ESRB Revokes San Andreas Rating

Alex Blonski writes "In a stunning move, the ESRB has advised retailers to stop selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This report follows public pressure over the Hot Coffee debacle. Rockstar, the publishers of the game have given retailers the option of restickering the game with an 18+ rating or exchanging it for a new version with the controversial content removed. ESRB head Patricia Vance says 'After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that sexually explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs of all three platform versions of the game (i.e., PC CD-ROM, Xbox and PS2). However, the material was programmed by Rockstar to be inaccessible to the player and they have stated that it was never intended to be made accessible. The material can only be accessed by downloading a software patch, created by an independent third party without Rockstar's permission, which is now freely available on the internet and through console accessories. Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined.'"

Hmm..

[trmj]

I believe that Penny Arcade's [penny-arcade.com] news and comic today sum up this whole situation best.

The Video

[Anonymous Coward]

GTA San Andreas "Hot Coffee"

Coral Cache of some of the content in question:

http://files.gtanet.com.nyud.net:8090/gtasa/videos /hotcoffee.wmv [nyud.net]

Get it while it's hot?

Glad I bought it last week, then.

[EvilMagnus]

I thought something like this might happen. It's asinine, but pretty predictable.

Today's Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] news deals with this, where Tycho lays out the crucial difference between a "Mature" title and an "Adults Only" title : time.

The ESRB is suggesting that they may change the rating of the game to Adults Only, a category that by their own definition should see a great deal more use in a retail environment. This is great. Look at the descriptions for these.

MATURETitles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

Or, as the rest of our culture calls it, "Rated R." Check out AO.

ADULTS ONLY Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

This can't seriously be their distinction. The scenes are longer? I played Resident Evil 4 nearly 26 hours, all told. I'm going to say that maybe nineteen hours of it was spent looking down the iron sights at humanoids. The reality is that once a person is 18, a violent videogame is fairly minor in the spectrum of "adult" content available to that person. Looking over my collection, if the duration of the violence is the distinguishing factor, I'm trying to figure out what purpose Mature serves other than to remove the stigma from otherwise "adult" content and grease the wheels at retail.

Yup, that's it. Time. Pretty incredible.

Re:People are still having sex

[badmammajamma]

Yes, running around carjacking cars, shooting people, and beating up whores is American as apple pie but SEX?!?! OMFG...what are you people thinking?!

Re:nice publicity

[the_skywise]

As an ex-game programmer, there's TONS of stuff we left in various games. Some intentional, some not so intentional.

I can't speak for how GTA is setup, but in our case some of the stuff went out because of a lock down in the code/data. When *any* change would be considered a potential to introduce bugs it was safer to lock down *everything* and go as it was.

Re:What if...

[m50d]

"After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that sexually explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs". That's why they're changing the rating. Of course they don't rule on completely player-created content.

Re:Why on Xbox/PS2?

[Daoenti]

No, it's actually still possible on all of them one way or another:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_San _Andreas/Appendices/Game_Mods [wikibooks.org]

I will say that it's just plain lunacy to think that with all the violence in the game that a little pixelated sex should have a huge impact on the rating.

Re:America

[PlacidPundit]

The thoughts and beliefs of a group of people is not in lock-step with the 300,000,000 other people in the surrounding 3,537,438.44 square mile radius. Things always look monolithic at a distance. They never actually are.

Additionally, even among those who believe in morality and standards, there is a great deal of disagreement on what those standards are, their origins, and their purpose.

Re:Is "The Sims" also rated AO?

[Nf1nk]

on the sims2 there is a simple one word cheat you can type and eliminate the blurring, giving you access to far more nudity and sex than the hot coffie hack, to be fair the hot coffie section is more graphic. but the sims 2 is still rated T

No, they didn't. RTFA

[sYn pHrEAk]

Try to RTFA next time.

From Rockstar's statement:
"...hackers created the 'hot coffee' modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game's source code. Since the 'hot coffee' scenes cannot be created without intentional and significant technical modifications and reverse engineering of the game's source code..."

They never said the content was inserted, they said the game was modified, which is true.

However, the nude skin for the female model WAS added by the modders, so even though they didn't say it, there WAS content inserted by the hackers.

Time to go buy copies of the old verison

[aka_big_wurm]

maybe I should run out and buy copies of the game before the news gets around it may be worth something

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Is "The Sims" also rated AO?

[Warlokk]

Ctrl-Shift C for the console, then "intprop censorgridsize 0"... it's a built-in command in the game, no external software/hack required. They found this about a day after the game came out.

Re:America

[YrWrstNtmr]

And you completely missed the context of when that floppy nipple was shown. If it had been shown on 90% of the other programming hours, you would have heard nary a peep. But there exists a few channels, at certain times of the day, where you do not show skin. Period. This was one of those channels, and one of those times.

Are you of the opinion that anything goes, anytime of the day or night? Hardcore porn mixed in with kids shows? Full frontal nudity ads during Sesame Street? Sorry..but what a fucked up country.

An important thing to realize..

[vhold]

A lot of people are running around in here wondering what is so important between M and AO as if there is no big reason for R* to care.

