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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?
That's not how it works. The judge in this case approved a conditional class, but never granted a final class certification. They were supposed to be doing class discovery, which means do factual investigation about whether the plaintiffs really should be certified as a class. Last year Rockstar filed an objection to class certification, then while that was pending decided to negotiate a settlement. Don't blame the judge for their mistake.
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.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
you're half right, but it was hidden content in the sense that it was inaccessible, at least without the patch or some memory hacking. It was there, the mini game was there and the skins were there. It wasn't even an Easter Egg. But it was still there in the game. All that the patch did was 'unlock' it.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
The raw absurdity of this case has already been stated many times over, but to restate: people who played a violent, aggressive game took the time and effort to seek out a bad "sex" scene, and are seeking cash to solve their irreparably damages.
But what really gets me is the fact that the 3,000 people, and the theoretical defendants, have to pay legal fees. TFA says that the fees over this case have already gone into the millions! That is money wasted. Literally thrown down the drain. Not wasted like "I want to light cigars with 100 dollar bills," (which is a waste but looks PIMP) but literally millions of dollars have disappeared into an already overly rich system.
They should have just walked in and said "Alright, look - this case is dumb. How about this: We donate half of our theoretical legal fees to Child's Play, which will help young children who actually need it, and you GTA-players can enjoy our product and, by not taking our money, ensure you continue getting the titles you love so much."
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.