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SAN FRANCISCO - Shooting. Killing. Vehicular mayhem. Sexual conquests. Teenagers can experience it all through today's almost-anything-goes breed of video games, primarily among those rated "M" for mature. The Entertainment Software Rating Board is responsible for that rating system, and this self-regulating videogame industry group has suddenly found itself on the hot seat.

 

Critics say the board's guidance is toothless and does little to help parents trying to protect impressionable children from questionable content.

 

"There is no doubting the fact that the widespread availability of sexually explicit and graphically violent video games makes the challenge of parenting much harder," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who asked the Federal Trade Commission last week to investigate one of the most violent titles, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

 

In this "M" rated game — last year's top-seller among console games — the main character seeks bloody vengeance on gang-filled streets, firing automatic weapons and picking up scantily clad women.

 

But what really riles family-oriented media watchdog groups are additional scenes in which nude "girlfriends" join in explicit sex acts in the PC version. The scenes become "playable" with the help of a freely available download created by a Dutch programmer.

 

"Grand Theft Auto" publisher Rockstar Games says the game's designers did not create that content. Not so, says the programmer, Patrick Wildenborg. He insists his "mod" merely unlocks code that was already hidden in the game's retail version.

 

Had such sexually explicit content been clearly a part of the retail version, it would likely have earned the game an "adults-only" rating. And that would have potentially cost Rockstar Games millions in lost sales.

 

The ESRB's president, Patricia Vance, cautions the public not to jump to conclusions while the board investigates the case.

 

"I think it is very important for people to realize that this game is rated "M" for mature," Vance said. "This game is not a game that was rated for children. Regardless of what if anything was modified, it's a game that the ESRB has made as clear as it can that it was not intended for anyone under the age of 17."

 

The ESRB is accustomed to pressure — it was formed 11 years ago under heat from Congress to crack down on violent videogames. The board now issues ratings for more than 1,000 game titles each year.

 

As part of the process, game makers must submit a lengthy form describing the most extreme content, and turn over visual samples and scripted dialogue as each game nears the final stages of development.

 

The ESRB then hires everyday New Yorkers to test the games and recommend ratings, from "E" for everyone to "AO" for adults only. At least three testers try each game, and recommended ratings are delivered within five days, Vance said.

 

"At the end of the day, what they're looking at is not how fun this game is," Vance said. "We're looking for objective, independent feedback ..."

 

That feedback is ultimately delivered to a board comprised of executives from the largest videogame companies, including heavyweights like Microsoft Corp., Nintendo of America Inc. and Electronic Arts as well as Take 2 Interactive, the parent company responsible for the Grand Theft series.

 

Similar ratings for movies have been determined since 1968 by the Motion Picture Association of America under a system that is also voluntary.

 

But video games are much more complex than movies by their very design — they usually have layers of content, and sometimes there are "hidden" areas that can be unlocked with special codes. Often, software patches and add-ons available for download can modify video games — either made available by the original publisher or created by fans as modifications, or "mods."

 

Further complicating matters, games' final ratings can sometimes be of little use to parents and gamers deciding on a purchase.

 

For example, THQ Inc. offers two versions of "The Incredibles" for PC — one rated "E" and the other "T" for teen — each described simply as containing "cartoon violence." And "Chris Moneymaker's World Poker Championship" from Valu Soft is rated "M" for its "simulated gambling," while Hoyle's "Poker Series" gets an "E," also for "simulated gambling."

 

Then there's Atari's "F/A-18: Operation Iraqi Freedom," which allows the player to "Kick some Ba'ath" by dropping bombs on targets deep inside Iraq. It's rated "E" for everyone, just like Her Interactive's "Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch."

 

Dennis McCauley, who runs GamePolitics.com and follows hot-button industry issues, says the ESRB generally does a good job of determining ratings — but only answering to itself is a problem.

 

"My primary issue with it is that it's not accountable to anyone. It's kind of a closed loop," McCauley said. "They need to have some kind of mechanism to interface with the public, and not necessarily the government because some people would see that as censorship."

 

But a good dose of government oversight is exactly what is needed, says Rep. Joe Baca (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. He has been trying for three years to get legislation passed that would require the FTC to determine if the video game industry's labeling practices are unfair or deceptive.

