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Hot Coffee's Effects On The GTA Mod Scene

Posted by Zonk on Fri Oct 27, 2006 02:36 PM
from the scalding dept.
Entertainment Games
simoniker writes "Over a year after the infamous 'Hot Coffee' incident, author and game designer Brenda Brathwaite explores the tragic aftermath on the GTA mod community — including interviews with 'Hot Coffee' creator PatrickW, the ESRB's Patricia Vance, and more." From the article: "The second version of San Andreas was made 'much more mod-resistant' according to Patrick, and among members of the community, there is doubt that future versions will be moddable at all. 'This has already made good people leave the scene,' Patrick adds. Among those that remain, there exists a certain amount of caution. 'Some innocent modding stuff isn't getting released,' says Patrick, 'because modders are afraid it might cause another controversy.'"
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[+] From Hot Coffee To Warm Tea 129 comments
I've been avoiding posting about it, but Joystiq has a completely and utterly sane discussion of the non-story that is the Bully boy on boy kissing 'scandal'. Despite the ravings of Jack Thompson, the homosexual behavior in Bully was seen by the ESRB and is not the first game to feature such content. From the article: "The ESRB would be insane if they were bullied into giving an 'M' (Mature 17+) rating to Bully, as this story continues to gain traction in the mainstream press ... It would also force the ginormous Electronic Arts into the mix to defend the 'T' rated Sims. We're willing to wager that Electronic Arts, which has a Human Rights Campaign corporate equality index score of 88 and had transsexual game designer Danielle Bunten Berry on staff, will put up a good fight if challenged. Rockstar played this brilliantly, they slid in a topic that is controversial, but perfectly defensible, and those that would attack 'Warm Tea,' won't have an easy time of it compared to 'Hot Coffee.'" SFGate put up a thoughtful opinion piece / review of Bully this past weekend. If you're not familiar with the game, it's a great way to fully understand how there's really nothing to worry about here.
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Hot Coffee's Effects On The GTA Mod Scene 31 Comments More /

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  • 'Some innocent modding stuff isn't getting released,' says Patrick, 'because modders are afraid it might cause another controversy.'

    I'm sure a modder would hate to cause controversy. That wouldn't get them noticed at all....

    Please

    ~S

    • 'mod resistant' != 'mod proof'

      There is no 'mod proof'. If modrs wanted to mod then it would happen.

      • There is no 'mod proof'. If modrs wanted to mod then it would happen.

        What goes for video games goes for Slashdot

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by LKM (227954)
        There is no 'mod proof'. If modrs wanted to mod then it would happen.

        You are wrong. This comment right here is mod-proof. It can't be modded. Simply can not be done. Try to mod it up, I dare you! In fact, I double-dare you!

    • This statement really is out there. Modders afraid of controversy? I see it entirely the opposite way, like a modder somewhere going "zOMG, GTA has nekkid skinz! i should pwn teh g4m3 by making all m0delz nekkid, all teh t1m3!" or something to that effect.

      I don't personally have the PC version of San Andreas, so I'm oblivious to whether or not there actually is a mod like that. I would imagine if there isn't one yet, it's already in development.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Controversy for the corporation is bad for the modder because the controversy makes the corporation wonder if the modder community which provides a lot of job satisfaction and spawns creative new ideas is actually worth more than the lawsuits from Jack T. and his ravening wolves.

      Modders = Intangible; Jack = Millions of Dollars.

      Any modder who knows where they are on the food chain will try to ensure that their mod doesn't get its host product in hot water. What good does it do you to gain a sex scene but lo
    • And I suppose you wouldn't mind one bit if two state Attorneys General, a handful of local district attorneys, and a number of shareholders nearly filed civil and criminal suits against you? Or nearly losing your job due to all the media swarming about? Yea, that kind of attention sure is fun...

  • Media Hype alert! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by miasmic (669645) on Friday October 27 2006, @02:45PM (#16614174)
    "'Some innocent modding stuff isn't getting released,' says Patrick, 'because modders are afraid it might cause another controversy.'"

    Yeah and Elvis Presley lives at the bottom of my yard with the fairies. Since when have individuals on the internet been afraid of controversy? Sounds like a load of horsecrap to me. If they really are afraid of controversy, they must have a hugely inflated sense of self importance. Like anyone gives two craps if someone makes a mod in his bedroom, what are they worried about, their carefully crafted professional reputation on the modding scene? The cops coming round to arrest them? Give me a break.
  • all the news websites that ran like a hojillion articles about it... from gamespot all the way up to CNN. i am so freaking tired of the words "hot coffee" that even if the mod cured cancer and ran on linix i still wouldn't care.
  • Hot coffee summary: the sex scenes were in the original game, but not accessible without hacking. Take2 could have simply clarified that. Hey, it's not like GTA is an all-ages game in the first place. Instead, they blamed modders, and turned a minor issue into a big mess.

