Manhattan resident Florence Cohen fought against the motley crew of virtual muggers and car thieves trying to grab the attention of her 14-year-old grandson. The octogenarian is suing the game’s makers, Rockstar Games, after realizing there is sexual content hidden in the game that can be unlocked on the internet.
Although the sexually explicit content can only be accessed by downloading a special software modification called "Hot Coffee’’ from the internet, the fifth incarnation of the game franchise was last week removed from store shelves in the US and Australia.
Cohen says she bought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which is produced in Leigh, near Edinburgh, for her grandson "without knowing it contained hidden, sexually explicit scenes." But she quickly realized that the game was unsuitable and immediately took it away from the teenager. Cohen’s action is believed to be the first of several legal actions of this type taken against the firm.
The modification, listed on the fan site GTAGarage.com as being capable of creating "uncensored interactive sex scenes with your girlfriends in San Andreas,’’ allows players to take the game’s protagonist to the house of a female character and engage in various sexually explicit acts. "Hot Coffee’’ quickly caught on, registering hundreds of thousands of downloads in the first month.
What began as a storm in a coffee cup has quickly brewed into something more serious. Hillary Clinton has steamed in to the debate, firing off a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission stating: "We should all be deeply disturbed that a game, which now permits the simulation of lewd sexual acts in an interactive format with highly realistic graphics, has fallen into the hands of young people across the country.’’
The inconsistent morality of many of Grand Theft Auto’s critics has not been lost on the gaming community. As American games journalist Rob Fahey said, Cohen "bought a 17+ recommended game for her teenage grandson, featuring car theft, shootings, muggings, cop-killing, prostitution and plenty more, but now wants compensation because it also turned out to feature badly animated dry humping, which could be unlocked only by deliberately downloading a patch off the internet.’’
A MATTER OF FREE SPEECH
As the debate goes on over Hot Coffee, a rogue download for the best-selling video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that gives players access to explicit sexual content, politicians and pundits are asking lots of questions about the content and availability of certain video games. But are they asking the right ones?
In many ways, Hot Coffee sounds like a classic Rockstar stunt.
This, remember, is a developer that courts controversy at every turn - or is unlucky enough to stumble over it. From the first, Grand Theft Auto - pilloried for glorifying carjacking - to the death of a Leicester teenager last year who was allegedly addicted to the game Manhunt, Rockstar remains the closest thing gaming has to a gangsta rap crew: Each new release seems to benefit from the notoriety of the last.
This time, however, striking the pose has resulted in a sharp drop in share value and the temporary halt in production of its biggest-selling game. If this was just another PR stunt, it has misfired.
The controversy has focused on how much Rockstar knew about what was hidden in its own game. The initial defence — that GTA: San Andreas had been reverse engineered to introduce new sexual content — proved unsustainable once the PlayStation version was also found to contain such material. Others maintained it was an in-joke that was never meant to see the light of day.
There is a difference between an "Easter egg’’ that makes a volcano pop up on your computer screen, and one that shows the hot magma between two consenting sprites. Nevertheless, such hidden extras have rarely caused this degree of outrage.
But why debate Rockstar’s involvement at all? No one was forced to see these scenes, and in tracking down the Hot Coffee patch, users could just as easily have Googled their way to a real pornographic site.
Critics say that it’s not the legitimate adult buyers of GTA they’re worried about, but the younger players getting their first fix of hardcore porn via a videogame. While this is true, it’s also hugely hypocritical. If it’s acceptable for a teenager to see random acts of violence, or hear profanities in Grand Theft Auto, why does it suddenly become "adult’’ the moment people take their clothes off? Even worse, the outcry comes from the generation that chanted "Make love, not war."
If you had to choose between the vices we expose our kids to in videogames and movies, there’s a strong argument for choosing sex and swearing over crime and violence. If society is concerned about kids imitating what they see, the consequences of the first two must pale into insignificance before the latter.
How is the world a safer place for backing the arms trade but banning the violent videogame? And what do kids learn from Hillary Clinton’s knee-jerk condemnations? The Hot Coffee debate goes far deeper than whether it was a hack or a publicity stunt — it’s about free speech and the way the web continues to test our belief in it.
