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Surprisingly Few People Collect On GTA Hot Coffee
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."
It's $5
Anonymous Coward
"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.
American Enterprise Institute seems convinced that the lawsuit was "meritless" and will result in no payment for the legal counsel opposing Take-Two.
Oh boy, I can only hope. Oh please.
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!
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.
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.
I wonder what the networth of the attention take 2 got from this is worth. Surely far more than the cost of paying out the penalty and the fees of the lawers that they probably have on full time retainer anyhow.
I Need someone to rebuild a Digitech Digital Delay pedal for me....for me...for me...for me.
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
"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.
If the GTA makers owe me $35 for their hidden NPC sex scene, then the Second Life makers owe me seven figures for emotional trauma from the brief virtual walk I took though the general area.
and I still want my money!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
I say we cap the legal fees at 50% of the final settlement - IE for each $5 'settlement' received they get $5.
So instead of $1.3M, at the moment they've 'earned' ~$12k.
It'd stop some of the stupider lawsuits. I still remember getting a settlement offer for some memory I bought from crucial years ago - as far as I was concerned, I paid a fair price for it. Crucial sold me quality memory at a price seen more for shady chips.
Before I ever started going after the profit margin on computer chips I'd take a look at the jewelry industry.
I figure that most of the <3k individuals are just after a buck(five-thirty five).
On my end, if I was the judge or jury(don't know how it was decided), I'd have thrown out the case from the sheer fact that you had to download a mod to enable the content. Might as well sue 3DRealms for the mod to Duke Nukem that put actual porno on the movie screens, made the strippers actually strip(sorta), and all around more explicit. Don't mention the fact that it was a straight image swap with the more explicit stuff.
Heck, 'Hot Coffee' has made the value of the first edition of the game(before new disks were issued) more valuable!
That shows deliberate work on the part of the player. Like others have said, they could have as easily downloaded far more explicit porn, not to mention outright sex games about as easily.
I don't read AC A human right
I live in the GTA. Where do I get my free coffee?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Could we send in $5 to enable the hot coffee mod?
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]