Good Night Rockstar Games, Wherever You Are

After weeks of being the main topic of websites and magazines, the People versus Rockstar Games case has come to an end when the ESRB gave the verdict, after analyzing the game's source code, both the PC and the console (Xbox and PS2) versions.

ESRB's conclusion was that the pornographic scenes existed in the source code of all three versions and all that Hot Coffee did was to unlock a mini-game, Rockstar Games, intentionally or not, included in the final version.

Although Rockstar Games has initially accused the hacker for injecting these scenes by changing the game's source code, yesterday, for the first time, the company officials admitted that the mini-game has been present in the game from the very beginning. Negligence? An attempt to trick the ESRB rating system? Cockiness? The desire to sell more copies? All these together? We might never find out the truth, and in the end, the motivation is less important compared to the consequences.

The bottom line is that the game was rated Adults Only and until Take Two won't make the new labels which indicate the new rating granted by the ESRB, distributors, like WalMart, BestBuy or Circuit City have already started to take Grand Theft Auto San Andreas out of their offer.

Take Two has already changed its predictions related to the sales, being a well known fact that distributors are not happy with selling AO rated games and has announced that it's already working on a version which will no longer include the mini-game. With this "clean version", the company hopes to put bag the M rating on the box.

Sex, lies and Rockstar Games

These being said, the story of the Hot Coffee mod should come to an end, but the avalanche has already been triggered and it's difficult to say where will it stop, but one thing is for sure: it will drag everybody involved in the scandal with it.

Those who played the good guys in this dispute: Senators Hillary Clinton and Jack Liberman and lawyer Jack Thompson will have now all the arguments to pass any law related to video game content, who will distribute then, how will they distribute it and who will have access to games.

As I was saying, it doesn't matter what motivation Rockstar Games had to conceal the mini-game (I doubt that they were so naive to think that it will not be eventually found, knowing the large number of GTA modders), but their little joke might divide the games' existence into before and after the Rockstar scandal. It's obvious that the direct hit taken by Rockstar Games by having its game re-rated to AO will be felt by the entire gaming industry.

Rockstar's biggest mistake was not that it included a pornographic mini-game in a game that broke all the rules of morality, but that it lied about it and blamed the modders for the scenes.

Rockstar Games will probably have enough resources to withstand the blow and it's likely that we will see other games signed by this studio; it's their credibility that has been badly tarnished and they will have to try hard to recover from this incident. Not even a Grand Theft Auto San Andreas cleansed of all pornography will help them regain their credibility.

The GTA equation and the ESRB factor

According to some, ESRB has changed the rating of the game under the pressure of the media and of the activists that want non-violent and non-pornographic games. A favorable decision for Rockstar, which meant keeping its original rating, would have rendered triggered a swarm of critics with the ESRB being the main target; even with the current result, ESRB's image has suffered.

If you give it a thought, the ESRB is not to blame for not finding out the code concealed in Grand Theft Auto, but it's obvious that from now on, it will be much more careful with what the producers send. After this incident, the likelihood of having to make changes to the rating system is very high.

ESRB might even suffer more from this than Rockstar Games, because, considering that this constitutes the perfect precedent, the activists for more smut free games will have the opportunity to see dangerous titles all over the place.

All that ESRB can do is to better study the games submitted by producers, and not even then, will they know for sure that they're out of the woods. Anyway, those who fight against violent video games won't leave the opportunity of questioning the system through which games reach the stores' shelves to go by.

Will the law proposed by Hillary Clinton pass? It's hard to say, but after the recent events, it does have some chances. If Rockstar Games succeeded in tricking ESRB's vigilance, why shouldn't others try the same? This scandal is far from being over, and the consequences are still unpredictable.

Is this the end of the Grand Theft Auto franchise?

A lot has happened since the Grand Theft Auto franchise was born. What's its future? I don't think that Rockstar Games and Take Two will not release Grand Theft Auto 4, because after 2-3 years, the amount of time required for the new game's development, few will remember the pornographic scandal Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was involved in.

If all that Rockstar Games wanted was to get as much publicity as possible, then one could say it did a pretty good job. The only problem is that they've got too much of it.

After all, the fans won't give up that easily on their game and there will still be plenty of gamers for GTA 4. Personally, I think that Rockstar Games is not to blame for the violence present in their games, or for prospecting the market by leaving the pornographic scenes in the game. Their biggest mistake is that they lied about it, blaming the hackers for the content.

So, Good night Rockstar, wherever you are!