 

Baca says parents are being misled — he thinks videogame publishers seek the "M" rating even when they know a game includes content that should be in "Adults Only" territory.

 

"They know very well that if it said "Adults Only" these would not be displayed at a Target, at a Wal-Mart or any of the other videogame (retailers), because they wouldn't be sold," Baca said in an interview.

 

And these games are having a real, detrimental impact on young minds, Baca said — "In a videogame, you're actually pursuing and simulating a person. You're under hypnosis. You're a person that is dramatizing, that is living the example of what is going on."

Oh dear the Mary Whitehouse brigade strikes again! This to me is totally rediculous they are now attacking games for having content people were not meant to see. when will they realise that these games are meant for adults anyway so most of their arguments are really non sensicle what i think really should be done is that the ratings should be legally binding and that parents breaking them should be held responcible as much as shops that sell the games to underaged kids if not more so.

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Sexually explicit content?!? It's no more than what Viscera does every week on Raw to his unfortunate opponents.
have you seen the hack? I've heard its like a bemani game and is fairly explicit
She does know there's a war going on, doesn't she?
heheh yeah there really ARE better things than this to be worrying about.

I have seen screen shots of the hack, and I wouldnt say its anything to moan about, but they have to have something to focus on. Maybe they shpuld ban cartoons like Roadrunner and Bugs Bunny, after all they surely encourage cruelty to animals........

 

IMO groups like these are here to spoil the fun for the rest of us. last time i checked, i didnt go out gunning people down cos they were on my turf and disrepected me,(the fact that my turf consists of a 1 by 1 sq foot of carpet has nothing to do with it!!), after playing GTA. its a minority of psychos that do this kind of thing.

 

sorry for the rant, these people really get my back up, same when they blame music and tv.

The mothers should be blaming themselves. the game is rated M, which I think is for 17 and up, so their 12 year old kids shouldn't be giving their children them.

 

Stupid bitches.

Parents group urges recall of video game 'GTA'

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A media watchdog group said on Tuesday it has demanded Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. unit Rockstar Games recall "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," the blockbuster title at the center of a swarm over a hack that helps players unlock a sexually explicit mini-game.The move added the Parents Television Council's voice to a growing chorus of critics of the game -- one of the most popular ever sold and one of the most controversial for what critics see as its gratuitous violence.

 

For the past few weeks, the video game industry has been buzzing over a software modification for the game that allows players to have their characters engage in sex acts at the house of a "girlfriend."

 

The game modification, dubbed "hot coffee," can be downloaded from the Internet.

 

Critics have called for a change in the game's rating, from "M" (Mature 17+) to "AO" (Adult Only). Such a move could crimp sales at large retail outlets.

 

Just last week, U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Lieberman stepped into the controversy.

 

Lieberman demanded that the company allow for an independent analysis of its code, while Clinton has promised to introduce legislation that would curb the sale of violent video games to minors.

 

The Entertainment Software Rating Board -- the group responsible for video games ratings -- has also launched a probe into the "hot coffee" modification.

 

"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" got its "M" rating for blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, strong sexual content and drug use.

 

Take-Two's (Nasdaq:TTWO - news) Rockstar Games has said "hot coffee" is an unauthorized modification created by individuals in the gaming community. It is cooperating with the ESRB investigation.

 

Patrick Wildenborg, a Netherlands-based programer identified as the lead author of the hack, said on his Web site that content in the modification -- including the animation and dialogue -- was available on the original game disk.

 

He noted, however, that the material is completely inaccessible in an unmodified version of the game.

 

It "is most probably just leftover material from a gameplay idea that didn't make the final release. I would really like to stress that this material is only accessible after willfully applying the 'hot coffee' mod (or something similar) to the game," he said on his site.

 

Wildenborg could not be immediately reached for comment

 

This is really getting out of hand now

'GTA' Game Rating Changed to Adults-Only

 

SAN FRANCISCO - The video game industry on Wednesday changed to adults-only the rating of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," a best-selling title in which explicit sexual content can be unlocked with an Internet download.

 

The decision followed intense pressure from politicians and media watch groups.

 

The game's producer, Rockstar Games, said it stopped making the current version of the game and is now working on a new version. It said it would provide new labels to any retailer willing to continue selling the version currently on store shelves, which had been rated "M" for mature.

