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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?"
so can someone get me a coffee, please?
"Warm Tea" mod. Controversy ensues.
Argh.
Otherwise how will it be "clean of anything that might demand an AO rating"?
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
Read his page on the hot coffee mod...
Thank God. I'll be the first person to download and patch my PC version of "Grand Theft Auto." I want to shoot people in the face, bang prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers without this filthy smut in my game.
How long before a Hot Coffee replacement mod is produced?
for computers, I would say roughly 30 seconds.
xao
http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
Them then re-releasing the Hot Coffee version as a special adult-only don't-have-to-hack-the-code release (which I'm guessing some people would buy) and making MORE money from this. Which would be exactly the opposite that the original complainants were attempting to achieve, no?
Um, I don't know about you guys, but as I see it GTA is not something suitable for kids regardles off the amount of booty shown.
Any game with that amount of violence should be adults only. It's funny as hell, but it really does demand a mature mind... IMHO anyways.
.: Max Romantschuk
Finally. No more distractions from sex and pr0n. More time for pure slaughter and massacres of innocent bystanders. /picz
------- Look mum! I have posted another Slashdot comment! --------
This just in, Rockstar North pulled a "Speilberg" today by re-releasing their "GTA:San Andreas" game without any guns, sex, or even reckless driving available.
First impressions of the game seem to be mixed, as you're only allowed to walk around town and wave to people.
More news, as this develops.
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)
It's laughable that religious nuts and publicity whores from both parties should seek to decry this tame, lame, disabled mod when the actual:
Personally I think GTA is a blast and GTA: SA is nothing short of a classic, but the hypocrisy concerning this mod is pathetic.
... killing and torturing people to death isn't questionable in the US, and so hasn't been removed?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"SAVE OUR KIDS FROM THIS SMUT"
Of course the fact that the idea of the game is to kill innocent people and steal cars and is actually NAMED after a felony offence is fine...
Just don't you dare show any breasts, because breasts are evil, breasts corrupt.
Life immitating Simpsons... next stop the art gallery.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
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!
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.
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
What still bugs me the most about all this is that they gave it an AO rating when there are games out there such as PLayboy: The Mansion, that get an M rating...something in the rating system is broken.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
I don't know about the rest of you but I always like seeing these sketchy marketing ploys by companies. The fact is, the folks making the Grand Theft Auto games aren't out to be the good guys with a squeaky clean brand so what do they have to lose? They know their games shake up the market and get negative press and that's exactly what they want. So they add in this discoverable scene and keep that press wheel turning. I'm impressed, and I don't think this is the last time we're going to see something like this from their company.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
I wonder if Sony is still going to rely so damn heavily on the GTA francise now? I believe they once had a no sex policy in Playstation games before.
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.
No, the main difference is pure psychology. There is technically a one-year difference in the "recommendations" between M (17) and AO (18); however, most chain stores will carry "M" but they absolutely refuse to carry "AO". This is exactly the same thing as theatres that will show "R" rated movies (under 17 must be admitted by parent or guardian) but will absolutely refuse to show "NC-17" (no one under 17) purely because of the psychological stigma that people seem to have against the various ratings.
Mind you, there are no laws, at least on a nationwide level, that say that stores and theatres must adhere to the ratings of games or movies. They're all purely voluntary. Unfortunately, too many Americans put so much emphasis on ratings that they're completely blindsided and outraged with stupid stuff like the "Hot Coffee" mod occurs.
I am a red-white-and-blue, flag-waving American conservative, and even I am appalled by the astounding hypocrisy regarding sex. A movie or game can have "F" bombs every third word, blood, violence, death, horror, and destruction and it will receive a mediocre rating of PG-13 or M. But if any sex is involved -- WHOOSH! -- hear that rating skyrocket to R or AO even if there are comparatively few vulgarities, blood, violence, death, horror, and destruction.
The whole "Hot Coffee" thing is so ridiculously overblown just for the purposes of advancing the political agendas or stealing the spotlight on both sides of the political spectrum that it almost makes you want to engage in violence against the opportunists. So, I guess there might be some validity about video games causing violence, but only when ridiculous accusations and moral condemnations are made against those games. I have no intentions of playing "GTA:SA" just because that's not my type of game, but I still might buy it just to show support for Rockstar.
If these people are so against sex, then the best thing that they can do for all of us is to not reproduce.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Well, i don't really get it...i mean come on!
Every now and then i get surprised on how much those critics are really off with their ratings!
