It wasn't hidden material that could be accessed through gameplay.

It was unused code that, by design, was supposed to be not part of the game.

Access to the code was NOT made by official patches or upgrades by the company.

Access to the code was NOT made by official unlockable codes provided within the official software.

Access was provided by non publisher, non developer, non official means.

Access was provided by non company personnel and therefore was a modification of said product that was NOT official intended.

I can think of a number of products whose use could be modified or interpreted to allow the product to be used in a manner that the creating company did not intend for the product.

If said products can be modified or interpreted to be used by some individuals in a manner which -I- feel is "indecent", can I then demand the company who created the product be fined, at the least, because it's product COULD be used by other individuals for purposes other than what the company claims the product was intended?

If someone can come up with a way to use a product in a way that was not intended to be used by the maker of the product, can we really hold the maker responsible for how the product is used?

nightwng2000
NW2K Software

Upton is still smarting over the humiliaton he suffered on the Daily show, so he's probably trying to vent that anger at the industry since he saw that Joe pitts didn't have any success against the show itself.

Regardless, this is an AUTO fail.

1. Fcc only has authroity through public means of communication, of which, games are not, they are sold on the market, not broadcast through the air waves.

2. 1st amendment. You'd fiqure they'd get this one by now.

3. 14th amendment, once again, singling out games.


End game MR. upton, your not smart enough to use a toaster, let alone be an authority on games.

"In essence there are no consequences. None… I would like to have thought that (Take-Two and Rockstar) would have been able to be fined for millions of dollars for the trash they put out across this country.”

Take-Two and Rockstar lost millions in the fallout of the scandal, isn't that enough? How much punishment do they want the company to suffer? Do this guy really think Hot Coffee was some apocolyptic event that nearly destroyed the purity of America's youth? It was just clothed dry humping, for goodness sake!

All I can say is that American Politicians are funny. they think that they are the most important people in the world and that the children are so fragile that if you even refuse them once they will be scarred for life.

Hayabusa, I'd like a copy too.

abbreviationdc [at] gmail.com

"If someone can come up with a way to use a product in a way that was not intended to be used by the maker of the product, can we really hold the maker responsible for how the product is used?"

Sadly, far too many product liability cases are about misuse of products.

Hayabusa - mark me for a copy of that too, at aniki[at]anime-ni.co.uk.

Terminator44 Says:
Take-Two and Rockstar lost millions in the fallout of the scandal, isn’t that enough? How much punishment do they want the company to suffer?

There's a difference though - they want T2 to be fined, not take a loss. It's not about penalizing T2's profits, it's about T2 having to pay for what they did wrong.

Hayabusa, I'd also like to see it.
silver.derstin(at)gmail.com

This has the looks of a personal vendetta, not of an actual serious inquiry into Take-Two's actions.

@Hayabus:

blitz6799@yaho.com

@Phrawzty:

Their real goal is to confuse us by creating this sort of legal action one week, and then the next week to have headlines on how they're trying to make their state more attractive to the industry. However, I would say that we seem to benefit by giving you guys the industry,because as far as I know, you guys haven't tried breaking anything like we have.

@article:

This situation with Upton actually proves a point I tried making earlier this week where a politician was backing CAMRA and other studies and was quoted as saying something to the effect of "If the study says things are fine, I'll be fine with it too". My point at the time was that he already made a decision about where he stands with the issue, and that if the study goes his way he will be proud and make some claims, whereas this story itself shows what happens when the study goes the other way.

I'm willing to bet that if we travelled back in time and asked Upton what would he do if the FTC said there was no problem that Upton would say "Then that's what they found, I'll live with it"; or something to that effect.

Hey Hayabusa I would like a copy of that too. My e-mail is 9shess@hayshighindians.com

Ok, just sent the messages to you guys...man, maybe I should've just posted it after all.

If it didn't go through, let me know and I'll resend it.

@Hayabusa:

Oh, it went through all right (at least for me). ANd I must say, you cooked her goose good, buddy.

Yeah, I don't think this law will have any real use. I mean, even in the situation with GTA: SA, they didn't try to get a lower rating by failing to submit info on the content, they just didn't want to admit their programmers forgot to delete a rather detailed part of the game. Weren't only San Andreas and Oblivion the only games to ever get rerated anyhow? And both times it was because of mods.