 

Rockstar's parent company, Take Two Interactive, also admitted for the first time that the sex scenes had been built into the retail version of that game — not just the PC version but also those written for Xbox and PlayStation2 consoles.

 

Company officials had previously suggested that a modification created by outsiders added the scenes.

 

"There is sex content in the disc," said Take-Two spokesman Jim Ankner. "The editing and finalization of any game is a complicated task and it's not uncommon for unused and unfinished content to remain on the disc."

 

The sex scenes had prompted outrage from parent's groups and politicians, who are demanding federal oversight of video game ratings.

 

In a statement, the president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board said the sex scenes were programmed by Rockstar "to be inaccessible to the player."

 

But ESRB chief Patricia Vance also acknowledged that the "credibility and utility" of the industry-run board's initial "M" rating had been "seriously undermined."

the morons have won it seems it really sucks that content that isin't even accessable has caused a rating change for what really is no reason at all.

I have a f**ckin question.

 

Why is everyone so damned pissed off, not because you can run around and kill random people, which, don't get me wrong, it got some attention because of that, but when they have, Sex Scene *Da Da Dum* it has, absolutly HAS to be rated AO.

 

This is BS, why is it that a child could watch a movie where this dude gets cut in half, head cut off, then pieces of his body fly everywhere cuz he explodes, and know one really cares all that much. BUT, if a child sees someone just fondle a breast, Oh, My, God. It's the end of the world as we know it.

I think Maddox said it best, as always...

 

 

From http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ticket_to_hell

 

I just wanted a video game, not eternal damnation in hell.

 

So I was sitting around the other day, playing "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," when suddenly I received an email with an attachment called "hot coffee mod." So I did what I always do when I get programs from strangers in my email: I ran it.

 

Then I went back to playing the game and didn't notice anything different, except for when I took my in-game girlfriend back home, she now asks "how about a little coffee?" Naturally I got excited, because I was expecting to see a scene with the protagonist, Carl, and his girlfriend, Denise, sipping a tall cup of joe and discussing the finer points of globalization and how cultural distinction will shape future generations. Instead, I was shocked to learn that Denise wasn't talking about a delicious beverage made from roasted beans, but what she was really talking about was SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.

 

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I thought there was some mistake, this couldn't be the family-friendly carjacking game I thought I knew. Maybe Denise changed into an outfit that just happened to look like the bust of a naked woman. I watched the scene over and over again, carefully analyzing every pixel, but the conclusion was inescapable: Denise was in fact nude. Or at least had a skin colored texture applied to the surface area primitive of her character's model. To prove it, I took a screen capture of the right nipple texture, and enlarged it to show that the game does in fact contain nudity:

 

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/images/gta_nipple.gif

You are gazing into the pixels of moral decay.

 

The creator of the game, Rockstar Games, has stated that it will offer a downloadable patch to fix the sex issue in the PC versions, and is working on a new version of the game that will prevent this content from being unlocked in the future.

 

Thank God. I'll be the first person to download and patch my PC version of "Grand Theft Auto." I want to shoot people in the face, bang prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers without this filthy smut in my game. Frankly, I'm appalled that Rockstar would allow such wholesale corruption of our youth. Years from now when America has become a withered husk of the morality it once stood for, historians will look back at what triggered it all and point to one event: a boolean variable that unlocked a simulated sex scene in a video game.

 

The game is now being taken off the shelves all over the country and re-labeled with an "AO" rating. This is much stricter than the "M" rating the game originally received. According to the ESRB website:

 

 

Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons of age 17 and older.

As opposed to the stricter AO rating:

 

 

Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older.

 

 

What pisses me off more than anything is that I paid for a game rated for 17 year olds, or possibly 17 and 1/2 year olds, tops. What I got was a game rated for 18 year olds instead. I must warn you that if you're easily offended, please shield your eyes from what I'm about to unveil to you:

 

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/images/gta_ecstasy.gif

A woman clearly in a heightened state of arousal.

 

I think it's only fitting for Rockstar Games to go out of business, and all the programmers lose their jobs over this. God bless Hillary Clinton for allocating tax money to have federal regulators investigate "the source of this content," because if she hadn't, consumers might have to go through the trouble of reading the label on the cover of the box.

