Take-Two Faces $20 Million Settlement For "Hot Coffee" Scandal 124
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."
Re:America's Decline. (Score:5, Informative)
While in the rest of the world people get by with love and sharing? Greed is not a US problem. In fact, as badly as corporations do here they tend to be a lot worse elsewhere. Look at the China milk scandal.
Re:America's Decline. (Score:2, Informative)
There are counterexamples, but they run contrary to the message the church is trying to pull out of the book and push on people, e.g. the story of Lot and his daughters.
Re:America's Decline. (Score:2, Informative)
Exactly the point though; how incompetent do you have to be to get the company in this much trouble over something as stupid as that?
Re:That's what you get (Score:3, Informative)
If that's true now, it didn't used to be true. There's plenty of R rated movies from the 70s and 80s that had a few frames of penis or female pubic hair.
Re:Proof how screwed up society is (Score:3, Informative)
a third party patch
Hot Coffee was easy to access in every version of the game. It was not a third party mod or a patch in any ordinary meaning of the word.
Rockstar has a reputation for pushing the limits of public tolerance for content in a M rated game.
Hot Coffee suggested a means by which AO content could be slipped past editorial review and unlocked later -- with a hint and a wink from the developers:
A method that removed the game's censoring code of the M rated PSP and PS2 version thus restoring parts of the AO state was released by a group of PSP crackers. ESRB commented on this crack stating that it was not Rockstar's fault that this occurred and stuck with the M rating. Later, it was discovered the same method also works on the Wii version of the game.
In September 2007, an uncensored PAL PS2 copy of the game was leaked onto the internet by an employee of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, who was later fired. Manhunt 2 [wikipedia.org]
That can't be allowed to happen.
It is too big a political risk for the console manufacturers. Too big a risk for the online distributors like Valve. Retailers like WalMart. Too big a risk for the financial stake-holders - the bankers, the shareholders.
Re:America's Decline. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Proof how screwed up society is (Score:3, Informative)
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
For the record, the game includes no pimping or drugs selling. In fact, at one point you kill a drug dealer whose dope is fucking up addicted members of your gang. I recall one mission in GTA3 where you have to rush to pick up prostitutes and deliver them to a policeman's ball, but I don't think there was anything like that in GTA:SA.
Not that I'm saying that invalidates your point or anything.