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Surprisingly Few People Collect On GTA Hot Coffee

Posted by samzenpus on from the simulated-murder-is-fine-but-simulated-boobs-will-warp-you dept.

Relin writes "Out of the millions eligible, less than 3,000 have come forward to collect their money in the 'Hot Coffee' settlement. While the plaintiffs' lawyer is surprised by the development, Theodore Frank of the Legal Center for the Public Interest at the American Enterprise Institute seems convinced that the lawsuit was 'meritless' and will result in no payment for the legal counsel opposing Take-Two."

14 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. Not surprised by Monkey_Genius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Seth Lesser, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs said that he is "disappointed" by the outcome, and doesn't understand why so many people don't care."
    It is, after all, just a video game.

    --
    I've got your sig, right here.
    1. Re:Not surprised by corsec67 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is, after all, just a video game.

      It is a video game where you can regenerate health with the services of a prostitute, kill her when she gets out of the car, take your money back, kill a cop and steal his cop car, kill national guard members and steal their tank, and these people are worried about a little bit of clothed dry humping?

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    2. Re:Not surprised by Gewalt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I woudlnt be ashamed to be on a list of people that own GTA, but I would be ashamed if someone thought I had asked for a rebate because a game included the content I was looking for when I bought it.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    3. Re:Not surprised by Awptimus+Prime · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is a video game where you can regenerate health with the services of a prostitute, kill her when she gets out of the car, take your money back, kill a cop and steal his cop car, kill national guard members and steal their tank, and these people are worried about a little bit of clothed dry humping?

      Exactly. I bought this game and enjoyed it. There's no way I would stick it to the people who gave me so many hours of fun game play.

      I really doubt any of the people actually purchasing this game were offended. There might be an occasional stupid parent who thought the hyper-violence in the game was tolerable, but the nudity was over the line. Regardless, it was baseless, in my opinion-- and the people who are okay with violence and freak out over nudity are rather scary. I would not enjoy living in their heads. Give me nude women any day over guns. I'll take both in my video games when it's an option, though.

      Actually, the people who have a stranglehold on America's censorship are the scariest of all. Every other TV show or movie have probably ten times the violence than sex. I remember in the 1970s and early 80s, you could, at least, see the occasional boob on UHF broadcast. Something went wrong somewhere.

    4. Re:Not surprised by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That makes me so, so sad.
      My wife and I have had long discussions about that very topic, and we've both agreed that sex/nudity/etc. is ok for the kids to see, but Violence is what we want to protect them from.

      That my 5 year old daughter knows she has a vagina and that her brother has a penis actually offends people. My son (3) also knows the appropriate verbage to describe his body. Meanwhile one of my daughters friends thinks that she has a "WooHoo".

      Which is more degrading to a woman?
      Which is more useful in a conversation with a doctor?

      I'll shut up now since I'm just rambling, but suffice to say when my daughter walked in on me playing GTA the other day she admonished me to stop at red lights and not run anyone over. :-)

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    5. Re:Not surprised by Wavicle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Extremely off topic, but...

      Over at a skeptic forum I frequent, someone involved in investigating child sexual abuse made a rather enlightening post about children and the names of their body parts: TEACH THEM THE PROPER NAMES OF THEIR BODY PARTS. The argument went something like "investigating this is hard enough without having to figure out what a 'cookie' is."

      --
      Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
      Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
  2. Not worth my time. by iansmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The time it would take filling out the forms and cashing the $5 check is better spent on something else.

    And frankly, anyone who buys Grand Theft Auto, the game that lets you kill hookers instead of paying them, is going to be hard to offend with some sex scene they have to use a hack to see in the first place.

    That lawsuit never should have been brought to court, I hope the laywers don't see a penny!

  3. Well is it worth it. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Being that it requited a hack to unlock the feature (aka censors already deemed the code unacceptable) and the kids who downloaded the hack could have just as easily have gotten real porn. It really isn't that big of a deal. Besides who wants to say after buying GTA I am such a prude that I want money to accommodate my suffering. I think most people will say they hypocrisy needs to stop at some point.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Well is it worth it. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the kids who downloaded the hack could have just as easily have gotten real porn

      Yeah, that's exactly why this whole issue has always cracked me up. Oh noes! If a kid goes unsupervised onto the internet, he may download a mod for a game that would show him low-poly-count boobs. We need to stop this, prevent minors from buying GTA, make Take Two release new discs without the content on it, and then, at long last, kids won't be able to find boobs on the internet!

      Really, it's just too funny.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  4. Maybe they liked the game? by xRelisH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps the remaining millions who did not claim the money actually, you know, liked the game?

    I don't think it would make sense for gamers to exploit a frivolous lawsuit to get a few dollars out of a company that made a game they enjoyed.

  5. odd by bigdavex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Suppose I bought some porn video and there was a code that my kids found that let them play a game where they beat people and ran them over for fun. Would I have case?

    Who exactly is supposed to care about this?

    --
    -Dave
    1. Re:odd by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your kids would be taken away because you allowed them to access porn. Thank the puritans.

  6. Seriously... by Golden_Rider · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I read instructions on the Internet on how to mod GTA so that I could see a sex scene, and when I followed those instructions, the game actually let me see a sex scene! Now I feel surprised, shocked and offended and want $5!"

    Sometimes I really wonder if there are any normal people left in this world.

  7. The only people benefiting. by v(*_*)vvvv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    are the lawyers. The lawyers don't care if everyone get pennies, because they get their millions. And if there is a settlement or verdict, it should always be in monetary form distributed automatically to every class member. Members shouldn't have to fill any paperwork. The corporations should calculate it for them. Two examples:

    1. Bank of America privacy lawsuit.

    Fees waived for deposited items getting returned!
    Fees returned for calling customer service!
    12 months free subscription to a credit card protection service (a $30 value)!
    90 free days of Privacy Assist Identity Theft Protection Service (a $17.85 value)!

    Hell no. Basically, they get free marketing. OUCH.

    2. Visa MasterCard Discovery Currency lawsuit.

    They want you to calculate your foreign purchases yourself and document them for your reimbursement. Hell no. They should pay us $400/hr as they do their lawyers for the time we spend sorting through years worth of credit card statements. Some companies even charge a fee for requesting older records.

    Settling should not be an option for class action lawsuits. The client/s should decide whether to settle, not the lawyer/s. A settlement should always be an opt-in, not an opt-out.