 'representatives' in the House and Senate decide to waste time with idiocy like this, we can let them have it with a deluge of email and faxes - all professionally written. Include highly rated comments like some that have made here and maybe we'll start to see some common sense return to D.C.
I'd do it myself, but I'm too busy trying to find porn hacks in Half-Life 2.
Congress has no power to regulate videogames
The mod is less explicit than some TV commercials!
Anyone playing this game is killing in the most hard-core sense of the word, selling drugs, beating up whores, yada, yada, yada....
Man these people need to get a grip.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
Yes, thats fine. Lets see.
... Seriously ... they would work then on world peace ... or fighting hunger, poverty ... or ice cream that melts in the mouth and not in the hand.
GTA 1: Run over people, kill them with guns, run big tanks into police building to kill cops. Kick people out of their cars, or shoot them, to steal their car. Violence: very high, Sex: none -> okay
GTA 2: same with little bit better graphics. Violence: Very high, Sex: none -> okay
GTA now: semi-realistic 3D graphics. Kill, shoot, rob, destroy, explode, etc. Violence: Very hight, Sex: one dry hump -> CATSROPHY.
In my opinion. American FCC makes itself a world wide joke. Seriously. Nobody here outside of America takes them serious and the bad thing is, nobody takes the rest of America serious either anymore thanks to those FCC & religious idiots. Great work, how some stupid sex-hating maniacs can do damage. Actually this is just something, where I can make fun of my American co-workers at office.
I think they need to get laid. NOW. Right now
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
"A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit."
The US Government said that? With a straight face?
this administration
Heh, sometimes I wonder if the whole Clinton-Lewinsky debacle wasn't a similar attempt to divert the public's attention to all the bombing we were doing in Iraq at the time.
I haven't been a member of the voting public for long, but every administration I've been through has made me sick in the same ways as the current one. It's just that this one seems to do it the more frequently, sometimes by an order of magnitude or two.
Those who have opposed the GTA series for its violence are now simply using "hot coffee" to promote their agenda.
There are multitudes of people who wanted GTA banned or censored, but could not before because it was under the shield of the "17+" rating.
Now that it has been found that some sexual, "18+" content has been found in a normally inaccessable part of the game, those people can (perhaps rightfully) claim that this content is illegal due to the fact that sexual content was sold to minors.
What needs to be stated by the ESRB is what exactly is meant by a game rating. Do ratings reflect what is shown in normal parts of game play, or does it include easter eggs as well? What about content that is put in the final version but is only accessable by using mods, such as hot coffee?
Most kids that would actually be "corrupted" by the kind of content in hot coffee are too young and not smart enough to hack into a computer game to find it. Putting inaccessable adult content in a game for minors is like giving a kid a safe with a porno mag inside and no combination.
I don't think this needs a federal investigation, as this path may lead to censorship. The ESRB even said that this mess is over.
A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit."
Because Congress has the monopoly on profiting from deceit.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I don't mean to stick up for Rockstar, but I have a feeling that some programmers may have snuck the content in without management's approval or knowledge. Of course that doesn't say much for their Quality Control department...
What Rockstar really needs to do is just come out and say that they have found the people who put the content in, and that they have been sacked. They won't be completely off the hook, but at least it will show that they are doing something about it. Hiding behind the problem, like they are doing now, will only make matters worse for them in the end.
> "A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit."
What about politicians?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This sounds like a complete waste of tax money, yours and mine, to make someone look like they're "doing something" about this "problem" when in fact there's no real problem here at all.
Who did it? Rockstar developers, duh. Has anyone denied this? Is there any mystery? The game did not "conatin" these scenes, so who cares?
If anything I'm surprised nobody is going after whoever figured it out for "circumvention" of something, since that seems to be all the rage.
What's to be done? Nothing. Rockstar is already reprinting the game without the content in it. Nobody even had to tell them to, they just are.
WHO CARES? THIS IS NOT NEWS.
However fools everywhere are making it news, especially on Capitol Hill. You know all they're succeeding at?
TURNING THIS ALL INTO A HUGE TAXPAYER FUNDED ROCKSTAR COMMERCIAL.
Please, stop. Just STFU and sit down, everyone. Go do something else with my money, like defend freedom or something.