Basically Wal-mart won't carry AO.

Senate Testimony to that effect [senate.gov]

In the case of video games (for example, Sony Playstation or Nintendo games) and computer software, we use the ESRB, Entertainment Software Rating Board, ratings (EC, E, T, M, and AO) as we make decisions about which products to carry. We do not carry software rated adults only (as rated by the ESRB). As a rule, we do not carry Parental Advisory stickered products.

That is all.

Re:total bullshit

[ptbarnett]

There are a handful of guns that can easily be modified into fully automatic weapons, yet those manufacturers aren't held responsible.

While I agree with the rest of your post, this is also total BS. Despite what the sensationalist media wants you to believe, it's simply not true.

First, the necessary parts are not easily obtained (at least not legally). There are a fixed supply of auto-sears for civilians -- ones manufactured before 1986. Depending on the model, typical prices for this part alone are around $3,000.

Second, a firearm that is easily modifiable to full-automatic is also restricted. The BATF has been known to confiscate rifles after they were sold to civilians and later found to be easily converted.

Frankly, I can't tell you exactly how legal weapons are designed to prevent conversion to full-automatic, because the BATF considers that conspiracy to commit a crime (i.e. making a conversion to full auto). If you don't believe me, that's your choice. But, I'm not sticking my neck out to convince you.

Of course, with the knowledge, skill and necessary tools, you might be able to do so. But, the BATF has a threshold (in man-hours) that must be met, or a weapon cannot be manufactured in or imported into this country.

Re:In other news...

[DavidTC]

Um, YES, they do, at least the nude content. They use them when sims take a shower.

The game puts blurring on top of them, but they are actually nude under there. In fact, sometimes the blurring gets confused about sightlines and thinks an object is in the way and doesn't blur, when it's not. And you can see little naked sims.

I don't know how to make it happen, but I've had houses where if I'm looking from a certain angle, they leave off the blur when people get in the shower. I'm sure teenage boys have spent hours on this figuring this out, and can build a hour where it happens from all angles. ;)

The noblur patches just turn the blurring off. They don't add anything.

Not to be confused with the patches that correctly shade the nude models, or make 'nudity' a clothing option, which do add content.

And while the sim doesn't include any sexual animation, it does include what is refered to as 'adult themes'...namely, two guys passionately kissing.

Re:In other news...

[DavidTC]

Game Shark codes are not cheat codes.

A Game Shark modifies memory locations within a game.

It's, gasp, modifying the game!

Cheat codes are things you type in in the game. There is no way, within GTA, to get to this minigame, via pressing buttons, documented or otherwise, or doing things with your character.

Seriously, we're having some sort of total terminology failure here.

Here is the actual facts. If anyone is found repeating anything else, they will be beaten publically, and a minigame around that will be included in the next GTA:

This minigame, like all minigame, is enabled when you do certain things. Rockstar removed these things from the game, and thus you cannot, under any circumstances, get to the minigame from within the game.

What all the mods do, either the Game Shark or the saved game hack, is tell GTA that you have, in fact, completed these nonexistent prerequisites.

There is a debate if one of the hacks adds a nude texture for the female, but I don't see any evidence of that.

New flash; there was sex in the previous GTA, too

[TheSonicVince]

In GTA Vice City, you can buy a movie studio. When you buy it, there are 4 or 5 missions all revolving around porn actresses and movies.

This is in the standard game, no mod is needed. It is even necessary to perform these missions if you want to complete the game 100%. In the cinematics of at least 2 of these missions you can clearly see one actress having sex, with sound and all. And yet, nobody complained...

The last mission for the movie studio has you pointing light spots to a giant building, and every night the spots draw a pair of big boobs...It seems the morons complaining with the San Andreas mod are ok with this...

There's also a mission where you must take pictures of that same actress having sex with a political man named Shrub (an obvious hint at Bush...). Even though you don't see sex while you take the pictures, later in the game you can see the pictures in your main hide-out, and they are quite suggestive...You also see posters of the porn movies on the walls.Yet again, nobody complained.

And anyway, there are hookers since GTA3. As it was said several time before, you can pick them up, have sex, and then kill them to get your money back...There are vans that read "Grüp Sechs", which of course reads "Group sex", etc.
In san andreas, there's also a headless statue of a man with his hand clearly positionned for masturbation...but I guess that's okay.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? The sex that you see in this game is the most moral thing, but hey, sex should only be done once a month in missionary position, and only to give birth, right? right? WRONG, bigots.

I don't understand how people can reach that level of stupidity and bigotry. These parents should give a better education to their kids instead of counting on the TV to do it for them, period.

All in all, it's the same with TV: it's okay to show movies where there's a gun every freakin' second, a murder every minute and people sniffing coke every 10 min, but please, no movie where there's SEX! This is wrong! And oh please if they kill people and sell drugs, they could at least be polite and don't call people names, or use the word "fuck"!! (I recently bought the Scarface -which GTA Vice City is clearly an homage to- DVD, and they removed each and every one "fuck" from the original movie when it was shown on TV...)

Frankly, I think porn is a necessity, and hookers too. I think it keeps a bunch of people from going around and rape women because they need a form of sex.