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Grandma Sues Over Hot Coffee Mod
Bond_James writes "Ars Technica is reporting that an 85-year old New York woman has filed a civil suit against Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive. She alleges that the defendants 'engaged in misleading and deceptive practices in packaging and selling' the game, which she purchased for her 14-year old grandson. This will be interesting, and scary, to watch unfold in the courtrooms. Will the M (17+) rating of the game save Rockstar?"
The story says she bought the game in 2004, that means it was the ps2 version. The only way to accees the mod for that version is if you have a modchip and manualy modify the files (or so every other story says). Anyway is it not her fault for buying a 14 year old a game desgined for 17+.
I'm hoping she dies before anything comes of this. People like this need to go away.
why? forty-two.
From TFASorry, Grandma, but you don't have a case, although the state may have a case against you for Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Let this be the first of many comments to say that this is officially retarded. To buy a game that is rated for someone older than your child and then sue because content that is not accessible without serious binary editing is found is ridiculous. If your 14 year old wants cartoon sex, grandma, he can search for Hentai on google and find images far more erotic than in GTA.
So, Granny fails to notice the M(17+) rating. Ok, it's not very prominent or well know. Then she completly ignores the box art, which I guess she could have overlooked on account of the way a lot of art is done these days. Finally, she didn't pick up on the fact that the game is named after a rather major felony. How oblivious do you have to be to buy this game for a 14 year old kid? Not to mention that she has managed to completly miss all of the noise made about the last installment. I'm sorry but she, and all of her offspring need to be scraped out of the gene pool as too stupid to breed.
Yes, she's an old granny, and may not get out much, but she has the ability to get a lawyer and sue, so please don't give me the "she's an old confused lady" bit. If she is able to track down a lawyer and start a lawsuit over this, she should have been capable of figuring out that this game may not have been appropriate for her grandson.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Just package the game in a set of styrofoam titties, or require that stores set up their displays, the customer has to reach through the vagina hole of a big latex pussy with a throbbing red clit to grab a box.
That ought to make it clear to even the most shriveled up grandma that this game is not for children, and you're fucking responsible for what you buy, not anyone else.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
this is just some old chick jumping a potential sue happy gravy train in hopes of leaving a nice inheritance for her family when she dies (hopefully before the lawsuit settles). She stated in her suit that her grandson was 14 years of age when she bought a MA 17+ game for him. Right there in the complaint she admits her stupidity and guilt.
Imagine the outrage if she had purchased her son the August 2005 issue of National Geographic Magazine. There is a photo of a nude woman in it! We must start checking IDs on magazine purchases and institute a rating system at once!
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Fuck you, grandma. You are, plain and simply, an idiot.
...will be:
(a) will Rockstar report her to the local Dept of Social Services for providing the game to the 14 year old,
(b) will Rockstar turn around, if this lawsuit actually proceeds, and sue the modders for violating EULAs, and
(c) will Rockstar bite the bullet and start refusing to submit their games voluntarily to the ESRB for rating at all?
As far as I'm concerned, the hype surrounding this, the Congressional involvement, and the lack of parental responsibility in the equation are far more criminal than anything that Rockstar has done.
http://oghc.blogspot.com/
Rockstar really made their bed with this one, and now they are going to have to sleep in it. Originally I blew this off as a bunch of prudes getting steamed over some mods for a game, but now its been shown that this is a built in 'feature'. I'd like to defend Rockstar, but really cannot as it is affording them special treatment at the expense of other people.
The video game industry & audience has been VERY good to Rockstar; they've enjoyed massive sales & popularity, and at this point 4 sequels to an originally top-down perspective game centered around driving, stealing, and violence. And, with greater popularity comes greater inspection of the product by those who do not like it and wish for it to be banned. Given that GTA is a homing-beacon target for 'family values' type groups, it seems utterly retarded to package a sex game into it without informing the game raters, and then act surprised when players uncover it, then lie about the nature of it, and *wham* you just gave those 'family values' groups all the ammo they need to actually ACT and not just TALK about regulating video games further. My feeling is summarized such that while I do not think Rockstar intentionally tried to screw us this way, they have inadvertantly abused their success in such a way that it will hurt everyone else a great deal more than it will hurt them due to an anti-sex backlash amongst lobbying groups. Remember, with great power comes great responsiblity; with great success built upon the fellow shoulders of your video game colleages, comes the responsibility to not do things that will make it harder for your colleages to do their jobs in their comparatively smaller successes.
And for the record, the Hot Coffee 'game' is entertaining once for the gimmick & shock value, but otherwise is as interesting as Virtual Valerie and definitely not worth the price that Rockstar is going to pay in the end at the hands of moral crusaders.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
She's suing not only for herself, but for "everyone else who purchased the game." Since I purchased it I am someone she thinks she is protecting. So let me talk to Ms. Florence Cohen of NY directly for a second...
