Matt Devereux has some very sensible views regarding the clamour in the media about the latest notorious computer game
The recent US furore over Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas serves to expose the real agenda behind moralist media censorship in the 21st Century: sex. On July 27th it was announced that 85 year old Florence Cohen of New York is taking the games manufacturer to court over a hidden modification for the game entitled “Hot Coffee”. The file, downloadable over the Internet, inserts a new element into the game allowing players to have graphic sex, including a variety of positions. Cohen claims that this new element is unsuitable for her 14 year old grandchild and therefore contravenes the terms on which she bought the game. The insinuation is that had she known the game contained sexual material she would never have bought it in the first place.
Yet this is a game in which shooting innocent people in the head is actively encouraged. Drug dealing, prostitution, stealing, criminal damage, assault and affray are all part and parcel of all three GTA games. As any self-respecting GTA aficionado will tell you some of the most enjoyable activities include decapitating police officers and repeatedly driving over the elderly. How can it be that this sort of material is acceptable for a 14 year old whilst sex (in which no-one is harmed) is frowned upon? Hopefully, the District Court will see the irony.
Furthermore, the file needed to unlock the pornography was illegally hacked and distributed over the internet. In other words Ms. Cohen’s grandchild would have had to have voluntarily downloaded the unsactioned file in order to access the sexual material. If she really wants to protect her young relative she might more sensibly start by checking his internet history. Predictably, Congress has jumped on the outrage bandwagon, issuing statement after statement brandishing Rockstar as “pornographers” and “out of control.” On July 15th the Federal Trade Commission announced it would investigate the “Hot Coffee” modification.
Who is spearheading this investigation? None other than Hilary Clinton – the woman whose husband is largely responsible for the words “oral sex” being introduced to every American living room. In reality, this is just another case of business and the media being blamed for poor parenting and parental control. Rockstar Games are not responsible for keeping kids in check. Neither is the government. Do we really want our choices to be taken away by people who can not control their own children?
The ‘hot coffee’ modification is one of a number of things that are in the game, just ‘disactivated’ before release. SO Rockstar probably are more responsible for it than it might seem.
That said I think that the grandmother really needs a good slap – I do love these games, but you cannot pretend that it is any worse because you have a little sex game added to it. In the previous version, some of your ‘missions’ involved working for a porn studio, and although you didn’t have anything like the level of detail as in hot coffee, nor the interactive element, there was not either much left to the imagination. In both the two latest you have merely to drive past a hooker in a presentable car for her to offer you ‘a good time, honey’ which involves your driving to a secluded location and the car rocking up and down to some very obvious grunting.
Basically, you are quite right to identify the ridiculous attitude to sex necessary to sustain this case.
There already is a lawsuit about the shooting part.
Nicely argued but I think you might be on the losing (though correct) side of this debate. All you have to do in order to get virtually any piece of freedom-restricting legislation passed in many western countries these days is to repeatedly allege that it’s “for the kids”.
The grandmother who bought the game has obviously ignored the ESRB certificate, which would tell her it was unsuitable.
As I said before, I bet Rockstar are loving it. They specialise in controversial games – I still got Manhunt installed for when I feel some Jason Vorhees coming on.
Arent all Rockstar games rated at 18? They are in the UK. Does the US not have similar guidelines?
I see I should have read John Peacocks post before I made my comment…
Anything that can be effectively satirised by a badly-drawn elf is self-evidently stupid.
If they disabled certain ‘features’ and someone else re-enabled them…
It’s interesting to me that no one has yet remarked here on the real upshot of this item, which is the whole final paragraph.
This is so stupid it it defies belief. A granny bought her grandson a game he legally couldnt have, had no objection to him blowing the faces of policemen but freaked out when a ‘hack’ was released that maybe he could download to see some T&A. Computer generated, not real live ladies!
I can only speak for myself but my parents let me online at 15 with no censorship and Ive viewed porn since my early teens and its not done me any harm. Does she really believe that giving a hormonal 14yr old boy a glimpse of some bare flesh will don him harm.
Apologies for those crap sentances, been a long day!
Firstly, Rockstar wrote in June 2005 to most GTA fansites and filestores politely requesting they remove the ‘Hot Coffee’ mod. The vast majority did take down the links – obviously that was one that failed to. Secondly, for this woman’s grandson to play the game he would have had to have the PC version of GTA:SA (you can’t apply the mod to the PS2 or the xBox versions) and there are some considerably nastier (and with much, much more realistic graphics) games out for PC than GTA:SA – God only knows what she would make of Doom 3, but then again I guess a space marine don’t get to have much sexual intercourse with demons and zombies.
