http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/01/27/video.game.lawsuit.ap/index.html

Took long enough.

Take-Two deserves to lose and I hope they do.

 

Not this crap again. They should have erased the hidden code entirely and covered their asses. That being said, I don't think they should have to pay, because the code WAS hidden and disabled.

At least from now on, maybe game writers will be more careful about what they leave in the code.

 

thats quite amusing. why did they leave that in the game? surely they know some modders would find it.

 

*yawn* Go take-two win! Sorry but i'm dead tired of all the censorship in america and crap about games i'd rather see take-two win even though i'm not a fan of the GTA series.

 

*yawn*?

Before immediately dismissing the issue, perhaps you should realize that it has nothing to do with censorship?

 

I hope take two wins as well im tired of the expression numbing censorship of violence we have in our media I would like to see the artists win for a chance. Its ridiculous to see a developer/publisher get sued for something that was disabled and inaccessible from a non hacker standpoint. Whats next people sue microsoft/linux distro providers/apple for each vulnerability some hacker finds or creates?

 

agreed...

Because removing that line of code could have caused other problems in the game and would have caused delays and such to fix it. Easier to turn it off then to remove it...

 

I've already said it once, but I'll say it again.

The lawsuit has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with censorship. Period. Look, it's even in the first sentence of the article. Just in case people still miss it...

 

Except that games submitted to the ESRB for a rating have to have the most explicit content disclosed. The fact that it was "turned off" has no relevance to the fact that it was still present in the finished game and accessible (obviously) by consumers.

The content wasn't disclosed, the game received an inappropriate rating, and millions of sales across the country happened that most likely wouldn't have had the correct rating been given. Consumers were duped. Oops.

 

Someone decides something hidden and locked away in a piece of art and seeks to hurt the artist/distributer because of it. How is that not censorship? You cant access the stuff without specific tools/codes and instructions. anyone who has seen the locked content did so on purpose and wanted to see it.

 

Where in the lawsuit does it say that the game shouldn't have explicit language, sex or pornography? For a more detailed explanation as to the heart of the lawsuit, please see my post right above yours.

 

How so? Customers want to see it they have to buy the appropriate equipment or download the appropriate hack to see it. Otherwise its 100% inaccessible.

 

Because gamers and parents of gamers bought a game that should have been rated AO but was instead incorrectly rated M?

*edited for grammar*

 

I'm still not entirely convinced that SA would have gotten an AO rating if the Hot Coffee mod had been showed to the ESRB raters, and if that is true than this lawsuit doesn't hold water.

That being said, I still hope Take-Two loses this Lawsuit. Not for not disclosing the info about the mod before it was found but for intentionally lying about it after it was found.

 

The normal part of the game is appropriately labeled "M", but the hacked version would have to be labeled "AO".

There's no way someone who didn't WANT to see the content would. You need know-how, software hacks, etc., and you need to know what it is you are trying to accomplish. Normal non-hacker people wouldn't have EVER found it.

My point is, yes, they screwed up by leaving the code in there, and should receive a fine or something. Should they loose a multi-million lawsuit over it? No.

The line between "M" rated games and "AO" rated games is so thin IMO, that it should not exist. A parent suing because their child hacked a game and saw porn, when the game was rated "M" to begin with (for murder, drugs, stuff MUCH worse than pixelated soft-core porn) should be thrown out of court for letting their kids play "M" rated games in the first place.

 

I would say over 95% of those who played the game only played the MA portion of the game. An AO rating would have made locking the content away in the first place superfulous. It seems to me someone who was part of the inhouse rating system said the "dry" fully clothed depictions of sex in the game might make it harder to land an MA rating, get rid of it. They did the next best thing by disabling it, and none of the games success banked on the undisclosed dry sex mini game. Its not as if they tries to sneak it in, they tried to sneak it out. Had take two made it accessable once you knew the secret code to access it ala the naked intro movie clip from doa2 then someone might have a just case against take two. Its clear by the steps required to reenable it, that it was no longer ment to be played.

 

Like it or not, the ESRB, and Sony require that publishers tell them everything thats in the game, accessible or not. if its on that disc, they must be told about it. they didnt do that. they lied, they broke policy.

thats all this is about. what they did was illegal, and yes, they should be punished for it. they broke the ESRB and Sony's policies, how is that up for debate, or defending?

 

Well, it's going to court, so it WILL be debated AND defended by people a lot more important that us.

I'm not saying what they did was right, I DO think they should recieve a stiff fine under normal circumstances, but having outside parties taking them to court for it just seems like more people that want money from a rich company.

 

Let me start off by saying anything and everything GTA sucks. Period.

However, I don't believe that the makers of the game should be held liable. They corrected the problem as best as they could without further hindering the gameplay. They turned the code off and not everyone knows how to access the material. It's hidden, not everyone knows about it, most don't even care, so everyone should just shut up about it and let Take-Two make more of thier shitty games.



Jesus, this is almost as bad as the guys who claimed they killed cops and stole cars because they played these games too much. Those guys were just psychos.

 

Dammit not again.