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FTC and Rockstar Settle Hot Coffee Dispute
kukyfrope writes "The FTC and Rockstar/Take-Two have reached a settlement surrounding the 'Hot Coffee' mod for GTA: San Andreas that will serve to prevent future incidents. The FTC has stated that Rockstar and Take-Two must disclose all content to the ESRB when rating games, or face an $11,000 fine per violation if undisclosed content is discovered. 'Parents have the right to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system. We allege that Take-Two and Rockstar's actions undermined the industry's own rating system and deceived consumers,' commented Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection."
I wonder how many extra sales Rockstar generated because of the whole Hot Coffee thing. Probably enough to conver that fine several times over. Doesn't seem like much of a deterrant to me.
should the FTC be allowed to levy fines on behalf of a private organization? Why the hell is the FTC even involved, wouldn't this be more a contract dispute? Far as I know, they don't get to regulate games, but maybe it all falls under the same decency laws everything else does.
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I really loved the bit about "parents have the right to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system"... yep, I can see it now...
"yeah, son, you can play this game where you have to sell drugs, have sex with prostitutes, murder policemen and steal their cars... it's all ok; just so long as there is no unrealistic computer simulated sex in it"
Why did anyone care about this. Not only was it not in the main game it was by far the least offensive thing in the list I just mentioned... I'd rather my children had sex than killed policemen
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Parents have the right to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system. We allege that Take-Two and Rockstar's actions undermined the industry's own rating system and deceived consumers
This is crazy. It is not like GTA San Andreas was rated "E for Everyone" and then "unexpectedly" showed some adult-rated content to minors. Even with an "M" rating, how could any reasonable parent buy this game for their child and not thing something inappropriate would be there?
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
$11 K per violation? .. for complanies that make money in millions...
this is absurd
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
Why was this even an issue? Rockstar didn't ship this content as active, a third party mod had to be used to get to it. They did not ship that content with intent to be seen, and if the code wasn't there by default to enable that section, it can hardly be their fault if players go out of the way to activate it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"We allege that Take-Two and Rockstar's actions undermined the industry's own rating system and deceived consumers,' commented Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection."
*sigh*
No, actually it wasn't that big of a deal. Our priorities in this country baffle me sometimes. The rampant violence in this game wasn't bad in their eyes. Some rough sex and they draw the line? Come on, you had to mod the program just to see it!
I hope enough people see through this charade.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
As indicated above, this is a slap on the wrists. Considering the Nazi-like ways that the FTC has handled "oscenity" issues in the past, like Howard Stern, this is mild! I wonder if this is more becuase they're covering their asses. Let's face facts. They got a ton of criticism because of the way that they handled this. That wasn't a Rockstar release. It was a third party hack. Lots of games have third party hacks that allow this. That doesn't mean that it was done with the approval of the game maker. If a programmer puts an inappropriate comment in a program that will never be displayed but someone gets offended when trying to illegally hack the code, should the company be sued?
... at least for now.
Antucally, this kind of ruling sets a precedence that almost makes it seem like a possible marketing tactic: Hey, if we don't announce this and someone finds out, we could make a huge increase in sales from the publicity and only pay an $11,000 fine! It's costs more to advertize in major gaming magazines!
I will take exception with one this that was said (emphasis mine):
Parents have the right to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system.
Bullsh*t. Parents have the privilege to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system. Just like the movie rating system, these rating are not enacted by laws. They are not legal rights as the ESRB is not an institution that was empowered by a government act! Stop calling them "rights"!! Sorry,folks. Pet peeve, but there is a major difference between a right and a privilege
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
They put the content in the game, then locked it away. The ESRB did not know about this, rated it lower than it should have, and then people bought it based on the ESRB's rating, thus buying it under false pretenses. The FTC stepped in and actually did something free-market: "you will abide by the rating system that you agreed to sell your product under." Punishing fraud is one of the most basic things the government is supposed to do.
""Parents have the right to rely on the accuracy of the entertainment rating system," commented Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection."
After reading TFA, this is the most remarkable line in it. Props to submitter.
Parents don't have the right to rely on ESRB ratings. They have the ability to do so -- and can if they want -- but that is not a right. If a parent decides the ESRB rating is untrustworthy, or that Take2 is untrustworthy, that is their right. It is their right to not purchase games they feel might not adhere to the voluntary ratings system. Parents have the rihght to choose what's best for their kids -- and if they don't have all the information, that's nobody's fault but their own.