They came for the palmists,
but I wasn't a palmist
so I did nothing.
They came for the bungee jumpers,
but I wasn't a bungee jumper
so I did nothing.
They came for the players' agents,
but I wasn't a players' agent
so I did nothing.
They came for the Charles Manson fans,
but I wasn't a Charles Manson fan,
so i did nothing.
They came for the refloxoligists,
but I wasn't a refloxoligist
so I did nothing.
They came for the camp TV chefs,
but I wasn't a camp TV chef
so I did nothing
They came for the Romos,
I laughed.
They came for the martial arts enthusiasts,
but I wasn't a martial arts enthusiast
so I did nothing.
They came for Eammon Holmes
and I think I'm right in saying I applauded.
They came for the Danni Behr
I said she's over there
behind the wardrobe.
Turn a Blind Eye
Sometimes it's best to turn a Blind Eye.
-- Half Man Half Biscuit
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
With the rate and time it takes Congress to complete investigations, we'll be up to the PS5 with GTA62: HO KILLAZ.
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
And I'm not yelling at the parent because he probably knows, but I just want to get the point across loud and clear: THERE WAS NO BOOBIE ACTION!
Fully clothe is what you got with that modification.
Now, with a naked skin mod, only then do you get to see something, and those are community created, Rockstar did not create naked skins. So these fucking politicians are just using this as an excuse for something, and this entire fiasco has been completely over-blown.
Some of you americans need to get laid.
End of story.
Usually when I peddle something, I try to get it to other people. As opposed to, say, taking steps to prevent people from getting it. I shouldn't own any illegal firearms, but if somebody breaks into my home and steals them from me, does that make me an illegal weapons dealer because I should have put stronger locks on my doors? Rockstar at least tried to BS their way out of this. The House is blatantly lying.
English is easier said than done.
Its sooo disturbing when a mob of people who have no idea of what they are dealing with have they're arms up in the air over nonsense. How can you possibly rate a game adults only for content that is virtuall inaccesable on a console unless you use a cheating device and and then acquire from the internet codes to unlock the content and then see that its not really the smut that they think that it is. It really seems like a bunch of guys screwing around and using thier free time to make a private game to pass around the office, I mean when you don't win the game it says "Failure to satisfy a woman is a CRIME!" and the protagonist is fully clothed at the time, so my question is what is this about digital breasts? Come on anyone who goes through this much trouble and has a computer has seen more than digital nipples and isin't going to be scarred for life! I fail to see why with so many other prevalent issues like the slave factories in Saipan that are directly linked people in power and instead of dealing with that they are having a heart attack about something as graphic as polygons dry humping with digital breasts shown. With the enormous resources that minors have to the internet this is a drop in the grand canyon, but the funny thing is that if the parents wanted to teach the kids a lesson then they should teach them not to be cheaters and not buy them the cheating device and the M rated game that gives them the access to this content, but then after all that would involve taking responsibility for shoddy parenting.
So, I hope this has upset you as much as it upsets me. Reading that sniveling worm of a politician's thoughts on GTA and how they are trying to peddle smut to the kiddies makes me want to vomit. And I don't even like GTA!
Does anyone have a good site that we could use to write people involved in this "investigation"? Perhaps someone could draft a nice form letter we could all use?
You drive around removing voting booths from black precincts....
Won't see the Congress investigating that game.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
When the original GTA came out, back in Britain it almost got banned (from what i remembered) and the threat of that made it sell like shit off a shovel.
Rockstar are riding the new wave. Rockstar North havnt overly reacted as
A) They want to make it look like the game could be banned, more sales now, at the Premium Price.
B) they are Scottish and don't give a shit about what some american's think about their game.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
did you ever see the movie "wag the dog". It parallels what happened during clintons days, and has some echos of the current administration. Id like the movie even more than i already do, if it didnt seem so real...
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
And by "them" I mean the idiot politicians. And by "book" I mean "a shelf full of steamy romance novels bought by a 10 year old at the local used book shop, goodwill, salvation army, etc."
On the other hand, I'm looking at this and going, "female Zardoz"? "The gun is good the boobie is evil"?
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
yes but will the hot coffee mod cause cancer in peaceful iraqi rioters?
a la this
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
If they've been peddling GTA to minors, why do stores and the ESRB even have the M rating?
