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Take Two Investigated by New York Grand Jury

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the they-switched-to-tea dept.

cjm182 writes "Over a year after the infamous sex minigame (aka Hot Coffee) was found in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the New York District Attorney's office has subpoenaed Take Two Interactive and its subsidiary, Rockstar Games. Reuters reports that a grand jury requested documents relating to 'company officers' and directors' knowledge about the creation and inclusion of the 'Hot Coffee' minigame. This marks the first time Take Two has been asked to provide documents directly relating to the incident. Last week, GamePolitics.com ran an editorial calling for the U.S. Congress to subpoena Take Two directly, rather than criticize the FTC and the ESRB over the incident."

5 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. not just hot coffee... by freshman_a · · Score: 2, Interesting
    1up.com had a little more detail on the "other issues" -

    New York's District Attorney is looking for information covering a number of issues, including knowledge of company officers and directors regarding the Hot Coffee's development and subsequent failure to remove from the shipped game; the game's submission to the ESRB and any admissions to Hot Coffee (or lack thereof, really); disclosures and presentations of acquisitions, partnering arrangements and earnings results; invoices from, payments to, and termination of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and retention of Ernst & Young LLP; acquisitions in 2005; certain compensation and human resources documents; and documents concerning the board of directors and committees.

    If I'm reading that right, I think the Hot Coffee mod should be the least of their worries. The mod may not be a good thing, but the other stuff looks like it has the potential for worse legal repercussions.
    --
    Slackware
    1. Re:not just hot coffee... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      TakeTwo was already delisted once (temporarily) for financial irregularities (misreporting of quarterly financials over a two-year period). The Hot Coffee part of the subpoena is likely just to bring attention to the rest of the grand jury stuff -- the NY DA plays the media like a violin sometimes -- Spitzer for Governor, anyone? There's a reason RB resigned as President & from the Board of Directors of Take-two, to stay on in an advisory role.

      Any conviction, or near-conviction, opens up the possiblity of a class-action lawsuit by the shareholders who've lost money as Take-two's stock took hit after hit.

  2. Timing is everything by Volante3192 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm also sure that this coming within meer months of an election is purely coincidental...nothing like a good porn in otherwise respectable video games story to bring out the best in people.

    Remember, not only do we "Think of the Children"(TM), we remind you early and often!

    (Sure, district attorneys are appointed, but someone's going to pull this out in a commercial plug...)

  3. accident maybe? by alphaseven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's entirely possible it was left in accidently, people with hex editors find stuff left over from earlier builds all the time in games. For example, Bioware got criticism for Kotor II when people found dialogue from a more elaborate ending left in the game (suggesting the game was rushed) and a Japanese preview demo for the game Xenosaga III accidently included all the dialogue for the game. Those weren't Easter Eggs, that was stuff that the companies wished they hadn't released.

    On a related note, I read an interview with the people behind Indigo Prophecy were they said they had to take extra care to make sure none of the code for the uncensored European release was in the American version. Normally you would could REM out some code but because of the Hot Coffee incident they had to make a more thorough audit of the code.

    Even though I think this got blown way out of proportion, I'm very curious to what really happened.

  4. A Barbie game has similar - but never found by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I spoke with developers of one of the earlier Barbie games and they talked about what incredible drunken fun it was to have access to 3D models of Barbie and her Horse - and indicated that hidden in one of the games in an intresting "scene" (in the bondage sense of the word) that they expect noone will ever find.


    Should they get in trouble too?