It 's like saying : "It is ok to steal cars, to kill people and to deal drugs, as long as we keep the game 'clean' with no sex content and no swearing!"
Come on, people!! If children were really influenced by the video-games they play, I'd rather have a kid playing the Old Larry games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_Suit_Larry than any other violent content game! I mean sex is better than shooting people, right?
And don't even get me started on swearing! Did you know that the cursing words are not in the same part of your brain where other words are regularly stored? Therefore recent studies have showed that cursing is more a physiological necessity than a habit!
Let's put the game on as it is and let the children play! I mean if parents are not around to teach their children right from wrong, we cannot expect video-games do that for them !!
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
God forbid these kids ever go through puberty and actually have sex. They'll be scarred for life!
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Who needs this blasphemous piece of software, when you have nice wholesome games like Manhunt?
Thank you, Mr. Falwell. The world is truly an easy place to understand once you fix absolute blame on something you personally don't like.
Every time I go to visit my girlfriend for Hot Coffee, I steal a dirtbike and take back roads. Then I present the filthy motorcycle to her as a gift.
She always thanks me and tells me how much she loves it when I give her a dirty Sanchez.
-@
Move all sig!
Hot Coffee for un-modded PS2
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Just a friendly reminder that the Hot Coffee controversy is not about sex in GTA. It's about Rockstar defrauding the ESRB to get a lower rating so GTA would be carried in Walmart and Gamestop and other stores that won't carry AO games. Rockstar was contractually obliged to reveal all content to the ESRB. (I work for a major game developer, not Rockstar, and I know that we must disclose all disk contents to the ESRB.) They didn't disclose the sexual content, and once they were caught they lied about putting on the the disk and tried to blame some hacker who found the enabling bits.
Game developers can put whatever content they want in their games. Nobody is stopping them. (Not even congress.) But you can't lie about it to the ESRB. Don't get caught up in the "is sex worse than violence?!" argument. That's not the point. The point is that sex won't get carried in Walmart, but sex sells, so Rockstar put sex in the game and lied about it to the ESRB.
As a game developer, I'm pissed as hell at Rockstar for screwing things up for the rest of us. If you're gonna put sex in the game, at least fess up to it. Don't act all surprised and say, "Goodness, how did that get in there?" What a bunch of cowards.
For all the Slashdotters who illustrate the point that religious groups and soccer moms are flipping out over a crappy sex scene in a video game, while at the same time condoning the violence need to do one thing.
Please STFU.
They do not condone the violence in video games and movies anymore than they do sex. Ok sure, your Mom might not bat an eye about you killing virtual cops, but at the same time will flip out over a little nudity. I'm not talking about her; I'm talking about the organized movements that wish to censor our entertainment for our own good.
Sex is just the latest taboo for these organizations. These same groups a few years ago have tried to censor games based on the amount of violence. The old timer's here should be telling the younger geeks about the media uproar caused by Doom and other games of the same genre way back in 1993. There was a lot of debating for years that violence in media was a leading cause of violent crime.
For example, I heard a lot more about how the kids responsible for the massacre at Columbine played FPS, then I did about the lack of the parents saying to themselves, 'Hey my kid has a swastika on his wall and lots of books about Hitler, is a social outcast at school and has an unhealthy fascination regarding death. Maybe I should look into this?'
However with the gaming companies banding together and creating a rating system it helped soften the violence argument by putting right on the box what the game's content is. The attempts to vilify video games because of violence started to make fewer headlines, for the responsibility is now on the parents. If your kid was playing games that you do not approve of, the fault was now yours. Sure there where still complaints by the hard core, but they were not about to shut up about the issue even if they did succeed at eliminating video games altogether. Sleazy lawyers will also continue to take up these cases as long as they think they can make the slightest bit of profit off of them. However for the time being, we won the battle for the most part.
However a battle is not a war. If you guys continue to use the argument that "What's the big deal about a little sex in a game where as a player, I'm allowed to commit a shopping list of horrendous crimes?" That's going to bite us on the ass by helping to reignite the violence in video games debate which our opponents will love to see happen.
Please stop giving the enemy more bullets.
>
Finally, a version that's safe for my kids.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
For the love of god won't someone please mod America's Army.
A taxpayer funded game that shows nudity and sex. What would happen? Would they shutdown the game servers? Stop distributing the games?
And the most important question of all: How hard would this make me laugh?
Disabled sex? Now that's just disgusting!
(Actually, the scene in Monkeyshines was pretty good.)
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.