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'Hot Coffee' Scandal Officially Resolved
kukyfrope writes "Take-Two Interactive today announced that the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) inquiry concerning hidden sexual content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has formally closed. All outstanding matters pending before the FTC have been settled and no penalties or fines have been assessed. Although Take-Two was not fined, the company will be subject to civil penalties of $11,000 for future violations. 'We look forward to putting this behind us and focusing on what we do best - creating videogames,' said Take-Two President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Eibeler."
Doesn't this game have enough cream and sugar as it? :P
...when, if someone does not like what is in a game, they simply refuse to play it and move on (no screaming, no lawsuits, no complaints to the government).
Where were you when the voynix came?
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
$14,000 per incident is nothing compared to the scale of a major video game publisher. Shouldn't they be liable for closer to $1.4 million the next time they release M rating content hidden within a lower-rated game?
what does Eric Clapton have in common with coffee?
They both suck without cream
Wow, they got off easy. Eric Idle dropped the F-bomb on the radio and got fined $5,000
From the last line in the article:
The removal of San Andreas from most retailers' shelves followed by a re-rating of the title resulted in a loss of nearly $25 million.
Ouch!
People made an awful big fuss of this. The fact is that you had to delibrately do something to even enable the Hot Coffee feature. Sure the company put it in there, but the user had to make a choice and do several things to enable it. Wasn't like it was there for all to see willy-nilly.
I hate state censorship as much as it deserves, but I hate to almost the same degree people who use any situation to screech about state censorship, even when it's apropos of nothing. The FTC didn't crack down on Rockstar for having dry humping and simulated oral sex in its game. The FTC punished them for mislabelling the game, effectively misrepresenting the contents. Now, you can argue about whether or not Rockstar ought to be obliged to use the arbitrary ESRB labelling system or not, but again: Rockstar are being fined for misusing the ESRB system, not for producing a game with smut in it.
What about the 'Hot Grits' Scandal??
You cannot access Hot Coffee without altering the game's data files. It's not Rockstar's fault if people alter the game in order to enable content not intended for use; remember, it wasn't possible to access Hot Coffee via the game's normal interface out of the box.
....... So somebody will need to buy him some hot coffee to calm him down.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
No fine this time and $11,000 in the future? They couldn't buy publicity this cheap! They would be fools not to put something in future releases that was intended to get them fined.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
STFU YOU MFKING AHOLE
- How dare you impune my credibility by pointing out the obvious fact that I'm wrong?
- Can't you see that I'm doing this for the children?
- Goodness, if you won't let me go after Take-Two for this, how can I possibly go after the boobie mods for all the other games out there?!
- It's not like parents should have to take any responsibility for what their children are doing on a computer. That's downright unAmerican.
Choose one & run with it."Actually, it's more like the folks at Mars replaced the proteins in the peanuts with a kind that could be converted to a toxin..."
Those fiends! They'll destroy us for sure. I always knew they were plotting to get revenge for the humiliation when we stopped their vast deathray-tripod army 100 years ago just by sneezing on them.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Rockstar lost over twenty five million dollars having to pull the game off the shelf. Compared to that, $1.4 million is only a slap on the wrist, and a redundant slap on the wrist at that.
I didn't know white trash could use the internet...
Blar.
Wasn't like it was there for all to see willy-nilly.
This post contained secret adult oriented content in the form of the word "willy". This could cause catastrophic damage to anyone reading it under the age of 73. Clearly this post should have a 1 rating, not a 2. Please amend accordingly and fine celadore $17,000 for any future violations.
I am so sick and tired of hearing that this is a "truth-in-labeling" violation! This was nothing more than a "protect the children" witch hunt!
The segment in question was included but was never meant to be accessed! It took someone else's hack, which might or might not have been in violation of the game's EULA, to release it. Therefore, the accessibility to that whole section of code was not authorized by Take Two or Rockstar. Yet they were made the scapegoat in nothing more that a politically-charged witch hunt. There was abosultely NO REASON for Take Two/Rockstar to disclose that information because they had NO EXPECTATION that it would ever been seen by any customer.
For example, let's say that I included the following type of code in a huge program that I'm writing. (No comments about the Perl. I'm just making an example.)
$ESRB = "Neutral";
if ($ESRB eq "Evil") {
print "The ESRB is a bunch of fucking, holier-than-thou, moralistic morons.\n";
print "And you're mother's ugly, too.\n";
}
Obviously, that code is never meant to be seen because $ESRB is being explicity set to bypass the if statement. So, I compile the whole program, with the code that was never meant to be seen, get a "T" rating for the whole program, and release the program. In my EULA is an explicit statement that no one is allowed to modify the code.
Then some moron sees it in the compiled code and releases an unauthorized hack to change $ESRB to "Evil". Suddenly, there's a big bruhaha because it should have been "M" due to the language of the code.