Hayabusa can you give me a copy Too? zider1123@yahoo.com

@Blitz_Fitness:

Thanks, it was fun. I do want to give credit where it's due, though; Dennis and the rest of you were also in those e-mails. I drew a lot of my points from you guys.

Hayabusa: Hook me up too. hockeyhairman[at]hotmail.com.

And seriously, when are American politicians going to realize that they can't wipe their asses with the constitution and make laws like this? They're 0-for-8 now at least.

And another thing, when are American politicians going to realize that children are WAY smarter than they give them credit for? Any kid with a decent rearing and a straight head on his shoulders is going to know that what you do in the games, you shouldn't do in reality.

At least I always did, anyway.

Sorry to go off topic, but the gamepolitics' wikipedia page needs updating, and I'm not that good with words.

Oh s**t, another shooting.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15060698/

nightwng2000
NW2K Software

Technically, Rockstar didn't do anything wrong. At the time, there was no restrictions in the ESRB agreement stating that the company had to show content that had been completely locked out of the game.

Oh, and Hayabusa, can I get a copy of that, too?
rurouni_kenouki[at]hotmail.com

Ironically, I'm pretty sure this bill wouldn't have applied to Hot Coffee as they didn't hide any game content. It would have required a bunch of court wrangling at any rate.

@nightwing

My guess is it was a copycat incident. Some yahoo with a grudge (considering he was apparently a former student), wanting to go out in a blaze of glory. I mean, school shootings & plots have been all over the news three times now in less than a month. (Montreal, that hostage taking, and the Colubine-type plotters that were arrested).

What sickens me is that his picture will be all over the news, they'll report on every detail of his life. And while most perps of this type don't really care about fame, it shows other suicidal loners that if you're going to go, you might as well take the people you hate with you, because dying alone makes you a loser.

It's the new suicide by cop. Suicide by school shootout.

Thanks for the exanchange. You Really ripped her a new one.

Actually, four in just about a month:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/08/30/school.shooting/

nightwng2000
NW2K Software

I wish more school shootings were like that. Two injuries, no deaths? (Well, the father, but that didn't happen at school). It sounds like this was another abuse case. Haven't at least half of these been connected to abuse? I'm pretty sure there's been an acutal proven causal link between being abused and becoming violent. I know I read a report that said victims of child abuse were more likely as adults to either enter into a another relationship where they were abused, or else become abusive themselves.

@Beacon

No, most school shootings don't seem to be linked to anything in particular. Some are from abusing or broken households, some are heavily doped up on prescription drugs for depression or hyperactivity, some are loners, some are glory hounds, some are bitter at the school, some at the staff, or specific "cliques". Some just at the world in general.

That's why the Secret Service came to the conclusion that there were no common factors. They were trying to create a "school shooter profile" so they could identify possible incidents before they happened. But they found that there were no common factors.

The thing I wish people would remember is that Rockstar is not one big huge entity that created Hot Coffee and universally knew of its existence.

A few rogue programmers created it, and were sloppy in not removing it from the finished product.

So of course when this first came out, the impulse of R* would be to say "Wait, we didn't do that." until the bad programmers came forward and said "Um... yeah we did. Sorry about that."

But this whole idea of ROCKSTAR created Hot Coffee then deliberately lied about it... that's just fantasy for Thompson and game hating politicos.

Hey! GP's Joystiq column is up! :)

@ Hayabusa

Feel free to send me a copy of the exchange too - Azure45 at Gmail dot com - It ought to be a good read when I return from work.

oops. Forgot to give you my email Hayabusa. It is jdmcgill1(at)yahoo(dot)com

Dammit!!! i thought we were over the whole hot coffee crap! it's dry humping in an adult rated game!!!!!!!!!!!

There's a reason southwest Michigan has a pretty high number of rape cases.

Not because we're all jerks and rape each other, but because the area is extremely conservative and religious (Throw a rock, hit a church...) and many parents decide they don't want their kids having sex with each other...

This just kind of shows that conservatism, really...

@people who say that HC wasn't intentional

Well im going to go out on a limb here and take up the counter-argument of this point. First off tho let me say three things before everybody jumps onto me as some sort of mindless anti-game idiot: (1) I think that the whole double standard over sex versus violence in rating a game M/Ao is absurd, as well as the fact that the stigma of an Ao game not being sold at lots of retailers providing the pressure for companies to make sure their games arent rated Ao is a really screwed up system, and (2) I dont think there is anyway to prove 'intent' in the HC case up to the standard of here (or pretty much for any potential infraction), and so this is a meaningless and stupid law because it is a solution in search of a problem, even aside fromt he fact that it respresents ridiculous over-regulation of a private industry.