Why not classify it as E and leave it at that?
The platform R* needs to take is to point out that the content that's quite accessible in the game (ie the game itself) is FAR more graphic, realistic, intense and pornographic than a clothes on scene that makes Cinemax look like Larry Flynt.
Remember, pornography doesn't have to mean sexual.
And if this means that I buy my next copy of GTA from a adult bookstore or online, then so be it. I'm an adult, and I've got enough common sense to not let a kid of mine play GTA anyway.
Is this a legal or moral position?
Let's just pass a law to this effect, and we should be fine.
Who here remembers the Comic Code from many years ago?
Um...
In all seriousness. Is all this hoopla overblown?
We will all (probably) have sex at some point in our lives. I don't think any of us will ever resist or object to consensual sex. We use it as a means of reproduction, exercise, and occasionally a skill ladder at our job.
If taken at it's most basic context, it's two people who care a lot about each other, sharing each others bodies.
Why the hell is this considered wrong?
If we didn't have sex or acknowledge it:
1. We would all die out.
2. Men would put themselves at increased risk of prostate cancer
3. most men would get NO exercise period
4. the entire entertainment industry would collapse (No britney or angelina! No Tim McGraw or Brad Pitt!)
and so on...
We find the opposite sex attractive for one reason alone. Because we want to reproduce with them. To claim someone as "beautiful" or "handsome" (outside of family) is akin to pointing at them and saying, "I wouldn't mind you having my babies!" Really. Why else would you lust after that person in such a way?
So, with this in mind... Why does any religious party or political party get upset at the most BASIC sexual content?
Do they not want people to breed?
The video game industry is a $10 billion dollar industry, with powerful influence into the Male 18-35 market. This makes it the governments concern. And all this vote means is that the Federal Trade Commission has free reign to investigate this. Nothing else. Other parts of the government look into the Karl Rove thing, or the missing WMD's, or all that other shit that's gone on.
I mean, come on, what the hell is the FTC gonna do about Rove?
2: About the whole "sex isn't as bad as the Murder Death Killing going on in the game: Come on. Its the straw that broke the camel's back, and lets face it, there are, in fact, some things that probably shouldn't be out for public consumption.
3: Oh yeah, by the way, in case anyone here forgot about it in their mad dash to shout down the govenrmnet, Rockstar lied to the ESRB, the ESA, and the public! Whether or not Rockstar did actually intend to get this out for public consumption, bypassing the ESRB by making it hidden in the code, is a relevant question! Its not like they've been very honest and noble throughout this whole thing.
4: Finally, trust the government to do some things right. While the house and senate are voted in, and thus will be outraged for votes sake, the people in the FTC are hired and fired just like anyone else. They have no political motivation for rigging the investigation.
Beyond the Polygons : Because 50,000 polygo
The sky is falling! There was unaccessable content in a videogame that someone modded to make availible, and now with a downloadable patch a child might be able to use it! Nevermind the game was rated M to begin with! We need or tax payers money doing something about this! These are the real problems were facing today people! /Saracasim out
Why do politicians always delude themselves into thinking that gamers are some sort of masonic society hell-bent on fighting them to the bitter end. I'm all for rockstar and take-two being bitchslapped for dicking around with the ESRB but the problem is they will never get support from the gaming community if peaple like jack thompson are allowed to continue their mad rantings. The other thing i don't get is why the ESRB didn't just make M rated games 18+ and allow everything from hardcore to armored core to be filed under it, and prevent the whole issue in the first place. having that 1 year difference is really not going to do anything but confuse peaple even more. And it's not as if i can't easily see far more explicit material in an R rated movie...
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
The problem is not that Rockstar put sex into the game. The problem is that they lied about it! The ESRB was formed by the gaming industry with the promise that they could police themselves. When you rate a game with the ESRB, you must reveal all content whether it is accessible or not. (I work for a large gaming company (not Take-Two), and they are very explicit about this.) Rockstar defrauded the ESRB and continues to deny putting porn on the disk!
Congress is investigating this because they believe this is proof that the ESRB is useless: Rockstar can just hide porn on the disk, not tell the ESRB, get the M rating, get into Walmart et al, and cash in on the "unexpected surprise."
