I was at Game Buzz today, and a kid was asking the clerk what was new and good on PlayStation these days. The gamer in me wanted to jump up and down and excitedly recommend the best game of the year (right boys?),

“God! of! War!
God! of! War!
God! of! War!”

but the responsible adult in me thought about how violent it was, so I kept quiet. As I left, I remembered that my inner struggle had been moot, because this retailer, like many, doesn’t sell M-rated games to minors. The whole thing made me think about the recent Hot Coffee debacle, and I’m honestly interested, dear readers, in hearing what you have to say about it. It goes something like this:

Rockstar Games makes a game called Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA: SA), in which you’re basically a thug who has to work his way up the ranks of gangs in Los Alamos Santos, a clone of Los Angeles. The game is revolutionary in terms of its scope; they have actually modelled L.A., San Francisco (”San Fierro“) and Vegas (”Las Venturas“) in their entirety, and because the game is based on sandbox play (i.e. letting the player explore the environment at will, only taking “missions” to advance in the game when she feels like it), you are free to drive anywhere in those three cities. The production quality is fantastic, complete with a series of radio stations that allows you to choose your favorite tunes while driving.

It’s also known for being quite violent. I don’t really have a problem with that, but gameplay-wise, GTA:SA just isn’t my cup of tea. Like other gamers, I feel the game is too “big” and “realistic”. If I want to take a roadtrip, I’ll just get in my car and drive. To me, a good game allows me to do what I can’t do in real life.

Recently (actually, now that the game is available on PC), a downloadable modification has surfaced on the net, which allows you unlock a sexually explicit minigame (game within the game) in GTA:SA. The whole thing is branded Hot Coffee because with the mod, you’ll have the main character stop by his girlfriend’s place for coffee, and if you’re successful at a rhythm-based minigame, score more than a cup of joe.

The hacker who made the mod accessible claims he discovered unused code when snooping around his copy of GTA:SA. Rockstar claims the code was never in the release version of their game, used or unused, and that “Hackers created the ‘Hot Coffee’ modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game’s source code.”

Assorted right-wing anti-games advocates and Hillary Clinton are up in arms. California Assemblyman Leland Yee criticizes the ESRB (videogames rating board) for not giving GTA:SA an Adults Only (AO) rating. The game is currently rated “Mature (M) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs.” Yee says, “What I say to parents is: If I were you, I wouldn’t [buy] any of these M-rated games for my children”. Well duh, moron! Whether you agree or not that these games should even be made in the first place, the industry voluntarily submits its games to the ESRB, its self-regulatory body, for rating, and works with retailers to ensure M-games are not sold to minors.

My thoughts on this? As a game maker, I hope Rockstar is telling the truth, that the hacker actually created the minigame. It’s not in the industry’s interest for more fuel to be added to the anti-game fire (even if in this case it stems from the asinine “violence ok but sex bad” double-standard). But I think it’s more likely the minigame was originally part of the game’s design, and was essentially “commented out” (or something similar) when Rockstar decided to cut it from the final version.

But if that’s the case, do you think Rockstar should be reprimanded for leaving the offending code in there, and the game should have a higher rating, even if there is no way to access it without hacking? And what of the whole ratings system for games, which is similar to that of movies? Do you think games should be subjected to stricter rules than movies, because of their interactive nature? Does the fact that the player actually partakes in the action make him more likely to emulate the in-game character than he would a movie character?

(sources: Gamespot)

UPDATE: Wow, how’s that for timely? 27 minutes after I posted this, there is an update posted on Gamespot. The news site’s editors have confirmed that the minigame exists on the (unmoddable) PlayStation version as well, probably meaning that the code is indeed probably in the release version of the game as is, though locked. La plotte épaissit… though they go on to say the minigame isn’t all that raunchy.