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."
That's what you get (Score:3, Insightful)
for having shareholders. Raising capital is a necessary evil, but hell, grow organically if you can.
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I blame the church for trolling at people making people and promoting wars as a way to spread faith.
Go forth and reproduce!
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Yeah, and American's say that the Japanese have strange tastes in their portrayal of sexual acts. Pot meet kettle, I say.
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Um... no when was the last time you watched TV? Generally speaking showing sex is ok as long as it's missionary position, vaginal, between a man and woman, and shows little besides the mans chest, and perhaps a little side boob. I recommend watching the movie "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" if you have the time. It does only deal with sex in films, but most of it's points also work for television.
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Postal 2 would lose tons of appeal if killing people were necessary. It's just not as funny.
Re:That's what you get (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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+).
Correct me if I'm wrong (there's a good chance I am), but I think the 17+ thing is just a recommendation while 18+ is legally enforcible. No?
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition, $15 million will be paid by their insurance company. Though I'll bet their insurance premiums are going up next year.
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Yeah - strange as it sounds, this lawsuit actually makes sense. Take Two's management really made a fiasco out of what should have been a 1-day story.
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it was a lawsuit by shareholders, upset that the company had lost money
Which is insane on top of insane. Suing management would have been fine, but suing the company? Why? Even if you win, instead of stock shares in a $800M company, you end up with cash shares in a $20M settlement plus stock shares in a $780M company.
No, wait, make that a $760M company; trials and infighting cost money. So the lawyers are the only ones who come out ahead. Oh, wait, and it turns out that this was a class-action suit, so
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So he had $10,000 worth of company, then $5,000 worth of company, then sold and has $4,988.00 in cash (damn commissions). He wants his $5,000 back because he thinks the board negligently mismanaged the incident causing him injury. Yup, that's
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So he had $10,000 worth of company, then $5,000 worth of company, then sold and has $4,988.00 in cash (damn commissions).
And now he wants to sue the entity owned by the people who paid him $5,000 for his shares of it, for mismanagement that occurred under his watch, not theirs? That sounds pretty crooked.
He wants his $5,000 back because he thinks the board negligently mismanaged the incident causing him injury.
And if the board was going to be on the hook for $5,000, that would mean something.
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I doubt their premiums will go up very much next year. Any business of that size will have their own captive. With no significant losses in the prior years (at least that I know of publicly), there's no reason to jack their rates beyond inflation.
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If they had come out and said "This was an undeveloped concenpt that was not possable to access during the normal play of the game." something in that regards, they might of got out of it.
To be honest though, the
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Re:That's what you get (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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I forget where I heard this, I think it was in one of the Indie Sex [wikipedia.org] films.
Re:That's what you get (Score:4, Interesting)
actually, an R rating only gets you tits and ass. show a cock in any sort of sexual context and it's NC-17.
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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.
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They count whether something is "realistic" or not. Total Recall could show tits in full lighting, because there were THREE of them, so it was clearly not "real." Same goes for giant blue schlong.
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Watchmen? (Score:2)
Then why wasn't Watchmen movie not rated NC-17 for the blue penis? :P
As Oscar Wilde said... (Score:2)
Presumably a prude who objects even to simple nudity must have had a mother who kept her pants on through the entire birth, and insisted on the baby closing its eyes before being allowed to suckle her breast.
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Presumably a prude who objects even to simple nudity must have had a mother who kept her pants on through the entire birth, and insisted on the baby closing its eyes before being allowed to suckle her breast.
Have you looked at our rising c-section rates and our abysmal breastfeeding rates lately? We are seriously damaging women's and children's health over this prudishness. You thought you were joking, but it's dead serious business.
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Funny)
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This isn't about children, this is about stopping sex from happening in society all the places violence does.
Yeah, this is even gayer than all the men getting in a big pile and having sex with each other.
How the hell would the post office function if people would just quit and it turns into a big damned orgy? School orgies?!
Okay, sorry, my bad, e-everyone back in the pile!
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Why am I reminded of LOLBat from PVP? http://www.pvponline.com/2008/08/28/epix-battle/ [pvponline.com]
On another note, imagine what movies would be like if the average sex scenes looked like the average movie's killing sprees. The hero would be surrounded by the (female) villian's bodyguards - fifty drop dead beautiful women.
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Thats what you get when the whole Western "culture" is just a thin veneer of rationality covering up fucked in the head religious wackos and power-hungry authoritarian demagogues who are running the show in reality, just underneath the surface. Conditioning kids to kill on command because "we are the Good Guys!", "we are Righteous!" and ultimately "God is with us!" is a very useful tool for those who see the world as an everlast
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Yeah, I know I'd rather get stabbed in the face repeatedly until I died a death so awful even a closed-casket wouldn't suffice than have consensual sex with another adult my age.