Nobody mentioned in these discussions has any problem with publishing porn, as long as you don't lie about publishing porn. Publish it and sell it to your heart's content. But the industry can't say "trust us" and then turn around and betray that trust and not expect to get smacked.
If you get mad at anybody, get mad at the cowards at Rockstar. Why don't they just fess up and admit they put the porn on the disk? Why did they defraud the ESRB in the first place? Rockstar is ruining it for the rest of us.
Wag The Dog parallels EVERY administration, sir.
Hell if they're going after gta:sa, they should go after DOA:xtreem volley ball. Now there's a game that's sure to make your pants tight O_o
(on side note, the confirmation word for this post is "whacked". No joke.)
okay, suppose rockstar is found guilty. do they have to immediately turn over all the profits off thet game over to the government? is this going to mean that we get a boobie-supported tax break?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
I went and found the list of those who voted for this.
So far, on the us house page, I've found this:
7:22 P.M. - ONE MINUTE SPEECHES - The House proceeded with one minute speeches.
H. Res. 376: expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Federal Trade Commission should investigate the publication of the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" to determine if the publisher intentionally deceived the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to avoid an "Adults-Only" rating
The title of the measure was amended. Agreed to without objection.
Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution, as amended Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 355 - 21, 1 Present (Roll no. 419).
This leads to this roll call:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll419.xml
Which states that 195 republicans voted yes, 2 voted nay. 159 democrats voted yes, 19 voted nay. 1 independant voted nay.
In other words, it wasn't even a contested vote.
The full list of those who voted yay follows:
Ackerman Aderholt Akin Alexander Allen Andrews Baca Baird Baker Baldwin Barrett (SC) Barrow Bartlett (MD) Barton (TX) Bass Beauprez Berry
Biggert Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Blackburn Blunt Boehlert Boehner Bonilla Bonner Bono Boozman Boren Boswell Boucher Boustany Boyd Bradley (NH) Brady (PA) Brady (TX) Brown (OH) Brown (SC) Burgess Burton (IN) Butterfield Calvert Camp Cantor Capito Capps Capuano Cardin Cardoza Carnahan Carson Carter Case Castle Chabot Chandler Chocola Cleaver Clyburn Coble Conaway Cooper Costa Cox Crenshaw Crowley Cubin Cuellar Culberson Cummings Davis (AL) Davis (CA) Davis (IL) Davis (KY) Davis (TN) Davis, Jo Ann Davis, Tom Deal (GA) DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DeLay Dent Diaz-Balart, L. Dicks Dingell Doggett Doyle Drake Dreier Duncan Edwards Ehlers Emanuel Emerson Engel English (PA) Eshoo Etheridge Evans Everett Farr Ferguson Filner Fitzpatrick (PA) Foley Forbes Ford Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Garrett (NJ) Gerlach Gilchrest Gillmor Gingrey Gohmert Gonzalez Goode Goodlatte Gordon Granger Graves Green (WI) Green, Al Green, Gene Gutknecht Hall Harman Harris Hart Hastings (WA) Hayes Hayworth Hefley Hensarling Herger Herseth Higgins Hinchey Hoekstra Holden Holt Honda Hooley Hoyer Hunter Hyde Inglis (SC) Inslee Israel Issa Jackson (IL) Jackson-Lee (TX) Jindal Johnson (CT) Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones (NC) Kanjorski Kaptur Keller Kelly Kennedy (MN) Kennedy (RI) Kildee Kind King (IA) Kingston Kirk Kline Knollenberg Kolbe Kucinich Kuhl (NY) LaHood Langevin Lantos Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Latham LaTourette Leach Levin Lewis (CA) Lewis (KY) Lipinski LoBiondo Lofgren, Zoe Lowey Lucas Lungren, Daniel E. Lynch Mack Maloney Manzullo Marchant Markey Marshall Matheson Matsui McCarthy McCaul (TX) McCollum (MN) McCotter McCrery McGovern McHenry McHugh McIntyre McKeon McKinney McMorris McNulty Meehan Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Melancon Menendez Mica Michaud Millender-McDonald Miller (FL) Miller (NC) Miller, Gary Miller, George Mollohan Moore (KS) Moore (WI) Moran (KS) Moran (VA) Murphy Musgrave Myrick Nadler Napolitano Neal (MA) Neugebauer Ney Northup Norwood Nunes Oberstar Olver Osborne Otter Oxley Pallone Pascrell Pastor Pearce Pence Peterson (MN) Peterson (PA) Petri Pickering Pitts Platts Poe Pombo Pomeroy Porter Price (GA) Price (NC) Putnam Ramstad Rangel Regula Rehberg Reichert Renzi Reynolds Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Ros-Lehtinen Ross Roybal-Allard Royce Ruppersberger Ryan (OH) Ryan (WI) Ryun (KS) Sabo Salazar Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Sanders Saxton Schakowsky Schiff Schwartz (PA) Schwarz (MI) Scott (GA) Scott (VA) Sensenbrenner Sessions Shadegg Shaw Sherman Sherwood Shimkus Shuster Simmons Simpson Skelton Slaughter Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Snyder Solis Spratt Stearns Stupak Sullivan Tancredo Tanner Tauscher Taylor (MS) Taylor (NC) Thomas Tho
Tepp
After all, Congress wants to see if Rockstar circumvened a self-regulating policy. Nobody's talking abour federally legislating the games industry (yet, anyway).