Those things said, tho i think a very convincing circumstantial argument can be made that its far more likely that R* knew about HC content and left it in specifically for it to get unlocked than that their 'official' explanation is correct.

First off, there is a substantial chilling effect on expression just from having the M/Ao system set up the way it is. Because the big box retailers dont sell Ao games (which is retarded, by the way) having an Ao game immediately means that your game is going to have a hugely lowered distribution footprint. Not important for a small niche game anyways (I honestly think that a tastefully done Ao JP-style hentai rpg game could sell well on a console like PS2 or something, IF the gameplay was better than your standard minimally interactive narrative hentai game you see for PC), but if you are talking about an AAA title with an AAA budget and AAA profit expectations its prohibitive. The ESRB has clear guidelines on what makes content M versus Ao (unlike the MPAA), and companies when they sit down to make an AAA title know in advance that they cannot put in content that would make it Ao, and if they and ESRB disagree and if ESRB is going to rate the game Ao based on some content thats in their that the company thought would be merely "M" then you can bet that content is goign to be gone and the game will be resubmitted. The ESRB process is clearly set up so that if a game initially comes in higher than the company wants it they can specifically tailor it to remove that conent so they can get the rating they want, thats simply the way business is done (and partly why that proposed law that requires the ESRB to play the finished game would totally screw up the system). People who say that it doesnt matter, that AAA "M" games are mainly played by adults anyways and those sort of gamers buy all their games at specialty stores anyways, are naive and basically don't understand modern-day game economics.

So heres the basic possible scenario: R* has this content that they did for HC, which adds value ot their game, but because of retarded way that sex is handled compared to violence, they cannot include it in the game (and im sure they know this in advance and remove it well before the esrb submission). However that content does add value to the game, since it creates 'buzz'. There is absolutely no way to prove intent here but basically its record that HC unfolded pretty well for R*, (up until the point when it all went horribly wrong whent he MSM picked up on it). From historical record we know that basically the HC content sits on the PS2 disc doign nothing because people dont mod PS2 games much. 6 months later when the PC version comes out, because of HC comes out relatively quickly after the PC release, you have basically a de facto 'enhanced version' with more content than the PS2 version in the minds of gamers. This not only brings san andreas back into the 'buzz' at a point when the PC version really just is a port that is 6 months late from the orginial version and not in itself 'buzz-worthy' - it also means that people who already have the PS2 version (or were fans of previous GTA but for whatever reason hadnt actually gone at got SA yet) are tempted to get the PC version also, because they can mod it.

Right up until the mostly beneficial buzz within the game community exploded into such a massive negative buzz in the MSM (fueled by a minority of vocal critics who were waiting for the first mistake fromt he game industry), R* was reaping huge benefits. Basically they got to have their game be M, while also having a bit of extra "teaser" to create buzz and sell the PC version of the game, preserving the value of that content (which although sophomoric, i think does create a bit of extra edginess) while having none of the negatives of if they had had to submit that content to ESRB anyways (or even directly associate themselves as creators of the content) and have the whole game end up Ao rated based on a throwaway gimmick thats not intrinsic to the gameplay or narrative itself. Also I think that since the rules about undisclosed inaccessible content werent on the books at ESRB, R* isnt so much cheating ESRB or its customers as figuring out how to use the gap between the capability of technology (and specificaly the fact that modders can and will unlock content acting as a third party) and the regulation of that technologies capability to exploit a loophole of the ratings rules. Since its a retarded and immoral rule anyways, more power to them, although in retrospect the ancilliary effects and how it was pounced upon by liars, cheats, and politicians (well actually thats redundant) meant that probably on the whole it did more harm than good.