A simple check on http://www.rockstargames.com/ would have shown you that they have a very varied catalogue, from home DJ games through to Max Payne and beyond. About the only game they have that is “18 rated” is actually GTA:SA, even Vice City was only rated as “Mature” and Max Payne 2 was rated at “Mature 17+”.
Personally I think that if you have a problem with very low resolution polygon sex acts then just maybe you should either get out more, stop using a games console for porn or at least get a copy of The Sims 2, which has a far superior nudity/intercourse modification than anything you’re going to find on a console.
Just wait until Call of Cthulhu comes out, there’ll be octogenarians screaming in protest over that one I bet.
Billy Beck,
Wasn’t Tipper Gore the leading light behind the campaign to get “Parental Advisory” labels on CDs with rude words in them?
I don’t believe for a moment that somebody like Hilary Clinton really shares the attitude of the morally minded religious right. She is just cynically jumping on any bandwagon going. Figures on the left sometimes feel it expedient to mimic the social attitudes of the right. They don’t really believe in what they are doing but since they make a political career out of trying to control people it comes naturally.
Matt: No law prevents that kid from having that game. ESRB ratings have no legal force; they’re purely self-policing by the industry and retailers. (Unless his state passed a law making them legally binding, but I’m not aware of any such laws.)
I’m actually surprised there aren’t more (ie, in practical terms, any) really pornographic video games out there for the Rated M market.
Figures on the left sometimes feel it expedient to mimic the social attitudes of the right.
Oh, I dunno. There are plenty of prudes on the left – just look at your hard-core feminists.
I just have to say that it is about time someone pointed this out – I personally have no real problem with the violence of the game, but it certainly shouldn’t have been bought for a young child! To turn around after that and get upset about sex is just silly and prudish. There may be no legal force to the ratings, but they are there for a REASON, and if we don’t want to have the government policing everything that we say and see, we have to excercise a little responsibility ourselves.
I love hearing about these lawsuits. My question for the grandparents: Where were you when this child was playing violent games and downloading pornographics modifications for it?
An Xbox is not your babysitter.
Rockstar is not your babysitter.
Using an internet-accessible computer as a babysitter is like sending your child to Vegas with a gun and a wad of money.
Nobody ever said that being an attentive guardian was easy, but then again, noone ever said it should be.
D
While I agree the whole thing is idiocy, you don’t even need to download the “Hot Coffee” mod. In fact, it is accessible on the PS2, PSP, and Xbox versions of the game in addition to the PC. It merely has to be *unlocked* through a series of actions within the game. While downloading it for the PC version would have made it immediately available, it exists as an unlockable extra without the download.
At any rate, Rockstar did know that this content would stir up controversy and prevent the game from being sold in a variety of locations. They hid it, albeit well, and tried to cover up their actions after it had been found out.
While I think the elderly grandmother is an idiot for purchasing the game for a 14 year old in the first place, Rockstar did decieve. If she knowingly bought a game with outrageous violence, shes a terrible grandmother. If that was acceptable to her, but sex was not, I suppose it is reasonable to say Rockstar did not fairly represent the nature of the product before selling it.
Further, since this false representation of a product ended up violating someone’s moral beliefs (however stupid and illogical as Violence Acceptable, Sex Not..they are still entitled to the freedom to believe such idiocies), the manufacterer is partly responsible. They should have either acknowledged it when making it available, or simply not included the code in the first place.
I understand the eagerness for personal responsibility to be placed on the grandmother, but shouldn’t Rockstar also hold some responsibility for what amounts to deception in the marketplace?
Well, yes and no. One of the Great Ideas being put forth by the Democratic leadership is that in order to win elections, they’re going to have to reclaim some of the moral high ground that the idiocracy believes the Republicans hold. Mrs. Clinton’s ham-fisted attempt to claim this bit of “moral high ground” is of a piece with her recent speech about how abortion is a grave but necessary evil.
I often think that in the long view, the worst damage Dubya will have done is to make the world safe for Hilary Clinton.
The often amusing Maddox has an article about this.
like sending your child to Vegas with a gun and a wad of money.
Fond memories. . . .
Ya know who did a good satirical strip on this?
Penny Arcade.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-07-20
Robert — Yes, that was Tipper Gore (“Parents Music Resource Center”).
As for Der Field Marshal Rodham: it is remarkably naive to ignore her Wesleyan Methodist foundations. I’ve been telling people for years: read David Brock’s “The Seduction of Hillary Rodham”.
