In the wake of recent controversy over the “Hot Coffeeā€¯Ā mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (which activates a previously-hidden sex scene within the game), the Entertainment Software Rating Board has changed the rating from “Mā€¯Ā (Mature 17+) to “AOā€¯ (Adults Only 18+). You can read more details of the fallout in this press release.
The upshot of this is that stores which refuse to carry “AOā€¯Ā titles are pulling San Andreas from the shelves. For stores that still want to carry it, Rockstar is providing “AOā€¯Ā stickers to place on current boxes. And Rockstar has downgraded their profit estimates for the next quarterā€¦and they will no doubt be shocked when they soundly beat these estimates, as people rush to buy up every last copy of San Andreas before it gets pulled. I tell you, if I hadn’t thought of this on Tuesday and picked up my own copy of the game, I would feel quite the fool right now.
As for the “hot coffeeā€¯ issue itself, I don’t think Rockstar is entirely blameless. I mean, yes, accessing the “sex minigameā€¯Ā requires third-party devices to actually modify the code, as it is completely disabled in the normal version of the game. But on the other hand, the minigame was in there in the first place; it would be difficult or impossible to put such a scene in simply through that same kind of device. I think the uproar over the content itself is unwarranted; as someone else pointed out, the sex scene is no more graphic than something you would see on “Sex and the City,ā€¯ and I don’t think there is any nudity. If someone is going to go through the effort to unlock a poorly-rendered sex scene, they could just as easily (or more easily) obtain actual pornographic material. Still, Rockstar shouldn’t have left that code in. Hopefully this won’t have too many lasting repercussions for the videogame industry.
