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Hidden Sex Scenes Bump Up New Grand Theft Auto Game to Adults Only

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Jul. 21--The independent group that rates video games said Wednesday it was now tagging Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with the little-used "Adults Only" label, addressing the hottest controversy in the industry.

The unprecedented ratings change followed weeks of intense scrutiny of explicit, interactive sex scenes that were found hidden in the code of the game, which had been rated "Mature."

The Entertainment Software Rating Board also recommended that retailers stop selling the game and either re-label the games with the new age rating or exchange current copies of the game for new ones without the code.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- which analysts say controls about half of the more than $10 billion video game retail market in the U.S. -- said Wednesday that it immediately halted sales of the game in its more than 3,000 stores nationwide.

"Our policy is that we don't carry any adult rated titles, so we have made the decision to act immediately and we have sent out a directive to all our stores to remove the product from our shelves," said spokeswoman Karen Burk.

Ms. Burk said all copies of the game for the PC as well as the Xbox and PlayStation 2 consoles should be gone from store shelves by Thursday evening.

In the meantime, cash registers at Wal-Mart stores will be electronically blocked from selling copies of the game to customers.

Ms. Burk said opened and unopened copies purchased at a Wal-Mart can be returned for a full refund.

Brittany Stephens, an 18-year-old from Arlington, said she had bought all the Grand Theft Auto games in the past but now plans to exchange the San Andreas version because of the sexual content.

"I love violent video games, but this is crossing the line," she said. "It's kind of sick, actually. The programmers know that kids play this game, and kids can get these cheat codes easily. It's like putting pornography in a child's hands."

Grapevine-based video game retailer GameStop Corp. -- the largest standalone game retailer in the country -- could not be reached for comment.

Mature-rated games have become increasingly controversial, due largely to the violent and sexual content in the Grand Theft Auto series of games.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D.-N.Y., who said last week that she plans to introduce legislation that would prohibit the sale of violent and sexually explicit games to minors, applauded the move by the rating board Wednesday.

"But the fact remains that the company gamed the ratings system and enabled pornographic material to get into the hands of children," she said.

Regardless of whether the legislation passes, the publisher of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas expects to suffer financially.

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. -- parent company of Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar Games -- said Wednesday evening that the new rating will cost the company $40 million to $50 million in sales in the third quarter.

Also, Take-Two finally owned up to the fact that the sex scenes were created by its internal developers and included on the final copies sent to retailers. For weeks, the company denied the scenes were part of the original software. It continues to blame the hackers and gamers who uncovered the dormant code and provided instructions on how to activate it.

"The ESRB's decision to re-rate a game based on an unauthorized third party modification presents a new challenge for parents, the interactive entertainment industry and anyone who distributes or consumes digital content," Paul Eibeler, Take-Two's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Take-Two said it will release a version of San Andreas without the interactive sex games, which have become known as the "Hot Coffee" scenes.

Ms. Burk at Wal-Mart said the retailer would consider selling the new version of San Andreas if it receives no higher than a Mature rating from the ESRB.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board, established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association, rates more than 1,000 games a year.

Each game is normally reviewed by three board-trained raters, who are screened to ensure they don't have ties to computer and gaming companies, the rating board says.

The board doesn't disclose raters' names.

To get a rating, game publishers must complete a questionnaire detailing the content of the game and submit video footage showing the game's "most extreme content," according to the rating board's Web site.

The rating board's experts randomly play publicly available games to verify raters' accuracy.

Last year, the board assigned the "adults only" rating -- for gamers 18 and older -- to less than 1 percent of the games it reviewed.

Fifty-four percent of the games got an "everyone" rating, 33 percent got the "teen" rating (13 and older) and 12 percent got the "mature" rating (17 and older).

Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB, said that her group's findings will make it harder for parents and gamers to trust the age ratings on video games.

"Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined," she said in a statement.

Janet Norman, an Arlington mother of three, said she has lost faith in the ratings system and will no longer allow her 16-year-old son, Dex, to buy games with a Mature rating. She is worried that other games with that rating could also have cheat codes that unlock explicit content.

"I consider my son mature, but he's not that mature," she said. "At this point, I'm going to tell him that's it -- unless it's Pac-Man, it's not coming in this house."

Technology writer Crayton Harrison and staff writer Jordan Robertson contributed to this report.

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Source: The Dallas Morning News

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