And stop talking about how the game has violenence and that seems to be okay. It's okay! The government isn't complaining about that either, so shut up about it already!
hm, good point. Still grate satire :)
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
But what about a company that sets the stage for an onslaught of legislation with their cheap publicity stunts? The game industry dodged the bullet of government regulation once by forming ESRB and learning to play by self-made rules in a terrific hurry. That was a real accomplishment, and Rockstar is undermining it by showing everyone that self-regulation does not work, and we need to be policed by government agencies.
I for one, do not welcome our new overlords. I make small games for a living and don't have a budget to pay for an ESRB rating or whatever new regulation system comes around. Since my games are sold online, I currently don't have to shell out two grand so that the IEMA will let me carry titles on retail shelves. But get the government involved, and watch large publishers lobby for mandatory ratings that become barriers to entry for indie developers. And watch politicians holy-rolling whatever subjective whim of the masses is popular into rating criteria. Yeah, enjoy the show and be sure to give Rockstar their proper credit for making it happen.
Since when is 17+ "youth"?
Seeing as how they sold 34 million copies BEFORE the Hot Coffee was even known about, how could this have been done for "profit"?!?
If they had leaked it, maybe, if they had leaked it or it had been known as soon as it hit game store shelves, ok, but 6+ months after release and someone hacked/exploited the code to get it to work!?!?
How is this some evil plan of Rockstar's?
Ok, so the game where you are a gang-banger and you REGULARLY murder people for fun, where beating a cop's brains out with a baseball bat is not only fun, but it gives you points. The game where shooting random strangers in the head is rewarded with cash... THIS game may have some sex in it? And the SEX is the reason why these fuckers are getting upset?
If the US was not a souvereign nation state and self-proclaimed Sheriff of the World(tm), I would think that this whole travesty was a satire piece.
The main character of the game is a homicidal sociopathic criminal, who not only steals for a living, but takes out hit jobs, does drug trafficking and is an element of organized crime among other things. While he does so, the game is sold over the counter to customers who are not legally an adult (in a country that disallows legal adults to dring alcohol for the first three years).
But once the character does something that would be considered natural in the rest of the world and is not a crime even in the US (yet), the federal Congress schedules time to ponder the question whether the makers of the game have made it sufficiently clear to an oversight organisation if the games should only be seen by those mature enough to understand the content.
What a great country that must be! Where the central goverment has no more pressing matters than a video game. And we can all be glad that Franz Kafka can write new material although he has been dead for decades. This is quite his style.
WARNING: (applies only to US citizens and resident aliens): The above text contains satirical elements that may require personal reflection and the use of intellect.
A company cannot be allowed to profit from deceit.
Much better.
I saw on MTV the other day a new racing game coming out on all systems where the object of mini-games is to crash and launch the driver out the front-window of the car in an effort to hit a bulls-eye or knock over objects. The ESRB rated it "Teen", and I have not seen a single complaint for the game. GTA: SA has a rating of Mature... Mature = Contains Sexual Content. 'Nough Said. This is like someone buying a Playboy.. and someone finding that if you scan a certain picture into the computer and digitally enhance it you can see a pornographic movie in the background. Then wanting to arrest Playboy for having Pr0n in their magazine.