Also if you look at the official story of R* and how it changed especially as HC was breaking in the MSM, they sure act exactly like you would expect somebody who is guilty to act. They wont admit that the content is theirs until the very last moment when its essentially proven for them - and they had plenty of time in between HC coming first to light and when it was shown that HC was on PS2 disc also to self investigate and come clean - so the idea that they just still didnt realize the content was actually theirs when they initially went on record gaving the impression that it was hacker added content strains crdulity. Also if you look at their initial comments (to the effect that this is somethign that is added by a hack), this was blatant sophistry in that they made a statemetn that was techinically correct (which is that you had to add a mod to see the content) but worded in a way so that it would read as a much stronger statement to the effect that the content was added by the hackers to everybody. And then when their try and dissembling on that front fails they just fall back on the technical meaning of their initial statement and then try and deny that they even ever said the first thing (which was doubly craven). Clearly they are guilty of intentionally misleading the ESRB and the public over this stretch, though in fairness that just established that when faced with a crisis they prefer to dissemble rather than be honest, it doesnt establish anythign in terms of intent back when the PS2 discs were originally printed.

Now of course none of this is conclusive or could ever prove that they intended to put the HC stuff on the disc as some sort of trojan horse to raise buzz when it eventually got found by PC modders (not an incredibly unlikely scenario despite what some claim), but conclusive proof is not really the point. My point is mainly that there is sufficient circumstantial reason to believe that R* would have had intent that it is rather short sighted to be saying statements like "there was no intent to decieve" as if those are plain and known facts. There is a world of difference between not being able to prove that somebody intentionally misled or cheated you to a court standard and being able to say as plain fact that that person dealt with you straight. See for example our current white house resident and his suspected lies which led us into Iraq - nobody is probably ever going to be able to prove before a congressional commision or whatever that he had intent to lie for that precise goal, but that does not imply for a second that anybody should trust him one iota.

Hmmm, so Upton wants to give the FTC the power to regulate content regardless of whether or not it is transmitted? Ingenious! Next, Upton will attempt to perform frontal lobotomies on everyone so it doesn't matter if you're happy or not! Representative Upton FTW!

"You can ask why they didn’t pull it entirely, and that’s a valid question."

One thing to remember is that unsused content existing somewhere within a game's code is hardly a rarity. In fact, it seems to be the standard.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow had some text files indicating that Hammer was at one time going to be a playable character in Julius mode.

Knights of the Old Republic 2 had probably hours worth of recorded dialogue that was never used, not to mention tons of design notes and other files for content that was never added.

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance has stats for characters and weapons that never make an appearance on the battlefield, and also even some artwork that never shows up, I think.

I could go on and on. The reason why these things are usually left in is because it is quicker. Game companies are almost always on a tight scedule, so why waste time removing content that can't be accessed anyways? Of course, through hacks such content CAN be accessed, but this usually doesn't really matter. Perhaps R* was just stupid and didn't think about what would happen if that scene was unlocked. Or perhaps not, I don't really know.

@aniki21
Yeah if somebody who was really familiar with the ins and outs of modding GTA was to come on and show (with detailed explanation) that the HC code/implementation was sufficiently less complete than the rest of the "features" that would definitely argue very strongly against intent, I totally agree. I was always sort of just going on the reports (even from inside the gaming community) sort of paint it as s fairly 'complete' feature (although small in nature) - i had PS2 SA so i never bothered to actually try and play it (HC) to see for myself. Im not convinced either that they definitely left it iin with intent to decieve (or that hte cover up which definitely occured can separate between them finding out about the error after HC mod came out versus intentionally planning to have it hacked), I just think its a bit naive for people to state as plain fact that there was no intent to deceive when really thats just based upon R*'s say-so and they already demonstrated plenty of willingness ot be less then fully forthright. Or perhaps i am just overly romanticizing, because to me (because of my screwy situational ethics), if they put that info in to tweak the ESRB's absurd definitions of Ao versus M content in a gamble that just ended up goign terribly wrong, then i actually respect them a lot more than if they are just bumbling fools who were screweing around with code and put in an alpha feature that they forgot to remove and that is what led to the s***storm.

@jabr
True. And see the gov't could have saved an assload of money if they'd just gone and asked me for my analysis, I could have probabyl done it for 1/10th of the cost of the FTC study (special discount for my home country).

@Majestic
FTC already has the power to regulate things regardless of whether or not they are transmitted (they just have to be traded, ie bought and sold). I think you are getting a bit confused between the FCC (Federal Communications Commision) and the FTC (Federal Trade Commision). There's still a very reasonable question on whether the FTC getting all up into the face of a private ratings and standards board (tellign them how they have to do their job, etc) represents unneccessary and burdensome government intrusion on private business practice (or some similar), but thats totally separate from any issue of the fact that video games are untransmitted in public airwaves which is the reason that the FCC has no authority to, for example, fine R* for using swear words in SA.