Hey, Flo, I don't need your protection. I can read the labels on the box just fine by myself.
Yes, GTA:SA is a mature game. That's why it was sold with an ESRB rating of "M" (now "AO" for adults only). "M" games are sales limited to people who are seventeen years of age or older. Rockstar, Take Two, the reseller, and the clerk at the store did nothing wrong by selling Ms. Cohen GTA:SA. That is, unless she is only sixteen yet has managed to have two generations of Cohens come after her. Her mistake was her own. She gave an "M" title to a person under the age of seventeen. If the government wants laws to punish clerks who sell titles to people outside of the posted age ranges shouldn't there also be punishments for people who traffic these games to children? She, either intentionally or not, was corrupting her grandson by giving him a game that the game industry reviewed, rated, and clearly labeled as not suitable for him.
Outside of Ms. Cohen no one is at fault here. The voluntary rating worked, the box was clearly labeled with the restriction, and the store didn't sell the game to anyone under the proper age.
I'll close by suggesting a new title for the article, "Ignorant Grandmother who bought 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' without reading the label is suing the manufacturer instead of taking responsibility for her mistake".
Again with the grandma, and the hot coffee, and the lawsuits....
When will they learn to stay away from hot coffee.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
It's a valid point: GTA is saturated with violence of some of the most offensive kind, a little sex should be the least of a parent or grand parent's worries, right? It's OK to grease police and mobsters, steal cars and blow things up, pick up hookers, but sex, now that's going too far?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
First off, Rockstar should report her and the children's parents to family services for neglect.
Next, they should sue the kid and his parents. They could claim that he modified the ROT-26 protected binary and used the product in a manner not in accordance with the EULA.
Sue the grandma also. She bought the game and then gave it to someone else. I'm pretty sure the EULA only gives the purchacer the right to use the product.
They should probably sue Jack Thompson for public disclosure of a unaddressed security flaw. Jack should have sent a private memo to Rockstar and given them time to revove the flaw.
Then they should sue Mattell. Your Rockstar should claim they bought a barbie doll and a ken doll for their kids. The kids were latter seen playing with the dolls having simulated sex.
Then sue Lego. You can put thoes things into some funny positions making it look like simulated sex.
Sue the Catholic church for including "Song of Solomon" in the Bible. Sue the Protestants while you are at it.
They should Sue Bill Clinton for having simulated sex in the Oval Office.
Sue Hillary for not divorcing her cheating, lying husband. Women putting up with that shit degrades the American Family. Damn her for not setting a better example for our young women.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Living in the US, I'm always amazed at ratings like this..... *Before I continue, yes I understand that basically the M rating is a suggestion while the AO rating is more of a rule not to sell to minors* We all know what the game involves... and apparently that's suitable if you're seventeen. But because there's a hidden minigame requiring a mod to unlock it that has explicit cartoon sex, it's no longer suitable for 17-year olds... not you have to wait a year before you understand that cartoon sex. I never quite understood that... just like I can walk into a car rental place at 24 and 11 months old and not be able to rent a car.... one month later, I'm considered old and wise enough to rent one. I know there has to be a limit at one point.... but not much happens between 17 and 18 (other than "officially" being considered an adult) that seems to warrant two different ratings. Incidentally, I'd also like to point out that NC17 rating for movies used to be X..... hmmm... so you can watch real people pretending to have sex on film at 17, but you're really not ready to watch polygons poorly representing people on your TV having sex... *didn't rtfa, hasn't played GTA (no interest), sick of the hype over this issue prevading over real issues in current events*
Slashdot: where repeating an article in a post is "+5 Insightful"
MAN! This whole fiasco is bouncing around the topics here more than a superball! Alright, let's get a few things straight:
Let's set aside all concepts that this 85 year old lady is a shriveled old busy body who wants to feel important. That's Jack Thompson you guys are thinking about; wrong person! Let's try putting ourselves in her shoes for a second.
You are the grandmother of a well rounded 14 year old son. He's getting angsty from puberty and general teenager stuff, but he ain't that bad a kid. His parents let him watch some R rated movies, and don't mind the music he listens to either. They are also pretty tolerant about the games he plays.
So you know your grandson wants this game, and let's say that you know at the very least that it is pretty graphic, but IT DOESN'T CONTAIN ANYTHING HE HASN'T SEEN BEFORE! If he's watched R rated movies, he's probably familiar with the violence. If he listens to today's music, then the game's language ought to be no shock to him.
So TRUSTING that there was no softcore or hardcore sex stuff in the game, she buys it and gives it to her grandson as a gift.