Now the ESRB and Thompson are on my case for not revealing the code that was in there. WHY? The code was never meant to be seen - not even as an Easter egg. There is no reasonable expectation of me letting the ESRB know that the code was in there because there was no reasonable expectation that it would ever be seen. Someone went in without my permission and modified the code to see something that was never meant to be seen.
There is no reason why Take Two/Rockstar should be held accountable for the release of something that was never meant to be available in the first place. This was nothing close to a "truth-in-labeling" violation. It was a do-gooder, "for the sake of the children", witch hunt. Rockstar took the high road and just let it slide, which was probably the best PR they could have done, but they were nothing more than a scapegoat.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
*sigh* And of course, "you're" is supposed to be "your". Oh, well. It's late on a Friday afternoon. That can forgive a lot. :)
Then again, such misspellings are the norm around here anyway. >:)
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I take exception to only one sentence you wrote: It was a do-gooder, "for the sake of the children", witch hunt.
The witch hunters were not do-gooders. They were witch hunters, pure, simple and 100% evil. There was nothing good in what they did, there were no children "protected", there were no parents enlightened. They grabbed their immoral viewpoint (hey, I have morals and they're nothing like what these idiots espouse) and dragged it into a courtroom, where they confused a judge into agreeing with them.
John
...but if Rockstar are going to use a rating system, they should use it properly, regardless.
This was nothing more than a "protect the children" witch hunt!
Historically, the witches being hunted were usually spinsters, desperately poor and quite often schizophrenic or some similar affliction.
Comparing a modestly successful video game company (or a prominent politician as you usually here) being dragged through entirely nonviolent proceedings to a witch being pressed for a confession is as ridiculous as calling someone a pirate for downloading an MP3.
The definition of "witch hunt" in this case is far more accurate than you might think.
From Answers.com (emphasis mine):
witch-hunt also witch hunt (wch'hnt') n.
An investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover subversive activities but actually used to harass and undermine those with differing views.
witchhunter witch'-hunt'er n.
witchhunting witch'-hunt'ing adj. & n.
Mind telling again me how this is not an accurate term?
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
So, nothing really happened as a result of this fuss. No fine, but a threat of a fine in the future... well, isn't that what occurs anyway? No fine now indicates nothing was wrong. Ah, but hold on...
"the Company shall not misrepresent a video game's ratings or content descriptors and that the Company shall implement a system to ensure that all game content is reviewed in connection with submissions to ratings authorities."
Oh, so once again, that's exactly what happens anyway. All that brouhaha for this? Might I suggest that certain persons in the US are over-sensitive? I bet you wish it was more like Europe.
Unfortunately, there will be another issue sometime that will raise the ire of people who can't deal with the topic of human sexuality openly. I wonder what it would take for this country will ever "grow up?"
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
This was nothing more than a "protect the children" witch hunt!
Sorry, the truth is that things are more complicated than you are aware of. Take Two is a publicly traded company. Federal law requires that Take Two inform *investors* of the risks that face the company. If Hot Coffee was intentional, a marketing gimmick, then Take Two had a legal responsibility to inform investors that its marketing strategy could result in product recalls, no charge replacements, loss of retail outlets, etc. The FTC had every right to investigate whether Hot Coffee was a marketing gimmick or not. It *is* the FTC's job to protect *investors* from the sort of non-disclosure just described.
>>> "There is no reason why Take Two/Rockstar should be held accountable for the release of something that was never meant to be available in the first place."
Wow, that's naive in the extreme. "never meant to be available". Er, yeah, right!
Take Two: Like, ooh darn-it how did we accidentally develop and leave in all those extra bits and then get our friends to release a patch making us ten times more money than we would have made. Shucks, best not do that again.
Goverment: We'll fine you $11k if you do that again, naughty boys.
Take Two: That'll hurt our 20 million* profits for sure...
[ * - yes I made it up.]
There is a disturbing and disapointing precident being set here by the rulings in this case and by the attitudes the ESRB has taken toward it. It's furthered by the fact that another game after GTA:SA has had its rating upped based on something that was never in the game: Oblivion. What this spells for the modding community at large - and even designers who might otherwise release modding tools for their games - is yet to be seen, but I don't think it bodes well for them. Then again, you don't have to look very far in Battle.net to see a crapload of shitty Warcraft III and Starcraft porn maps, and nobody's done anything about them.
Wow, that's probably one of the most stupid posts I've seen on slashdot in a while, -congratulations.
They got "their friends" to release a patch eh? - the PC gaming guys trawled through the data files looking for stuff and found this, once discovered I beleive it was then attempted on the consoles with a gameshark device and also found.
As for increased sales due this, L.O.L indeed - rockstar get an obscene (note the pun) amount of sales with or without some shitty little porn section of the game.
Think before posting.
Okay let's see, sales taxes on the video game, taxes on your DSL lines and phone lines, cable taxes, court costs, legal fees, publicity, senators wasting their time in office which we are paying them to come up with legislation for the good of our country, the ESRB another fat bureaucracy. And then all to come to what conclusion boys and girls?! OH no penalty, and a restating of a law. I may have read it wrong but it sounds as though absolutley nothing came of this but a bunch of wasted tax money. So now we can all thank the Government for keeping us safe! Thanks Your Royal Highness Clinton
-You have been modded appropriately-
Honestly, no one except insiders know the true intent.
