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Some time ago, Rockstar games was sued for their release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. They were sued because there was hidden content that contained a sex game that ESRB (the videogame ratings board) did not know about. They said if the ESRB had known of it, the game would be rated AO for Adults Only, instead of the Mature rating it originally had. Rockstar gave in and took down all their titles, and rereleased it with the code removed. This I’m sure cost them a bit.

The reason I bring this back up is because the city of Los Angeles is now suing them. I don’t know how a city can sue a game that doesn’t even use their real name in the game. But there it is.

I think this whole thing is absurd. First of all, the secret code it normally not accessible in the game. There is no way a normal person can make it enabled and accessed in the game. You have to go into the source code in the game and change it so that it enabled. There is no way a normal PS2 or Xbox owner can do this since they would have to modify their console and burn a modified copy to play it. PC users however can easily do this with a patch. This patch basically hacks the code. I don’t know how this went in court, but I would think breaking into copyrighted source code calls for some legalities. Do people break into film studios to take a look at their deleted scenes and change the rating of the movie?

The other issue is the content. The press keeps saying pornographic material, and it should be rated AO. I’ve seen the screenshots, and while it clearly shows a sex act, it’s nothing explicit like porn. In fact, the characters are fully clothed, and the patch had to remove the textures or add some in to make it look like they’re having sex. If they had based removing the clothes from the characters as nudity, then there are hundreds more games where you can remove their attire if you can hack the code. The material is nothing worse than an R rated movie. Only difference is the interactivity. What is worse however, is the level of violence in the game, which no movie can match. But that never seems to be the issue. Beheadings, stabbings, beatings, shootings, running over people, and such are acceptable, but sex is a big no no.

P.S. Flightplan sucks.