THEN you find out that the company slipped in this mini-game that involves graphic/explicit sex, and you realize YOU were the one that bought it for him. Sure it requires using a cheat device and a cheat code, but with a little web surfing and owning said cheat device, it isn't too difficult to unlock if the effort is put into it.
Graphic sex is THE taboo thing that the grandson's parents and yourselves think he is a BIT young for! Especially at the age when he's first discovering girls and you don't want him to get any misconceptions about the fairer sex.
So now you've bought it, found out about it, and took it away from him before he could go and find that cheat to unlock the sex scene. But now you realize that you're $50 in the hole thanks to that, and right now you should be pretty angry!
So whose fault was it? Was it the ratings board for not properly giving the game an AO rating, reserved for games with graphic sex? Well as it turns out, it wasn't the ratings board's fault because they changed the rating after they found out and proved all of this, so now eyes turn to the company.
Rockstar.
Rockstar has pushed the envelope of controversy and taken it all the way to the bank, and right now you are pretty upset that they hoodwinked the ratings board, and you yourself too. I mean if you can't trust the company who makes the thing, then who CAN you trust?
Now, you want your $50 back, and you think that all other parents and grandparents who are in the same boat as you are should get their money back for the copies they don't want anymore! If there's a recall on the game, then it's only fair to refund the money or replace the discs with clean copies!
So, now we have dear Flo here going to court with a lawyer who ISN'T Jack Thompson, and she, as of right now, can have a pretty good case against the company. They did NOT disclose the mini-game to the ratings board, and it went unmentioned until July when it spread like wildfire, and when something spreads that quickly, you know that it can be easily accessed by any tech savvy kid. 14 is a good age where just about any kid can find any information they want on the net without strict parent control. What's more, trying to block finding the cheats is nearly impossible because SEVERAL sites can have this information!
So, in the board of lawsuits...
1) Grandma has a case against Rockstar because they provided millions of discs to parents who did NOT want graphic sex placed before their kids. Violence and language, and sexual suggestiveness is one thing, but graphic sex is THE MOST TABOO thing possible in media. Movies, books, TV, and radio do not have graphic explicit sex material on them. Think about the last time you listened to a porn scene on the radio, watched full blown sex on TV (BY HUMANS!), read a graphically detailed sex scene in a book, and saw a full out s
1. Grandma buys adult game for minor
... I think the woman is a total bitch trying to cash in on something that had nothing to do with her ... but here's hoping all she ends up with are steep legal fees as she wastes the court's time, and steps closer and closer to her coffin
2. Grandma sues industry
3. Court throws case out
4. Precedent is set and fewer people try to do the same
Don't get me wrong
This isn't about the video game. By now that should be obvious to most people.
This is about some opportunitstic, sleazebag lawyer and an 85-year-old incompetent parental figure trying to make a quick buck, or get their 15 minutes of attention.
The less we talk about this frivolous lawsuit and the losers involved, the better.
Some people in this thread have the audacity to say that this is, in fact, grannies fault.
;)
Clearly this is Take-two's fault and Rockstars, they are to blame for this. This is not something some one is scapegoating, this is ligit and they will loose to grandma.
Did you not read the article? Rock* was physically there, and they engaged in misleading and deceptive practices and coerced her into buying it. I believe she was actually held at knife point...
They used imtimidation, they threatened her life!! Besides, game ratings are not to be taken serious....they're more like suggestions as opposed to restrictions of age.
They really mean "hey, MAYBE you want to wait. ah screw it, BUY ME BUY ME BUY ME you'll win a car...
where was I going with this...
oh yeah its rockstars fault, not helpless granny. I've been saying this for so long, kids are innocent until corrupted by an EVIL corporation.
like microsoft
I would like to take this time to announce my lawsuit against Rockstar (all the cool kids are suing them these days)
(ahem) Rockstar engaged in misleading and deceptive practices that led me to buying a soda at lunch today. I have since spilled that soda on my pants, and it grieved me so. I once saw a character in GTA:SA drink a beverage, which led me to my soda-purchasing ways. Cleary they are to blame. I want $85 million for damages, $14 for fun, and $7 million in grievances. We can settle out of court for a free copy of GTA:SA and beer money. PC version.
And I mean real beer money. No $12 for a 30 pack of 'stones. And certainly no fake money. oh yea cash for dry-cleaning.
i don't care
This is all fucking stupid. If I wanted to see naked people, I'd download some porn. I don't have the desire to watch pixels porking each other. It takes a lot more know-how to mod a game or install a patch than it does to get on Kazaa and download some hardcore stuff.
If this kid would mod his PS2 to watch the Hot Coffee game, I'd say he already has a couple gigs of porn on his computer. Who's gonna get sued for that?
I can't wait to get my Hot Coffee shirt tomorrow.
In related news her 14 year old grandson has been arrested for stealing cars, running over police, and beating hookers to death with Giant Purple Dildos.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.