There is nothing phony about her religion. It is impossible to understand her without accounting for this.
One of the Great Ideas being put forth by the Democratic leadership is that in order to win elections, they’re going to have to reclaim some of the moral high ground that the idiocracy believes the Republicans hold.
Which doesn’t exactly explain why Tipper Gore was all up on this before, of course.
The game was not given the AO (Adults Only – equivalent to 18, I assume) rating by the ESRB, nor was it marked as having sexual content. It got the M (for Mature) ranking. In addition to the overall ratings, they include phrases indicating what sort of content is and is not included in the game; the rating here mentioned the violence but specifically did not include any phrases about sexual content. There is at least a decent case that they misrepresented available content in the game to the rankings board and in their own advertising and box copy. That does make them vulnerable in a way that other games are not.
I think that the original poster and several commentators are a bit misplaced in attempting to enforce their own private morality and moral rankings upon others, such as the grandmother. It matters not in the least that the poster and others view that true morality says that consensual sex is less offensive and more suitable for a 14 year old boy than the particularly nasty forms of violence contained within the game. It is not the place of the law or the District Court to make such moral judgements; shame on the posters for attempting to impose their own morality on the law. What matters in simply that the game advertised certain contents and advertised specifically that others were not included, yet contents specifically disclaimed were included. It should not matter to the law whether the grandmother was fine with violence but disliked sexual content, was fine with sexual content but disliked violence, or anything else. The only thing that should matter is whether Rockstar Games misrepresented their game to both consumers and to the ratings board.
It seems strange to me that so many posters attempt to laugh this case out of court by not respecting the morality of the grandmother, insisting that their own beliefs of morality are the right one. If a consumer wishes to, in the phrase written above, “shoot people in the face, bang prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers without this filthy smut” in a game, they have just as much right to accurate advertising as if their private morality accorded with yours.
The temptation to impose ones own morality into the law is tempting even for supposed libertarians, I see.
Good grief. Now I’m supposed to explain Tipper Gore? Has anyone even heard from her in the past 15 years? Very well. How about “prudish moron.” Or “moronic prude.” Or just plain “prude.” Better yet, perhaps she was just a (Democratic) woman ahead of her time, trying to bring the Dems back into the moral fold when who woulda guessed that doing so one day would be a political strategy.
Correct me if I’m wrong, and I’m sure someone will, but it sounds like some posters think the publishers of this game are false advertisers, or at the very least, people who really should be more honest about the true content of their wares. What’ll it be next? Getting all huffy because McDonald’s doesn’t print health warnings on the wrappers for their Big MacACheeseburger Supersize Supremes? “CAUTION: THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS ENOUGH CHOLESTEROL TO DROP AN ELEPHANT AT 100 FEET.” Whatever happened to caveat emptor? Whatever happened to plain common sense?
but John a quick trip here shows that the game was originally rated for sexual content as is Vice City before the AO up grade
weird that the Playboy game is rated M but has “Nudity,Strong Sexual Content,Use of Alcohol”
The problem here is not one of labeling or mislabeling. It is that people expect government and the courts to exercise judgement and apply common sense in ways that they themselves cannot or will not do.
What is really frightening is that voters have been marketed to, deceived, browbeaten, and generally snookered into requiring candidates for office to spell out their religious and moral bona fides. This is no less dangerous in Washington, D.C. than it is in Teheran. There are people who are only too happy to regulate such trivia as what we view and when and under what circumstances. It is terrifying to think what it would be like should these same officious fools have the force of law behind their delusion that they know what’s best for every bit of our moral lives.
They haven’t quite pulled it off yet, but they’re getting there.
No offence but most of the people that complain about to much violece and unsutable content in video games to be the cause of teens being influenced into crime should look to something else for the cause. There is too much violence in the new and television as well as video games, you can’t watch one news report without the mention of rape, murder, crime, war, suicide…just face the facts, it’s the world that we live in, the whole world isn’t all happy and perfect as people want it to be and it never will be, the only way for the world to go now is down, it will never be any better, so instead of banning all the indecent material that burdens our lives embrace it and teens will just get bored and move on to the next thing, people always approach these sort of problems the wrong way and need to re-think their current stratagy to stopping what they disapprove of. If someone wants something badly and you refuse them they will just crave it more, but if you embrace there want for something they will not crave it as much and hopfully give it up completely, I don’t guarante this will work, but everything you have tried so far has back fired, plus this makes logical sense.
Oh and by the way I’m 15.