ESRB slaps dreaded rating on controverial best-seller; Take-Two lowers guidance; Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Target pull game from shelves.
After percolating for weeks, the Hot Coffee controversy has finally boiled over. Today, Take-Two Interactive announced that as the result of an investigation by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will now bear an AO for Adults Only rating for "Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, [and] Use of Drugs." Previously, the game was rated M for Mature.
The re-rating comes nearly a month after the first reports surfaced of the so-called "Hot Coffee" mod for the PC version of San Andreas. After being installed, the widely available mod lets users play a bonus sex minigame as a reward for completing the numerous "girlfriend" missions in San Andreas.
After video of the mod was widely circulated, such figures as ardent anti-game activist Jack Thompson and US Senator Hilary Clinton blasted the game. Clinton went as far as to publicly equate violent games with cigarettes and alcohol as a hazard to America's youth. In turn, political heat caused the ESRB to launch the aforementioned investigation, which looked into whether the mod was included in the original game or was made by a third party.
In response, Rockstar Games, the Take-Two subsidiary that develops and publishes San Andreas, issued a carefully worded but heated statement in reference to the PC mod. "So far we have learned that the 'Hot Coffee' modification is the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the game," it read.
However, Rockstar's statement did little to extinguish the fires of controversy. Soon, reports began to surface that the console versions of San Andreas contained code for the sex minigame. Late last week, GameSpot editors unlocked the code from a PlayStation 2 copy of San Andreas bought in October 2004, using an Action Replay Max device and a series of cheat codes. Since console games are written on unalterable DVDs and cheat codes cannot introduce new content, the fact the minigame was playable at all means it was included in the original PS2 San Andreas, albeit hidden.
The AO for Adults Only rating means that, according to the ESRB's official definition, the current version of the game now "should only be played by persons 18 years and older" and "may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity." This doesn't sound too far off from the ESRB definition for the M for Mature rating, which says games bearing it "have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language."
But while they sound similar on paper, the AO and M ratings have one very big difference in real life. Namely, most major chain stores, including the all-important retail behemoth Wal-Mart, will not carry AO-rated games. By contrast, M-rated games aren't even separated from games bearing the T for Teen, E10+ for Everyone 10 and older, and E for Everyone ratings. (Games rated EC for Early Childhood are usually educational in scope and are found in different sections.)
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