RSSLos Angeles Sues Over GTA Sex Mod
By Ed Oswald | Published January 27, 2006, 1:20 PM
The Los Angeles City Attorney's Office said on Thursday that it had filed suit against both Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two Interactive. The suit accuses the companies of engaging in unfair business practices by hiding pornography in an "M" rated game, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."
The video game, which was released in October 2004, was discovered to have pornographic material hidden in it in July of last year. The finding resulted in GTA's rating being changed to "Adults Only" or "AO," and caused Rockstar to pull the game from store shelves later that month.
According to Rocky Delgadillo, Los Angeles City Attorney, the companies broke the law by failing to disclose the pornographic scenes. If it would have been disclosed immediately, GTA likely would have been labeled "AO" and most retailers would have declined to carry it due to store policies.
Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other retailers pulled the game from shelves after the disclosure that the scene was indeed not a hack and was made by the company.
"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" sold some 12 million copies before this rating change, making the company some $600 million. In California alone, the Attorney's office estimated 200,000 copies have been sold at a value of more than $10 million.
"Greed and deception are part of the 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' story -- and in that respect its publishers are not much different from the characters in their story," Delgadillo said in prepared remarks.
The LA Attorney's office is asking that the companies forfeit a portion of the profits made from GTA: San Andreas before the disclosure, and ensure consumers that in the future the company would be more truthful as to its activities.
The two state statutes that Take-Two and Rockstar are accused of violating each carry a maximum penalty of $2,500 per violation.
This is still being mentioned!? My god Rockstar must be loving the publicity.
It was hidde and not meant to be found (not really anyway)
Have they sued Disney of the beaver flash in Roger Rabbit
There are more important thing to deal with.
Any one seen binladen recently....no, well stop moaning about GTA (A game!) and get off your law abusing donought eating behind and channel your efforts into something usfull!!!
Score: 0
|YEAH - lock those evil programmers in and throw away the key!
... and the let the real porno slavery be continued under your own eyes . . .
If every judge had to suffer every single punishment he can impose BEFORE he is allowed to judge - well, the world would be a quite different place . . .
Score: 0
|That's pathetic. The law will never catch up will it?
If you have to break a law or several laws to prove someone else broke a law...of something relatively minute...then WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!?
Score: 0
|These people...porn can be found anywhere Mr. Attorney! your son has tons of it, look under his mattress and go sue his school, his friends, your friends and your freakin net provider!!
Score: 0
|These people...porn can be found anywhere Mr. Attorney! your son has tons of it, look under his mattress and go sue his school, his friends, your friends and your freakin net provider!!
Score: 0
|sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue sue
In other words, I'm getting sick of this. I haven't seen any porn in SA, and I've finished the game...
Score: 0
|Los Angeles is poor, that's why...
Interest groups...
Besides, Cali has 70% of expense that's fixed cost because of these interest groups.
Score: 0
|They already pulled the game off the shelves and re-released it without this hidden content. Is Los Angeles stupid? What more do they want? This case needs to be thrown out.
Score: 0
|Yup!! maniakmx3, you are right!!
Some dumb asses are just too.... what can we say
Score: 0
|yeah...sue the company because a RATED M Game has a NON-ACCESSABLE sex scene in which you have to HACK the game to see. BAD People!!
But the funny thing is...look at P2P Software, it's fine to download free porn from P2P software right?
Or even websites like booble.com it's easier for kids to see sex and pornography there than it is for them to hack a video game that you have to be atleast 17 to buy lol
Score: 0
|wasn't this settled allready, what more is there to sue over?
Score: 0
|Wow, they're suing over a feature that's not normally accessible.
Score: 0
|"Nevermind the shooting, stabbing, chainsawing, car-crashing into crowds and beheading... sex is bad. Better keep that out or it might distract the little ones from all the REAL fun."
I see this point, I really do. I also think that sueing strictly because of that type of easter egg is stupid. The only thing I can 'somewhat' agree with is that it was hidden--hence the "M" rating may have been different were this an open part of the game.
Bear with me a moment. Anybody hear about the Disney scandal with some of the classic shows? (for lack of a better link see http://www.straightdope....ailbag/mdisneyperv.html) You will only see this on the *original* releases, bear in mind. But The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Alladin, and The Lion King would have been rated PG or PG-13 had the "hidden" content been known. It was made into a big deal at the time. Disney not only fired the film editer but he was also fined and imprisoned if I recall.
The point is GTASA was rated "M" without the hot coffee scene, but with the scene it may have been different. That's the only crime I can see that is proveable.
Score: 0
|I see your point and I agree with it. I did not know of all the Disney stuff and that was very informative, but it seems as if someone or many were manipulating Disney for their own good rather than Walt himself allowing such things to happen. It also seems, that when they are aware of these, they do take matters into their own hands and make it right.
for GTASA, they intentionally put the scenes in and did not make any attempt to disclose it or prevent it from being seen. They also went as far as to make a work-around for it to allow anyone to see the content. This, I feel is desceptive and immoral. For whatever their reasons are for doing it, I don't care, but they sure made it available to everyone that wanted it and should have taken steps to delete it before production or made two versions for those that wanted it.
Their greed is what dictated their actions and now they should take the blunt punishment for it. I am one that stands for - it is us to the user to decided on what content they want and don't - but they didn't give the user that choice. They deceived them into thinking they have one, but actually the other.
Score: 0
|Why let it settle when you can continue suing and making press? :)
Score: 0
|Haven't we been through all this already? I thought it was all settled and taken care of.
Score: 0
|Nevermind the shooting, stabbing, chainsawing, car-crashing into crowds and beheading... sex is bad. Better keep that out or it might distract the little ones from all the REAL fun.
Score: 0
|Seconded.
Score: 0
|Thriced? But yeah, what is the huge deal about sex here? How is it so much worse than violence? And this has nothing to do with this topic, but it's the parent's fault anyway.
Score: 0
|of course it's bad! Sex is BAD! BAD! God commands us to kill people who have sex for fun!
um.. yeah...
Score: 0
|I think its funny that they are tring to sue over something that you need to do something illegal to access it. Besides it is an M rated game and younger people shouldnt be playing it anyway. By the way i remember awile ago there was a hidden nude game model in the game black and white and it wasnt as hard to get access to.
Score: 0
|Since when did people in los angeles ever care about or take offense to SEX? I thought this was part of the culture out there. So, why sue over it?
He’s obviously sexually frustrated..
Score: 0
|