 

 

316,188 children have been irreparably corrupted by the wanton sexuality Rockstar has forced into our homes with the aid of custom software modifications and a handful of access codes that could potentially be used with the purchase of a third party accessory.

It appears that the publisher has blatantly circumvented the rules in order to peddle sexually explicit material to our youth

Fred Upton, Republican Congressman

 

Up yours, Upton. That's not true at all. In order to gain access to these scenes you need to reverse engineer the software and decompile it. Which is prohibited. They're not trying to give sexually explicit material to kids. And that's another thing, the game is rated M. If people can't read the label that's their own damn fault!

Why is everyone so damned pissed off' date=' not because you can run around and kill random people, which, don't get me wrong, it got some attention because of that, but when they have, Sex Scene *Da Da Dum* it has, absolutly HAS to be rated AO.[/quote']

Being as you're in the States, I'd expect you to know the answer to this one :)

 

The real issue with the whole sex/violence thing boils down to the bible

 

If you read the bible, there's TONS of violence, cities being destroyed, peoples being wiped out, etc. but there's no sex or nudity

 

Therefore violence = good, sex = bad

I have a f**ckin question.

 

Why is everyone so damned pissed off, not because you can run around and kill random people, which, don't get me wrong, it got some attention because of that, but when they have, Sex Scene *Da Da Dum* it has, absolutly HAS to be rated AO.

 

This is BS, why is it that a child could watch a movie where this dude gets cut in half, head cut off, then pieces of his body fly everywhere cuz he explodes, and know one really cares all that much. BUT, if a child sees someone just fondle a breast, Oh, My, God. It's the end of the world as we know it.

 

 

 

You've made a good point there it amazes me how theirs more outrage if their is sexual content in something as opposed to someone having their head blown off (OMG I just said HEAD and BLOWN OFF lol)

What about Jesus getting with Mary Magdeline (SP?) :D

Jesus never did that. That's just some idiot making up crap to get famous. It's called a "Fiction" book for a reason.

 

And if parents don't want their children to see violence/sex, why don't they just refrain from buying games with such actions in them. No one is holding a gun to their head and making them buy the games.

Jesus never did that. That's just some idiot making up crap to get famous. It's called a "Fiction" book for a reason.

 

I think there may have been some actual evidence for the holy grail actually being a blood line from Jesus and Mary Magdeline but thats another thread I'll need to look stuff up for first I think

 

And if parents don't want their children to see violence/sex' date=' why don't they just refrain from buying games with such actions in them. No one is holding a gun to their head and making them buy the games. [/quote']

Thats exactly my position too but this case is rather rediculous as the content was not meant to be available and someone had to make a modifier for the game to open it up when its not meant to be.

Australia Outlaws 'Grand Theft Auto'

 

SYDNEY, Australia - Australian officials effectively banned the computer game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" and ordered it removed from stores Friday because it contains hidden sex scenes that can be viewed with a special Internet downloadThe Office of Film and Literature Classification said in a statement it had outlawed sales of the game by stripping it of its official classification after learning of the explicit content.

 

"Revocation of a classification means the computer game cannot be legally sold, hired, advertised or exhibited in Australia from the date the decision is made," the statement said.

 

"Businesses that sell or hire computer games should remove existing stocks of this game from their shelves immediately," said Des Clark, director of the government-funded classification board.

 

The game involves a main character seeking bloody vengeance on gang-filled streets, firing automatic weapons and picking up women along the way.

 

After downloading and installing a modification to the game — one of many "mods" available on Web sites maintained by video game enthusiasts — a new world opens up in which the girlfriends appear nude and engage in explicit sex acts, according to the modification's author.

 

The classification board in October 2004 gave the game a MA15+ rating, meaning it could be sold only to people aged over age 15, and warned that it contained "medium level animated violence, medium level coarse language."

 

On Friday, Clark advised parents to be on the alert for their children accessing the explicit scenes.

 

"Parents are strongly advised to exercise caution in allowing children continued access to the game," he said — particularly if they have access to the Internet modification.

 

Once again this is sheer Idiocy especially if it also applies to the PS2/Xbox games.

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