However, while it's easy to give them the benefit of the doubt that they left in executable code that wasn't intended to be accessed, doesn't it seem strange that they left in the animation data for the Hot Coffee sequence?
If they hadn't included those files on the disc, the game would probably have just crashed when it was hacked.
I'm impressed ... no really
All the time games leave assets in they don't use. It's a problem that MS is actually working to solve with the Xbox 360 dev kits (to save space). You make an asset for a game, maybe a level, model, texture, or even whole mini game that just doesn't make it in to the final product. However you don't remove it since you don't know what else relies on the presence of that, and since space usually isn't short.
My bet is they made the Hot Coffee game, realised it'd get them an AO rating, and so cut it. Pure and simple.
You can see a similar thing with Civ 4. There's mods that will add some "lost wonders." These are wonders with full videos, info and everything, they are fully produced. Basically, Firaxis planned on using them, but then cut them later, I believe for game balance reasons. However they didn't bother to remove the assets so witha bit of XML and LUA modificaiton, they can go back in the game.
"As for increased sales due this, L.O.L indeed - rockstar get an obscene (note the pun) amount of sales with or without some shitty little porn section of the game."
Have you never heard of the phrase 'any publicity is good publicity'?
It's an ancient well known fact in the marketing industry that scandal provides better, cheaper (free!) advertising on a massive scale. While I'm not making any statement as to whether they intentionally let this happen it's foolish to suggest that they didn't reap the rewards.
As a small, insigificant example - you just had to look on ebay the next day to see the flurry of activity - 'buy this game now for £100 before it gets banned' etc...
That product became the most talked about game in the country (certainly in the UK) for a short period - are you telling me that everyone was tutting and denouncing it, and that nobody thought 'hmmm, I might buy this to have a look'?
First, I'll point out that I agree with most of your points. However, I want to point out that it is the policy of the ESRB that you have to disclose all possibly offensive content on the disk, regardless of whether it appears in the game or not. For the reasons you mentioned, I don't particularly agree with this policy, but it is the ESRB's policy and it has been since long before the Hot Coffee scandal.
The segment in question was included but was never meant to be accessed!
Don't be naive. Of course it was ment to be accessed. Ant it was. And the segment in question worked like it was supposed to: people started to talk about Grand Theft Auto and Take-Two. And I think that even a few teenagers bought the game to see the "hot coffee".
... to the game industry is this: the ESRB was created as a voluntary, self-regulation alternative to government (FCC) regulation over the video game biz when Congress began mulling regulatory rules. With the ESRB, what we have is an independant organization employing regular people as raters (raters cannot have a tie to the game industry) instead of know-nothing politicians bought^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^pursuaded by special interest groups dictating what's fine and what's not for all publishers. If incidents like this become repeat problems, the FCC will eventually decide that the ESRB isn't doing a good enough job and take over.
Whether or not the content was intended to be accessible or not, someone put it in the final build, and they should have known it could be found -- people have been hacking games for a long time. I'd rather the ESRB come down heavy handed on publishers/developers who are either maliciously or negligently putting in content that goes beyond the rating provided so that the rest of the industry doesn't have to suffer regulation by the FCC.
What always amazed me about this whole deal is that God of War which is also rated M has a sex mini game right in the beginning of the game that requires nothing to unlock, is meant to be seen by everyone who plays the game. The game has topless women in it........
AND NOBODY FREAKIN CARES!
This whole thing about hot coffee is a load of crap. It was self-righteous outrage about something that isn't a problem. I'm glad Take Two got off with what amounts to a speeding ticket.
Vermifax
Logout
The hacking people also found an unfinished skateboarding game in there - it was also simply commented out.
As much as it is right to argue that there shouldn't be much fuss over what is an already extremely explicit game, the fact is that it should have been Adults Only if the mod was in the game instead of it's R, what I find amazing is the way that it actually required external code to open the mod and they still claimed that it was content meant to be played in the game. Does that mean if somewhere in an encrypted archive on a game DVD there is a topless woman picture that isn't even used then the game should be AO because the content is 'there'. I don't think so.
Business Voyeur
If I had mod points, I would have modded this AC up. Nice artwork mate !
I may get modded troll for this but I am annoyed with the whole 'Hot coffee' ordeal because I can't trade in my copy of GTA:San Andreas at any used game store because it has the 'bad' content on it and apparently has been banned from sale. I didn't really care for GTA:San Andreas and I was very pissed off when I was told that I couldn't trade it in towards something else because of this.
I would sell it on Ebay but last time I checked, they're flooded with other people trying to unload their copy. In turn, it wouldn't be worth all of the hassles of Ebay to get the few dollars that it would fetch.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME