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Judge Trips Up Settlement In Hot Coffee Class-Action
GamePolitics is reporting that a judge has put another substantial hurdle in the Hot Coffee class-action case. Claiming that individuals involved in the suit could be affected differently by laws in their respective states, Judge Shirley Wohl Kram declared that this case could not be resolved by a single proceeding. "'Accordingly, the court decertifies the settlement class on the grounds that common issues do not predominate over individualized issues,' the judge wrote. The judge's latest decision undermines a settlement agreement reached between lawyers for purchasers of the game who contended they were offended by the hidden scenes, on the one hand, and lawyers for the game's makers, Take-Two Interactive Software and Rockstar Games."
No amount of money can repair my psychological damage at having seen two poorly drawn, scantily clad video game characters going on it, but I'll take 2 million.
Could the plaintiffs please explain how they could possible wilfully hack and modify their software to show the hidden content widely described in the same forums where the hack was made available, and then become upset that the visual results of the hack were exactly as advertised by the purveyors of the software modification?
You bought a game. No one forced you to buy it. You hear about a patch that opens up some secret stuff. It would have been pretty hard to not have heard something about the type of content when hunting down the patch. You go ahead and apply the patch so you can see the content. No one forced you to apply the patch. In fact, you had to go out of your way to do so. You are offended. So fucking what! If I pay money and walk into a clearly marked XXX movie theater, should I be able to sue them because I was offended by raunchy sex scenes?
These are people just looking for a free ride.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Let me see if I understand the mindset...
I'm offended! I buy a violent video game with sexual themes and references, then I find out there's a crack, which enables sexual content. I then hunt down, download and install the crack which activates scenes I'd never have seen had I not done so. When I'm done enjoying the crack - laughing at it, beating off at it, whatever these people do watching video game porn - I decide there's money to be made by being shocked, so I sue. After all the content was in the game and it wasn't rated correctly. I only had to take several deliberate steps to release it.
Fucking idiots. Since you can't find a law that applies in all cases, I say apply the old biblical reference. If your eye offends you, pluck it out! While you're at it do the same to their legal counsel. No I'm not serious, but surely there are less stupid things to waste court time on.
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It wasn't even 'hidden content' it was a hack you applied to the game to change the character models, a third party program take two has no control over, just like the idiots who have a 'nude' skin for world of warcraft.
Its a computer game with a tweaked graphic overlay. you cannot 'accidentally' stumble over nude images, you have to go out of your way to a website, and put effort into HACKING YOUR GAME, which was probably against the ToS anyway.
idiot n. - Person who is fine with the ESRB rating of a game that allows fucking hookers in a swaying van, then killing them, then taking the money you just paid them, but files a complaint about hot coffee because of the rating. "Any settlement for the 2,676 complainants doubles as a searing, cherry-red brand of idiocy for life and thus serves us all."
This post is not informative. It is idiotic. A judge is not a lone ranger out in search of dispositive arguments. A judge JUDGES! The judge listens to the arguments of the lawyers and makes a decision. I'll bet the defendant's lawyers sprung the argument on the judge at the last minute. Only an idiot would attack a judge for this without carefully examining the record first.
Yes, but with the same idea, I could make a patch of Mario that has Mario screaming curse words. The letters are there, but they aren't used in that order. Now, if it was something that if you typed in "Naked People!!!" you would see it, I could possibly understand this, but when you are editing values, then I should take a hex editor to any game and give the same results.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.