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I agree. And to add one more thing, I don't understand why so many companies want their games to be teen-rated. In fact, wouldn't it be nice to have games for teens and games for adults? For me as a thirty-something it gets increasingly hard to decide (from the box and reviews) whether a game is a lame teeny game or has some story that is at least tolerable for a halfway educated and mature person. If the story is good, why shouldn't it contain sex scenes? After all, most people have sex in real life, too.
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-I don't claim that all people above 30 are reasonable or that the kids are all annoying, but in general I'd prefer to play with people of my own age group.
If you want to play an MMO, form your own clan/guild/linkshell. Recruit only like minded individuals who are also mature and you'll go far.
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\>
I'd also like to see online games that require proof of age above 30---I don't claim that all people above 30 are reasonable or that the kids are all annoying, but in general I'd prefer to play with people of my own age group.
Heck, don't need that. Just get proof of age when people create accounts, and allow a filter based on birthdate. ;-) "Ignore everyone under 25" for example.
Re:That's what you get (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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OK, you typed that on slashdot. Please tell me you didn't have a straight face while doing so...
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He didn't say, "with other people".
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You can do those things in real life without a $20M fine - one more reason why ppl suck.
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Seriously, I'm sure the execs are laughing all the way to the bank. And the shareholders, well WTF do you expect if you invest in a company that makes games where you can get your money back after fornicating with a professional via vehicular homicide?
Profit and Loss (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure Take Two is doing just fine, even considering this.
Think again.
Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said Tuesday that it swung to a loss for its third fiscal quarter as video-game sales fell sharply from the year-ago period, which benefited from the company's blockbuster "Grand Theft Auto" franchise.
For the period ended July 31, Take-Two reported a net loss of $55.5 million, or 72 cents a share, compared with earnings of $51.8 million, or 67 cents a share, for the same period last year.
Revenu
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Where does that $20 million come from anyway? Isn't this just the shareholders paying the money to themselves?
I wouldn't be surprised if the whole 'hot coffee' thing actually increased profits for the shareholders. In fact I'd be surprised if it wasn't!
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Isn't that basically suing yourself. How can anyone but the lawyers gain anything?
Pretty much.
Its the corporate equivalent of a "swear jar". When you do let one slip out in front of the kids you put in $20M and it eventually pays for you to go on vacation someplace tropical.
The more you swear the more baddass you appear and the more you are penalized.
The more you are penalized the more you are punished and the more responsible for your actions you appear.
The more you are punished, the sooner you can go on v
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I was wondering that myself. The only thing I can think is that maybe the suit was to get money out of the insurance company. I still don't know why anyone would insure against something like that. The suit would have made more sense to me if it had been to recover money from the personal funds of the former CEO.
Easy insurance fraud? (Score:2)
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They get to pay dividends and call it an expense? Sounds like a smart tax move.
Re:Shareholders Suing Company (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
America's Decline. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well you see, in the US the basic rule seems to be Gordon Gekko's slogan "Greed is good", anything goes as long as you're being greedy. This explains why dishonest corporate executives and the like get off easy. As for why sex is considered so much more horrible than murder and torture, well I just don't know...
/Mikael
Re:America's Decline. (Score:5, Interesting)
It might be religion based. When you read the Bible, people usually get punished for fucking but rewarded for killing.
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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.
You can't bury the truth, it's in the bible anyway (Score:2)
Lot and his daughters took shelter in a cave. Believing they were the last of their people, his daughters got him drunk and had sex with him in the hopes of being impregnated, for which they are praised. They don't cover this material in church real often, for a variety of obvious reasons.
Before Christianity, sex was a form of communion with the divine. Christianity made it a low thing, to be done only in the service of The Lord. The extent to which this is true varies between sects, but reaches something o
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This is most certainly religion based. Everyone should bear in mind that North America was originally colonized by people kicked out of Britain for being too uptight.
The religious exiles left voluntarily.
But at least a third of the colonists were "transported" as prisoners - settlement on the Australian plan, if you like.
The plantation south with its Cavalier roots was notorious for its sexually predatory males.
The diarist Mary Chesnut would later write that Harriet Beecher Stowe had missed her most tel
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The religious exiles left voluntarily.
That's a pretty revisionist view of history. They were harassed, hounded, and persecuted right up the ships' ramps. It was pretty clear that their order would be squashed sooner or later (mostly sooner) if they didn't GTFO immediately.
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Other than the part where he's 100% right, of course.
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.
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"We're not horrible, the Chinese are worse! See?", great argument there.
As a European I can confidently say that one of the worst influences the US has had on Europe in terms of culture is the spread of the "greed is good", "cash is king" and generally egocentric and egoistic ideals. That's not to say that we were all nice and friendly to each other, but the US influence can definitely be seen when comparing my home country today and thirty years ago.
/Mikael
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I wouldn't call the US "the modern inventor of greed" but I would say that the US is the number one source of the "greed is good" mentality in the western world since at least the end of WW2.
/Mikael
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The basis for US financial policy was European principles. Specifically, Hamiltonian economics emulated the British system since
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Look at the China milk scandal.