You know what? If parents have the right to rely on an independent, private body for game ratings, then I have the right to rely on Fox News (an independent, private body, right?) for fair and balanced news, the right to have all the information presented to me. So where's Fox's fine for not presenting fair and balanced news? Please, Ms. Parnes, why doesn't Fox or CNN or ABC or any news or entertainment media entity not get fined $11,000 every time they don't give us all the information?
/rant
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
So whilst it's perfectly all right for "the children" to experience gunning down coppers, twocking cars and running down pedestrians with an ambulance, a bit of rumpy-pumpy sets all the censors ablaze? Someone better tell them that the US has the largest porn industry of any other country on earth so they can shut that down too...
Only if you can demonstrate your mod merely unlocked the already existing gay BDSM content which was in Solitaire. Otherwise, it's you who distributed the M content and gets in trouble, now Microsoft.
In this case, Rock Star shipped the game with that content present, but disabled. This mod only re-enabled the content, not provided it.
So, if you discover such content in Windows and can release a mod for it, then, be our guest.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Rockstar games was and is free to include sex scenes in their video games - as they are free to include violence.
What they can't do is deceive the rating board about the content. This is the Federal Trade Commission. Deceptive trade practices fall properly within their purview.
That being said, $11,000 is a ridiculously small fine and takes into account the fact that this was inadvertent rather than intentional.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Okay - please - explain this to me:
2 games:
One ships with nude base models for characters, and clothing is put on top when the models are generated for display. The nude models are never shown during "normal" gameplay, but someone makes a mod to make all clothing transparent.
The other ships with a blank void where the naughty-bits are, and puts clothes on top, so you never see the blank-void-naughty-bits during gameplay. Someone makes a mod which adds in those naughty-bits.
Now of course you'll say "But game A ships with naughty-bits!". It doesn't matter - to the end user running show_naughty_bits.exe, it's the exact same experience. Out here in the real world, there's no difference. Once a game is modified from its original form, why can a company be held responsible?
Last post!
"Take-Two must disclose all content to the ESRB when rating games"
;-)
Just to be sure, if I were Take Two,
If you plan to someday run a company you will need to learn to think through a couple of rounds of moves and countermoves.
I'd hand them a hard-copy printout of every single line of code in the game. "You demanded everything. Well, here ya' go! Good luck going through all that."
And the ESRB responds: "With an attitude like that, no rating for you. Good luck talking to the buyer for Walmart."
How is it that Rockstar and Take2 can be fined for submitting their game to an optional software review board?
Besides, why do we have both M and AO? The ages associated with both are 17 and 18. Drop one and leave the system alone.
I wrote about this for eToychest earlier today, so I won't reiterate my take on the news here, but I will say this:
Parents have access to a wealth of videogame related information. Reviews and screen captures abound on the Internet. It's time for parents to stand up and do their jobs as parents again. If you can't decide for yourself what your child should be doing, maybe you shouldn't be a parent.
e2 | LJ
Exactly. If the user takes an action specifically to modify the game in a way that would violate its rating, then that's the user's fault, not the game developer's fault. If you don't want to see naughty bits, then don't modify the game. If you don't want your kids seeing naughty bits, then don't let them play unsupervised. This crap has gotten way out of hand and is just ridiculous now.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Sadly, so VERY true!
I mean come on... people are complaining because little Johnny (or Jane if she is so inclined) went out on the net, found a discussion group (or a download site) that had this mod in it, downloaded it, installed, it and played it.
I have two problems with this being the fault of Rockstar
1: Where the hell did little Johnny (lets assume he is under age 16 which in most states is just old enough to get a work permit) get the cash for this game in the first place. I would assume that he got it from the parents. And where, might I ask were the parents? (old topic: NOT REAL PARENTS. Just reproductive units)
2: As many have already pointed out. No one seems to be complaining about the fundamental content (i.e.: profanity, killing, assault, theft, etc...) in the game, but good lord, pixelated simulacrum of sex gets these nuts bent out of shape? (no jokes about the possible pun there) Give me a break, sex is something most everyone does and quite a few enjoy (hell, if that was not true, little Johnny and/or Jane would not be an issue). But I believe there are a LOT of laws (societal as well as moral) that prohibit murder, theft, etc...
so nutty!