I'm writing because Rockstar Games North is at the center of a shitstorm. The Hot Coffee minigame you included on the disc you sold has propelled you to the front page of Slashdot and made life a living hell for other video game publishers.
While it cannot be denied that much of the current political firestorm that you are involved in is led by opportunistic politicians (like Senator Clinton) in need of a demon to fight, there are still a few points of contention.
You included the sex game on the disc, regardless of how well it was hidden, and it can be accessed without modifying the game's code. On top of that, you lied about it when it was found, claiming that the content was added by third-party modders. Some see fit to give you the benefit of the doubt when you say it was part of the game that was scrapped and was never meant to be accessed, but seeing as how you were less than truthful about the content's origin, you understand how others might be hesitant to believe you.
Of course, you'll still enjoy a surge of support from dozens of Slashbotters whose concept of business and ethics begins and ends at "fuck the man." They'll make ridiculously grandiose statements about how GTA is "the most aesthetically important piece of art since Andy Warhol was alive" and wax poetic with stirring Braveheart-style soliloquies about "fighting the good fight" (though they won't mention that whole "lying to the consumers" part). They'll ignore your own part in this just so they can take a stab at the older generation and feel superior. And they'll mod down anyone who points out your own ethical shortcomings, for attacking their sacred cow of video games.
Meanwhile, the rest of the video game industry, the retailers, and the gamers themselves will suffer for your actions. They'll have to live with the raised level of scrutiny coming from concerned parents who were none too pleased to find out that there was more to that disc than they originally thought. Had you just put the minigame in without hiding it, and taken whatever rating it got you, there probably wouldn't even be a controversy. You might even have still gotten an M if you had just been up front about it. Then we could point to the rating and its content descriptors and tell those "concerned parents" that hey, they knew what was on the disc when they bought it. That is, if that was even necessary -- they probably wouldn't even be upset about the sexual nature of the content if they knew about it when they bought your game.
Of course, now that they know they've been tricked, it sure does seem important.
But who cares, right? You already made that fat stack of cash. You didn't violate any laws, so the House of Representatives can't really do anything to you. The best they can do is start passing laws forbidding retailers to sell M-rated games to anyone under 17. Or force the ESRB to be accountable to some government agency. But that's somebody else's problem, because your game already sold. Right?
We defended you, Rockstar. When people talked about how violent your games were, we noted that your games were no more violent than what could be seen on television, and that if there was a real concern, the ratings system was a reliable gauge that parents could use. But you threw that right out the window, and in the process single-handedly destroyed the best defense the video game industry has against the thought police. Why? For a publicity stunt? A marketing ploy? Or just because you were too lazy to remove something that you knew would cause a political firestorm?
You screwed us, Rockstar. Now I only hope that someone does the same to you.
How does the US FTC have any jurisdiction over what they make anyway? Sure they can get upset with TakeTwo for publishing and marketing, but I would think Rockstar could thumb their noses at them.
Then again I don't know how the Rockstar-Rockstar North relationship goes either... maybe the parent company is American, I dunno.
Could someone please just shoot everyone who votes "yes" on that? The IQ of your government would double within minutes.
It was rated M already. At 17, a large part of these teenagers will have had sex, and those who didn't have seen their fair share of porn.
Then again, senators apparently live in some weird kind of alternate reality anyways.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Most trucks are sold with governors at 95 MPH. If you are going 100+ MPH it's no longer a traffic violation, but a misdemeanor. But if you mod your truck's computer chip, you can remove the governor and go faster.
Isn't this comparable to GTA:SA? It's already rated M. But removing the censor-flag unveils softcore, clothed cartoon sex which the manufacturer locked out. What's next? Physically limiting the horsepower and output of automobile engines there is no way possible to exceed 95 mph?
