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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 think it's pretty much a fair judgement. Sure the content was there, but they didn't have any intention of making it widely available. Additionally, even though it was made available, no one accidentally stumbled across it...you had to download a patch, install it, and then play through the game to that point.
Beyond that, the game was rated M, which is the rating for 17+, which is the same age range as NC-17 which is the adult film category in the states.
It's hard to see, given all those factors, how it would be possible for them to crack down hard on the game. The superbowl thing was different, because they slipped some (arguably) adult content into an all-ages broadcast.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
If I produce a mod for Solitaire featuring gay BDSM cards, can I get Vista rated M?
No, because there's no gay BDSM content already in Solitaire, dumbass. The "Hot Coffee" mod didn't add "mature"-rated content, it just unlocked what was already there (as shipped by Rockstar).
We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked.
Only if you are unlocking gay bdsm material preexistant(although locked) in the Windows OS.
I see this kind of like a loose Sarbanes-Oxley for Video Games: we're going to hold you accountable for disclosing information about your video game up front, and ignorance is not an excuse. Fortunately for Rockstar, they got the slap on the wrist this go because the law/court ruling didn't exist up until now.
Someone at Rockstar left the material coded into the game. Now believe me, I've got nothing against seeing breasts, and young boys are going to look for sex whether or not they see it in a video game (hell, so will grown men, go figure) - but if the rating system is going to hold any meaning, and provide an effective means of keeping the government off the game producers' backs for creating enjoyable games that might include mature themes, then we have to expect the game companies to be honest in disclosing the true nature of content in the game. IE, if there's nudity/sex, come out and say it. Say it loud and clear. Don't curl back and go "oops, thought we took that out, hehe" Because that's the kind of stupid mistake that gets voters worried that they need government crackdowns on entertainment.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
This was totally outrageous! Just as much of a newsworthy item as Janet's 'wardrobe malfunction'!(I couldn't sleep for 3 months after watching that one)!
It would be a crying shame that kids should be exposed to (Godless?) non-graphical but still titillating sex simulations.
It might detract from their training shooting hundreds of thousands of opponents, so that they can further be brainwashed into becoming our next batch of cannon fodder to send to Iraq or wherever else our glorious leaders will be "Bringing Freedom" to in the coming years.
The FTC is only performing its patriotic duty to keep kids in line for all the state-sanctioned killing they will have to do later on.
Although, as Dr Strangelove once pointed out, reproductive duties might also have to become state-sanctioned and even encouraged when population needs to be replenished due to a 'red button malfunction' in the Oval Orifice.
Z.
The difference in this case is that the ESRB ratings were established by the industry as a substitute for government regulation. They claimed they could self-regulate, and didn't need the government to step in. Same thing as the movie industry. Now if the ratings aren't reliable, then the government will have cause to step in and establish its own system for informing people of what's in the games. Not that they'd do any better probably, but that's the argument. That's why they say that parents have a right to rely on the ratings.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
OK - go one further. Every byte of the .gif image files used to create this awful solitaire game will be copied from somewhere else in the solitaire executable. So in other words, the "patch" just takes data already in solitaire and moves it around - and naked pictures appear.
The fact is, all of the "data" is already there (it's only numbers!). Really, we need to judge games on how they run during normal, unmodded play. Mods can do anything, and you can use data in any program for any purpose.
Of course, if I was making games I would just include in the license that you agree that you will not make mods that will adversely effect the games rating - problem solved. (Then when someone does it, they are not your responsiblity.)
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
If I take all of their textures and pick-and-choose-and-cut-and-paste until I have something that looks like a boobie, did the software "ship" with that boobie?
Information theory to the rescue. In order to do that, your instructions will either be quite lengthy, or your search time will be long. Either way, the very instructions themselves constitute additional content; they are not themselves free of meaning or implication, as that would mean by definition they would have no effect.
You're still adding the "boobie" information to a product that did not previously contain it.
There is still a philosophical conundrum along the lines of "what, ultimately, does this long series of numbers really mean?", but this answer is sufficient to cover everything I've been able to think of from a legal standpoint. In my terms, no matter how tricky you get in the encoding, you're still adding the concrete part of the boobie.