I am just going to crawl back into my hole. The world has just gotten more scary and I don't want to come out anymore.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
Is it that they chose not to have it rated, or that they didn't disclose things that would have changed the rating? I understood the latter, and it is the job of the FTC (not the FCC...there's your radio and public airwaves) to make sure that things are as advertised. If they chose not to be rated, then the FTC wouldn't have been involved, as I understand it.
My brain is overly lubricated
...what a total slap on the wrist.
A slap on the wrist? For what??? Daring to not break the law?
Get some perspective here, people! Rockstar did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
And even if you give two squirts of a rat's ass about what the goddamned Christian Wrong have to say on the matter - This "content" didn't even exist in the game, as released - It took out-of-game action on the part of the player to make the scene accessible.
Time to get the FCC back to just spectrum allocation rather than blatant censorship; the FTC back to protecting consumers from exploding cellphones rather than blatant censorship; And to burn the PTC and Jackoff Thompson at the motherfucking stake!
And yes, I used some four-letter words above - The fact that we consider censorship even remotely acceptible, even if only with a token punishment, seriously pushes a few of my buttons. We don't need to debate the content, or the ease of accessing it, or the fines, or the technical authority to impose such fines. We need to get each and every last one of these worthless trips who would tell us what we can and can't see/say/read/write/hear/think/feel up against the wall - while we need to do it while we still have the capacity to have such thoughts!
GTA: San Andreas was rated M, for mature, indicating to someone who knows nothing of the franchise that there might be some mature content in there somewhere. Which, aside from Hot Coffee, there was a plethora of. If the purchaser went as far to turn the box over and read the back, they may have become aware of the ESRB's more in depth breakdown of the game, which along with "Blood & Gore" "Intense Violence" "Strong Language" and "Use of Drugs" included a "Strong Sexual Content" warning. If they went on to the read the description of the game by Rockstar, the words "Gangs" "Drugs & Corruption" "Dealers" and "Gangbangers" all in the first pargraph might have indicated to someone that this is not an apropriate game for children. Which without all that reading they could have denounced from the "17+" on both the front and back of the box. If a parent was still questioning the apropriatness of the game for their child, 5 mintues of research on the internet would have immediately removed any chance of their kids ever coming within 100 ft. of GTA again. Now yes, it is quite pheasable that older siblings, friends, careless sales clerks, etc. may have helped a few children obtain copies of the game, but the entire argument over the mod seems to be primarily about parents being misinformed. It seems pretty unlikely that had Rockstar disclosed the unnaccessible content to the ESRB that the game's rating would have really changed that much. It was an unrealistic sex mini game, which I think is declared quite adequately by "Strong Sexual Content." They may have even added a "This game includes virtual sex." warning, but it seems pretty obvious that none of these parents read the box anyways! And now everyone who's child went and willingly hacked their game to access this is outraged. I think the ESRB should be outraged that so many people pay absolutely no head to their warnings. If the game was rated AO, I'll bet just as many children would have been playing it. Because I can see informed parents saying: "Don't worry kids, its okay (hell, its even FUN) to kill police officers, kill your friends, sell, buy and use drugs & alcohol, shoot prostitutes, acquire weapons, terrorize civillians, steal cars, damage property, use racial slurs and live a life of reckless abandon, but it is NOT okay to have sex. ESPECIALLY with your girlfriend." Even if you argue that all the killing and swearing and drugs, etc. takes place in a fantasy world, so does the sex, and at that, only if you go out of your way to knowingly activate and engage in it. Kind of like the patch that revelaed the nudity uner the blurs in The Sims, except that game promoted living a good, happy, healthy life, so when people realized, it got the "Oh, its just a patch, not even part of the game!" treatment. But when parents realize exactly what this GTA game they bought their child is, and they think "Holy sh*t! What did I buy!" all that they can really fall back on is the "Well we are outraged that we didn't know about this code." Gimmie a break. I think it is these people's parenting strategy that needs to be revised, not the ESRB's rating system, or the code that Rockstar chooses to write. Take a little bit of interest in your children's life, and maybe things like this can be avoided all together.