H RES 376
S .376:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll419.xml
has the list of who voted how
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.RE
has more information
Take2 Interactive and Rockstar have been asking for some form of misfortune ever since they opted to stop innovation in favor of making the most money they can. Take2 Interactive did not back up Bungie during their most dire time when they needed funding. Instead, they sold off their part ownership to Microsoft and started churning out a cash cow industry of slum lord-esque sequels playing on the taboo factor. This first inquiry is just the beginning of their fall from fame. Now, while I'm sure a lot of people fell in love with GTA3 and how you could do things out of normal life, there was a limit to where the game would really persist. As the knock off sequels on the same engine kept pushing the limits, they were only testing to see how far they could make money off of people before the big bust. Take2's crime of greed and lack of innovation will pave the way for competitors to bring you better games on better engines. Rockstar's example for the industry will be misfortune, not innovation.
What's so totally stupid about the whole sorry affair is the one realistic possibility that nobody else has seemed to mention. The GTA_SA sex scenes were most probably removed into order to fit the game into a M rating! It's clumsiness on Rockstar's part that the code never got removed from the game media. If they wanted to deceive anyone, they would have left the sex scenes in the game as your reward for 100% complete or something.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
MS do know about the features in their software - they have to, they have the source. As did Rockstar with the BJ scene. Obvious "know about" means that the info was infront of the QC department, either a choice was made to release the product with the bonus feature, or QC didn't do their job and it was overlooked.
>>>...and XXX Volleyball are still on store shelves...
XXX Volleyball? You mean DOAX Beach Volleyball? The game were girls play volleyball in swimsuits? Why on earth are you comparing a volleyball game to a sex mod?
To be far, the ESRB is smoking the same crack as you. DOA Volleyball is DOA3 with volleyball instead of violence, and it gets an M rating instead of T. Makes no fucking sense at all.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Someone's probably already said this but using a mod like "Hot-Coffee" to alter the game-play experience is almost certainly against the TOS or EULA or whaterver. So how is that "intentionally peddling sex"?
http://www.bobbarr2008.com/
The original GTA being headlined as the "cause" of illegal activity nationwide, and sales skyrocket; coincidence? A little-known title called Manhunt is blamed for a murder, and sales skyrocket (in fact, this trashy game goes from bargain bin to hit); coincidence? A new title is found to contain material once again violating general social and moral standards, and Rockstar is once again painted as exciting, defiant free speech advotate, and sales skyrocket. Coincidence?
Consider, why would any professional studio leave this kind of material in their game? One would have to call people incompetent and ignorant idiots all the way up and down their staff to establish this case as an "accident" of any sort. They're not; these are some of the brightest and most capable people in the industry. What this was was Rockstar playing its card to get media coverage once again, and to once again rake in profits by violating social standards.
People don't like their social standards being violated. People especially don't like when people gain money for this. Enter the governing body representing the people to cut out the profit in violating social standards. This is only about "protecting kids" to the shallow laymen. The main thing this is about is trying to give people a sense of security in their ratings system which they have a right to have.
What needs to also be done? The whole Mature rating needs to be cut out or at least CLEARLY CUT AWAY FROM THE AO RATING, because it is completely worthless (read the descriptions of both and you'll see why). The ESRB system is finally being pushed, and it has shown that its rating system has not been genuine in-and-of itself. The people who point out that this sex scene shouldn't have made the difference are correct; instead, the ESRB should be obligated to follow its own standards and rate these sorts of games AO, regardless of the financial consequences this has on the developpers.
The main thing the ESRB is scared of is that no game thus far historically has been rated AO because of violence alone. They need to set a precident. All of Rockstar's recent games were inappropriately rated under their descriptions (since they all contain "prolonged" graphic violence) and the ESRB now feels hand-tied to rate future games with these ridiculous levels of graphic violence as AO. They need to do so.
Enter the whining Slashdotters. They want Doom 3 at Walmart to buy it. They want GTA there for convenience. The ESRB realizes that if they rate these games AO, they will piss of these consumers. They are inconsistant because they have been appeasing the very people who are now turning around and blaming them for being inconsistant. I dare all the people complaining about inconsistancy here to go to the ESRB's web site, go to the feedback hotline, and ask them to use the AO rating on games involving excessive violence and gore in order to be consistant. Otherwise, quit whining since this problem has only existed for your conveience.
"to our youth"
It's rated M people, as in not intended for people under 17.
Also, the game feature graphic violence, gangs, corrupt police, drug use, criminal activity, and people are mad because there's sex?
This sig is false.