Look at how China deals [bbc.co.uk] with corruption. The top recipients of TARP bailout money are still the highest paid execs in the financial industry. Whereas in China they execute your ass.
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Oh please. Trust me, the watercooler and dinner table talk revolves around health care and the financial system. No one has even heard of this Hot Coffee thing except here on Slashdot.
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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?
Proof how screwed up society is (Score:5, Insightful)
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All this uproar over something that everyone does.
Dude, this is Slashdot !
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So it ain't just me, it really is a bit weird?
Seriously, shouldn't it be the other way 'round? I mean, I got a bullet to my thigh and I also had a blowjob. I hope I needn't stress which experience I'd rather have repeated.
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It's the message! (Score:2, Funny)
The idea of recalling the game is to give a message to kids:
Do not dare to play a video game where you simulate making love with a woman, GO OUT AND DO IT!!.
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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
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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.
Other than the fact that you had to patch the game, using a hack that did not come from Rockstar, of course.
That can't be allowed to happen.
Yawn. I suppose you wanted a recall of the Quake games when people started releasing [fileplanet.com] nude skins for the game? We'll call you a whaaambulance [imageshack.us], stat.
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Other than the fact that you had to patch the game, using a hack that did not come from Rockstar, of course.
Can you be certain the hack didn't come from Rockstar?
Hot Coffee was burnt to disk - complete and playable - in every console and PC release of the game.
No third party content required.
Hot Coffee could be unlocked in every console and PC release of the game.
That strains coincidence.
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Can you be certain the hack didn't come from Rockstar?
Can you be certain that Santa Clause doesn't exist?
Hot Coffee was burnt to disk - complete and playable - in every console and PC release of the game.
To quote Barney Frank - on what planet do you spend most of your time? That's complete nonsense, but you knew that already.
You're a tool. And a fool.
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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.
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For the record, the game includes no pimping or drugs selling.
You're half right [gta-sanandreas.com]:
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I still can't believe Rockstar had a mandatory recall...
And if it were on a Kindle, it would've been deleted! I'm sure that functionality will be built into our next generation of consoles, "I'm sorry, you can't play that game because it's been recalled. Please see your retailer for a refund."
Fundamentalists (Score:1, Insightful)
This is what you get in any fundamentalist country.
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This is what you get in any fundamentalist country.
That Rockstar was headed for a crack-up was perfectly clear to anyone outside the hard-core gaming community.
Hot Coffee was no more an aberration than the later dust-ups over Bully and Manhunt 2.
Hot Coffee is button mashing arcade sex play for adolescents. Not far removed from Custer's Revenge. [wikipedia.org] [1982]
The fundamentalist could argue that* the geek hasn't the least idea of how to introduce mature sexual themes and content into PC and console gaming. That he c
How does this work? (Score:2)
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It moves money from current shareholders to people who were shareholders at the time, most likely.
Well since 3/4 was covered by insurance it moves money from future shareholders to current and prior shareholders.
Kopi Luwak (Score:3, Funny)
So, does this make it the most expensive coffee in the world?
our society, go figure (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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I'm not sure why people keep being surprised by inconsistencies. It's not like we have a single ruler who creates our laws and dictates; in this case especially they came about as a compromise.
Specifically there are people who WANT violence on TV to be banned along with sex, and there are people who WANT anything to be allowed. Have you really never seen any outrage over violence in video games? My mom, as one ex
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Marketing (Score:2)
gee (Score:2)
Isn't that kinda like suing yourself? Who owns Take-Two?
What was so crazy about this...God of War.. (Score:2)
God of war 1 and 2 were both rated the same as GTA: SA in the US that is M for Mature.
God of war 1 and 2 both had sex minigames with nudity leading up to them that you didn't need to hack your system to view/play.
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in gta3, for example, when you hired a hooker you just saw the car rocking; in our sitcoms it's fine to imply the act, just as long as we don't have to look at it. if it was any other way I'd run for the hills...have you seen what our population looks like?
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Most people on TV are at least moderately attractive.
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For example during the big "clothing malfunction" there was a big scandal in parts of Europe because a TV channel broadcast a breast cancer surgury and showed part of the breast during hours where that is not authorized.
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Only in America? I'm in Europe and the same inane fucks are running this country it seems, at least sometimes. We're not at the same fucked up level yet, but we're catching up.
I don't know about your late night TV programs. I can tell you about ours. It's no problem to show a movie where people get mutilated, maimed and killed, where you see how bullets rip through bodies in slow motion, so you can enjoy the spray of blood, guts and brains (depending on the site of impact). Yet any sex scene will certainly
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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.
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It kind of depends on what you want to show. In Germany boobs are not a problem and you see plenty of that stuff on regular television, softcore isn't much of a problem either. The whole HotCoffee thing was a total non-issue for the rating organization, as games with such content only get an 'age 16' rating here and GTA:SA already had that.
But when it comes to hardcore porn its quite a different story, as that stuff is regulated by law and underlies much of the same restrictions as indexed games or movies (