The Video game industry is often subject to a lot of controversy, with games being seen as too violent, obsessive and being perhaps connected to the rise in obese children. One Company that is often producing games that fall victim to this type of controversy is Rockstar North. I have researched some of their games that have been banned or accused.
THE HOT COFFEE SCANDAL
Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas was released in october 2004. It was the fifth game in the GTA series, in which you play a character in a free roaming cities, in which you can do pretty much anything whilst you complete missions to work up through the crime empire until you are at the top of your game.
The Game was originally released for Xbox and PS2 but in the following year it was released for the PC and with the release of san andreas came the discovery of a sex mini-game named Hot coffee (by a modder from the Netherlands named Patrick Wildenborg) that had been disabled and removed from the game but left embedded in the code. This led to people finding ways to enable the mini-game on the console versions using game console hacking tools. This discovery led to the game attracting large amounts of controversy from law makers and politicians and led to the game being re-rated and removed from sale in some areas.
The mini-game consists of the main character (Carl Johnson) being invited in 'for a coffee' by one of his girlfriend with the objective for the player to improve the characters' relationships. There is no nudity whatsoever and there were animation problems which suggest the mini-game was abandoned early and before much development. At first GTAs makers denied the allegations that the minigame was hidden in the game and said it was only due to Hackers making significant technical modifications to the game that it was possible for a player to access the game. But this was later proved wrong when a player discovered it was possible to access the minigame on the console versions aswell.
Lawsuits were filed against Rockstar and protesters portested outside Rockstar's Headquarters with these demands:
- Not to release Bully under any circumstances. (Bully was eventually released and has not been banned, but there are movements by protesters for the latter to happen.)
- Volunteer to sell its violent and sexually explicit games in adult video stores only.
- Let parents return Grand Theft Auto for a full refund until they do a national awareness campaign to educate parents of content and possible effects.
- Create a fund for victims of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and car-jackings, etc. - Canceled due to rants.
- Make a national apology for misleading and lying to children, parents, and legislators about their intentions and causing insurance premiums to sky rocket.
- Give a written response within five business days of receipt of these demands
All this resulted in Rockstar losing $30million and the game being re-rated, and Rockstar having to stop manufacturing the current version of the game and re-produce a version of the game with any trace of the hot coffe sex minigame removed.
Here are some websites i found and research the hot coffee scandal on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_minigame_controversy
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6128837.html
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