    • God ! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by frost22 (115958)
      what are you ? all trolls ?

      Take2 was a victim. The modders were victim. But the super trolls around here blame victims only, apparently.

      Well trolls, I tell you what. Blame the fucking conservatives and bigots who produced that fucking "outcry". The fanatical save the children hypocrites. The right wing noise machines. All those braindead voters who vote brainfree teflon critters into congreß, or those fucktards who actually let preachers near politics, and all the other stupidos.

      But godamned stop blam

      • Re:God ! (Score:4, Informative)

        by illspirit (957034) on Friday October 27 2006, @05:27PM (#16616468) Homepage
        The right wing noise machines? Conservative fascists? Erm, hello, like 90% of the politicans lined up with laws and threats of prosecution against us are left wing "liberals." Last I checked, Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, Leland Yee, Rod Blagojevich, Kathleen Blanco, Roy Burrell, Jennifer Granholm, Phil Kellam, Rocky Delgadillo, Julia Boseman, Eliott Spitzer, and countless others were all Democrats. Click around on the legislation tracker map at Game Politcs [gamepolitics.com], and look how many Ds pop up behind people's names, and then tell me again how this is all the fault of conservative "cretins." Or if you're too lazy to look, here's a little secret: Neither the Republicans or Democrats give a damn about your rights.
          • I don't know any liberals who consider Democrats 'liberal'. At best they're Conservative Lite.
            This is true. But there aren't many real conservatives who think the big-government goons running the GOP these days are very conservative either. Just as the Karl Rove-types have coopted "conservative," the DNC has hijacked the word "liberal" for themselves, and turned it into a newspeak shadow of its formar self. Hence why I used it in quotation marks.
        • Sponsor(s): Senator Henry Marsh III (D)

          Requires M-rated games to have a label at least 3 inches long with at least 12-point font; if not, M-rated games can't be publicly displayed.

          One of the "90% left wing liberals" from the article above. Sure, it starts at 12 point font, then 14, then next thing you know there's a guy holding an 8 foot sign with a big M on it.

          And no, I didn't cherry pick this. It was the first democrat I found.

      • Take2 was a victim.

        Take Two and Rockstar were victims of nothing more than their own inbred conceit.

        "Kill the Haitians." That the gangster game genre is not greatly loved or trusted outside the hardcore gaming community comes as a surprise only to the gamer himself.

        fucking stupidos doofus cretins

        The speech and language of a pre-adolescent Rush Limbaugh does not make the best case for Grand Theft Auto.

    • The whole Hot Coffee thing was stupid any way. First, GTA is obviously a game that parents shouldn't give to young children - it's rated M for 17 and older right on the damn box. Then to push up that rating with mods like Hot Coffee doesn't happen by accident - you have to search out, download, and install the mods. You might as well blame Mozilla when your kid finds Dads porn bookmarks and visits some sites they shouldn't.

      I for one think GTA should have an XXX version created and released by Take2 that inc
  • I never had much interest in GTA:SA (not a fan of the 90's gang land genre), but a fellow member of the Machinima community had created a movie studio mod for it (Discussion here [machinima.com]) and I really, really, wanted to check it out.

    Unfortunately I didn't catch wind of this project until after the Hot Coffee mess, and the retailers had already re-stocked with the "fixed" copy of the game. Needless to say I was no longer motivated to spend my money.

    The only one you can blame here is R* for not disclosing all t
    • "The only one you can blame here is R* for not disclosing all the naughty 'bits' (pun intended) when up for ERSB review"

      Rockstar during the ERSB review process:
      "Oh, and there's one scene where the main character fucks another character. Except that we took that out."
      O.O

      In the mind of Rockstars project manager, that scene didn't exist in the game anymore. It was an idea they threw around, then ultimately scrapped as going too far over the top. I'm not saying they shouldn't have been more careful about whe

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly (844560) on Friday October 27 2006, @03:21PM (#16614746) Homepage Journal
    ...that time you were embarassed when friends/family/your date saw the pr0n jpeg you used as desktop wallpaper, has caused a lot of good people to leave the pr0n business.
  • Despite the above posts that seem to be completely clueless about the modding communities, yes, this and the Oblivion kerfluffle have indeed killed an awful lot of interest in modding. 6 weeks after Morrowind's release, we had skins that replicated the toplessness you found in Arena and Daggerfall. Was it a big deal? Nope. Just about everyone who had the game then remembered playing the first two.

    Now? If you patch Oblivion, you can't modify models or skins without SERIOUS work because of, well, mostly

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