@ hayabusa

About what you found, I woudl bet if any student refused they woudl automatically fail the class. If I had such an assignment I';d gladly sacrifice one class instead of do soemthign that goes agaisnt my beliefs, hell, and you can ruin the school board's time with lawsuits for unfair treatment.

@illspirit

That was one of the scariest things I've ever seen.

I hope someone will pay for my counseling.

“I guess I thought the FTC would have had some more teeth than they apparently have… I’m not at all happy… In essence there are no consequences. None… I would like to have thought that (Take-Two and Rockstar) would have been able to be fined for millions of dollars for the trash they put out across this country.”

A. Have you EVER heard the expression one man's trash is another mani's treausre? I know the saying doesn't refer to thingslike violent games and whatnot but I thought I'd point it out. Also who the hell died and gave you permission to declare what is and is not trash? Grand Theft Auto is the top selling console game this generation, selling millions worldwide, garnering lots of awards and is thought of as a revolutionary game (and it is). Also the FTC shouldn't fine the game just because it is violent. That would be censorship, a disgrace to our freedoms, and tyrannical. I hope that statement comes back to bite you in the ass.

B. The hot coffee thing was the 1st of it's crime and while it was hidden undisclosed content it was never ment to see the light of day.

C. If that bill was passed 3 years ago, Hot coffee would not have been a violation, because Rockstar didn't cover hot coffee in order to get a lower rating. If they did they wouldn't have required you to go out of your way and download a mod, or get a gameshark in order to get to it.

Hey, the article cites fourteen reps supporting the bill. Anyone know where I could find all of them?

I keep seeing people asking why Hot Coffee wasn't just totally removed from the game, instead of just locking it off. Let me try to give an analogy (oh no... the dreaded computer analogies!)

Let us say that you have a house (GTA: SA), and in your basement is an ugly section in one corner (Hot Coffee). Now, you have a few options. You could wall off the ugly section, or you could remove it completely. Rockstar essentially did the former. Why? What if you decided to tear out the entire section, but found that part of it was load-bearing? You'd have to go through, at a lot of extra expense and rebuild the load-bearing parts, get everything checked out, and make sure your house was still solid and stable. Now think of textures or scripted events as load-bearing elements in the game.

So, Rockstar has the option of either walling off Hot Coffee, or tearing it out and rebuilding the game - making sure that they don't break anything in the process.

http://members.cox.net/illspirit/mecgrl2.jpg

Bionic woman! What a dirty, filthy tramp she has become!

The problem with people like Upton is that they do not understand how the ESRB or the game industry for that matter, works.

Something else I noticed: For some odd reason, there is a sudden influx of school shootings that just so happen to occur around election season. Coincedence or elaborate conspiracy by the anti-gaming illumnati to get their censorist agenda into the door?

Where is my tinfoil hat?

Censorist....anti gaming illuminati...those are some good buzzwords. here's one,and another that i invented(if we were to use a term in the vein of"pixelante" to refer to these pols)

Censorcrat-Politicly motivated adversary of free speech,often spreading lies and misinformation to paint the paticular medium they are attacking in a bad(and thus easier to censor) light.

Artificial Values{Of child protection,ETC)-used to propel the alarmist concerns of the above,often by tapping into the fears of the majority.(I.E Protect the children from violent games!)

So if someone haxxors their hybrid car, hooks up the battery leads to their balls and ends up with home-made prairie oysters, Ford should pay for damages because they obviously made the product with the intent that someone fry their balls off?

@kurisu7885:

Like you, my first thought was that the kids were getting some kind of extra credit for this nonsense. It occurs to me though, that some of them may be genuinely interested in putting a lid on violent games, and just haven't done enough research to know that the way they're going about it isn't viable. This is especially plausible when you consider who's running the program. Yeah, I'm going to go read the pages out of a couple of books that support my position and call that "thorough research". Then I'll go recommend to my Children of the Corn that they read the same works and go talk to the governor. Awesome.

@jabrwock:

I'm having trouble getting the e-mails to you, I think I'm mistyping your address somewhere. I've asked Dennis to forward them to you.

@ hayabusa

i like your children of the corn reference. most kids I know of would actually see that they are promoting censorship and the beatdown of freespeech. I have seen soe mstudents who actually woudl want censorship, and alot of them, like our favorite censorcrat aren't well liked and belive their views are above everyone else's