GTA: San Andreas to be Re-Released Next Week

404Ender writes "According to GameStop and EB, the wildly successful Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will finally be re-released without the controversial "Hot Coffee" content and clean of anything that might demand an AO rating. Will this be the first game in a series of many to come that will be pulled off the market to be changed due to questionable content? How long before a Hot Coffee replacement mod is produced?"

Comments

Double standards

[Durzel]

The crazy thing about GTA:SA is that speaks volumes about the differences in cultures between the US and other countries.

For example, here in the UK, GTA:SA - and its predecessors - got an 18 rating straight off the bat. That's the highest rating ELSPA (The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, equivalent to your ESRB/IEMA) gives to video games over here. I guess its functionally equivalent to your AO rating.

Although I'm not an expert on classifications I'm sure it earnt its 18 rating here due to the strong content - extreme violence, grand theft auto, prostitution and so on. The fact that some time down the line a hidden pixellated simulated sex mode was unlocked was just icing on the cake - the game was already strictly limited to adults anyway.

I am presuming therefore that your M (17+) rating is equivalent to our 15 rating, which presumably means you are quite happy for 15 year old American youths to play out scenes where they can mug people, shoot cops, steal cars, use the services of prostitutes and so forth - but God forbid they see some pixellated nudity and crudely simulated sexual acts.

Will someone please think of the children! (and give them some guys to protect themselves while you're at it)

Re:Double standards

[lowrydr310]

When the whole outrage broke out, I was in Target looking at video games and noticed a sign in place of the GTA:SA stock that read, "Due to mature content, Target will no longer carry Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"

While I was reading it, I noticed some little kid buying the latest Fiddy Cent CD. Target stocks a ton of rap CDs, and doesn't restrict sales. I find it odd that a kid can't buy GTA because of some pixellated pr0n, but it's perfectly OK to buy a CD of someone rapping about sexual acts (in some cases violent sexual acts).

The mod was laughable anyway

[DrXym]

If anyone has seen the sex scene in "Team America" between puppets then you know what the "Hot Coffee" mod looks like. Except the mod doesn't even bother to make either participant naked. CJ keeps his clothes on, his girlfriend wears underwear. It's no wonder it was left out because it's pretty lame.

It's laughable that religious nuts and publicity whores from both parties should seek to decry this tame, lame, disabled mod when the actual:

• Glorifies gangs
• Offers numerous ways to murder people including slashing their throats, setting them on fire, cutting them to bits with a chainsaw or just shooting them./li>
• Murdering cops
• Doing drive bys
• Stealing cars
• Robbing houses
• Firebombing houses
• Running people over
• Pimping hookers
• Blowing up vehicles including aircraft

Personally I think GTA is a blast and GTA: SA is nothing short of a classic, but the hypocrisy concerning this mod is pathetic.

To heck with hot coffee, fix the controls!

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought this game the day it came out, only to find the control setup is horribly broken.

R* used to be so good about this, its a shame to see them go the route of "just another crappy playstation port" producer. Theyve gone through all this trouble to remove this stupid objectionable content, & completely ignored the glaring bugs that keep the game from being playable.

Heaven forbid anyone try to use a controller that isnt a carbon copy of the damn PS2 controller! Fuck you Rockstar, you can keep your damn coffee, just give me a usable control scheme!

No New mod.

[NewStarRising]

The whole point of ther re-release is to remove the "hot Coffee" code.
There will be no "replacement mod", as there will be (according to TakeTwo) no AO content on the disk.

It _may_ be possible for some enterprising young hacker to _add_ content to the game, or produce their own mini-game with new content, but that is a different kettle of monkeys.

Will this be the first of many? How many other games have this content in? And are sold as non-AO? And have sales-figures to match GTA?
Maybe a few less-than-reputable (note: this does not mean small.) games companies may put offensive content in, purely to publices the removal of it, but this will be a minority.

Droid 1: Hey, whats all this buzz about hot coffee? It's all over the papers.
Droid 2: Its a part of GTA they pulled for being rude.
Droid 1: Can we do that? We could use the publicity.
Droid 2: Well, our games have no hidden offensive content...
Droid 1: I'll talk to the programming team.

Not the first game to be pulled

[WebGangsta]

Will this be the first game in a series of many to come that will be pulled off the market to be changed due to questionable content?

If you believe the marketing hype on The Guy Game's website, then there already has been a game pulled for questionable content.

And by "questionable", I mean supposedly/allegedly containing video of a topless 17-year-old girl who had signed release papers allowing the video to be shot but who later came forward and sued Sony/MSFT/Guy Game for including the underage video in the game.

I know I've still seen the game on store shelves this week, so I don't know the current status of this lawsuit or whether the game was pulled and released without her video included.