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Take-Two Faces $20 Million Settlement For "Hot Coffee" Scandal
eldavojohn writes "Take-Two has settled with shareholders to the tune of $20 million dollars over the 'Hot Coffee' debacle. Ars brings the details on how a badly-handled situation resulted in shareholders suing Take-Two. '[The scandal] led to a media panic because it was assumed the sexual content was easy for children to get to (it wasn't) or that sex themes were becoming common in games (they aren't). Still, the lawsuit shows how badly the company bungled the situation, and it's easy to see how Take-Two's management directly caused shareholders to lose money. ... The suit alleged far more than a single misstep with Hot Coffee, however. "Take-Two's management was not cooperating or assisting with the Company's audit committee and was failing to keep the Board of Directors informed of important issues or failing to do so in a timely fashion," the complaint stated. Inventory was misstated, as was software development costs."
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Its funny that you shoot people, hijack cars, drive over people and do all kinds of illegal things but when theres normal activities like sex that all people do, everyone goes "oh my god things like that shouldn't be allowed!" and bring in the lawsuits.
Weird world, or should I say weird country.
How is this even possible? No matter how badly Take-Two screwed up, the fact is, the game had to be hacked to get it to work! Regardless, who cares? Why are Americans so hung up on these type of issues, such as wardrobe malfunctions, gay marriage, steroids in baseball? In the meantime, bankers have effectively stolen trillions of dollars directly out of the pockets of every American. Less and less people are able to afford health care. Thousands of Americans are needlessly dying in Iraq. Middle class jobs are being decimated. The list is long... America is screwed.
I still can't believe Rockstar had a mandatory recall on a game where you play a criminal, and the games primary objectives including assisinations, pimping, thieving and selling dugs because a third party patch enabled clothed sex scenes. Its almost so daft that I can't believe it. All this uproar over something that everyone does, in a game that glorifies acts thats are illegal almost everywhere and seen as unacceptable by almost everyone on this planet.
GTA SA had the same rating as Manhunt, the game in which you brutally kill people, while having a good look at how you do it (like strangling with a wire, or cutting the throat with the same wire or may more ways of killing people), in GTA SA you can run people over with your car, shoot them, burn them, cut them, explode them and so on. Both games actually depend on you doing that (unlike, say, Postal2 which you can finish without killing anyone). So all this is acceptable to allow people that are 17+ to play. But if you show two people pretending to have sex (IIRC the hot coffee mod showed people fully clothed) then what were you thinking, we can't allow THIS and people would have to wait a year before being allowed to play this game (18+ vs 17+).
Really really weird country.
I expect that in this case it's those who were shareholders in 2006 suing the company, who are likely no longer shareholders. In that case it's fairly reasonable. Say someone bought stock in 2005 and then sold it in 2006 when shit hit the fan for a substantial loss. That person can now recoup some of the their losses.
Also Take Two had some sort of crazy umbrella insurance (how do you get "our directors are incompetent" insurance?) so the insurance company is ponying up $15M of the $20M.
I wonder if I could manage to pull this off at a personal level. Get an umbrella insurance policy. Crash my car into a tree. Sue myself(defendant) for the pain and suffering caused due to the negligence of myself(plaintiff). If I(plaintiff) win, I(defendant) get the insurance company to cover 3/4ths of the settlement cost.
This wasn't a lawsuit by people upset by the nudity, it was a lawsuit by shareholders, upset that the company had lost money. They felt the whole thing had been poorly managed, and wanted changes. It turns out they were correct, not only was that particular 'scandal' poorly handled, the entire company was being poorly run, they didn't even know how much money they had.
In addition, $15 million will be paid by their insurance company. Though I'll bet their insurance premiums are going up next year.
Qxe4
Make a movie. Kiss a pair of tits and it's rated M. Chop 'em off and it's PG13.
Nicholson said it afaik. And he's damn right. It's more acceptable in movies to kill people than to fuck them. Let's be honest here, imagine killing spree scenes would be like the average sex scenes, we'd get to see people running around with their index fingers pointing at their enemies and shouting "pew pew".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh good, I wasn't the only one that noticed that. I always wondered why we can have TV with murdering and killing as the order of the day while people are busy with a form of 'love' (like making it) and everything is in an uproar.
I blame the church for trolling at people making people and promoting wars as a way to spread faith.
Go forth and reproduce!
Where in Europe are you? I'm currently stationed in England, and your "reversed" example is exactly something I saw one night on Sky TV around 10pm. It was a documentary about sex, including a scene where a couple are using multiple cameras... including one showing him pulsating inside her during orgasm.
To top it off, there's a few movies I've seen on Sky One or Bravo that have the violent scenes removed from a movie --- even if it's integral to the plot.
Don't worry, organized (?) societies at other parts of the world are inconsistent as well.
I reckon the real issue is not depicting sex in itself, but rather depicting it as an entertaining and carefree activity. I doubt it that the whole Hot Coffee debacle would even exist if the Easter egg depicted instead the protagonist involved in worriedly procuring a condom, doing it under the sheets as to not expose himself and his partner (in a closed room), having erection and ejaculation problems and so forth.
It's not that you can't have sexual content; what you can't have is guilt free sexual content. Oh, no, mister.
In the latest version of Americas Army, the rectuiting tool produced by the United States you get to zip tie people after you have wounded them and let them bleed out on the floor.
I dont read
Make a movie. Kiss a pair of tits and it's rated M. Chop 'em off and it's PG13.
Show a penis and it's R. After all, it's not like half the children actually have one.
You know what...you can go to hell. I for one am very concerned about our poor public servants that would have to clean up the mess left by drive by orgies. This isn't about children, this is about stopping sex from happening in society all the places violence does. How the hell would the post office function if people would just quit and it turns into a big damned orgy? School orgies?! Do you really want that!? My god...those poor janitors...
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
actually, an R rating only gets you tits and ass. show a cock in any sort of sexual context and it's NC-17.
Sex on TV is only allowed on the condition that it is part of a rape, rape/murder or other type of violent act. Even implying such a thing as consentual sex is just plain unamerican.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
You can show a man plunge a knife into a woman on television but god help you if you want to show him using a penis instead.
Our society is a contradiction wrapped inside a hangup buried beneath a shitpile of hypocrisy. It's weird how we can have sex turned up to 11 to sell us shit on the tee-vee but actually showing it in a healthy manner is still verboten. I think it's the repression pushing down on society as a whole that has the prurient parts squeezing out the sides in such a disturbing manner. People get all horny and frustrated because pop culture is steeped in sex but trying to find a simple goddamn human connection in meatspace is an exercise in frustration. I suppose it's good for the economy. Angry and frustrated people usually go and buy something to make themselves feel better.
Islamic societies are also known for their contradictions. It's still considered awesome for the man to get his wick dipped but any woman who does the same is a slut who should be put to death. Homosexuality is a crime worthy of death but the old ruling powers in the Middle East had their tradition of the catamite and there's a folk hero in Persian folklore I believe known for for always having his jug of wine and his boy close at hand.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne