'GTA: San Andreas' gets 'Adults-Only' rating. - Page 2

PEOPLE, PEOPLE, we can't have parents actually taking responsibility for what their kids do. That would be ludicrous.

I've been a huge fan of the GTA franchise since the original came out in 97-98. I've been following this story for a couple of weeks, and it's been a long, strange trip.

Obviously, Rockstar went too far by creating the content in the first place. They seemed to think this might be a bit too much, thus the removal from the final content of the game, but they were stupid not to remove it entirely from the disks. GTA has always been heavily modded, especially the PC releases. It was only a matter of time until someone found it.

This was discovered on the PS2 version by modders about two months after the games release, and three months before the game went gold on xbox/PC. Modding isn't really possible on PS2 games, but the modders start poking around the disks to get an early start on their PC mods. Message boards have "Hot coffee" discussions dating back to January, so it's not unlikely Rockstar knew their secret had been found. They still had a chance to pull the code from the PC/xbox version. But they didn't, and hot coffee was exposed two days after the PC version hit the shelves.

The other stupidity school was taught by the politicians, who obviously don't have their fingers on the pulse of the electronic entertainment industry. It's already been pointed out that there are several examples of games with simlar content, but GTA is the big fish and the chance people had been waiting for.

I think the most unfortunate result is the removal of the game from store shelves. Like the death sentence that is an NC-17 rating, this could irreperably hurt Rockstar, and end this franchise for good. It's also evidence that the ratings system is flawed. Just like films, if retailers won't sell AO games, then publishers will fight and bride to get an "M" rating, when their titls cleary deserves an AO. If retailers would allow the content on their shelves, the system might prove to be more solid.

BTW, San Andreas has shot to the top of the Amazon.com top sellers list (available through third parties linked there), and will continue to be sold there, at its regular price. Anyone who spends $75 to get one on ebay is a total sucker.

Note: The development team that originated GTA is the same studio responsible for The Lemmings and Uniracers, among others. I have no idea how many (if any) of them are still there, but many were still there back when GTA was a 2D game w/ zero hype behind it.

Nintendo makes cutesy games, Rockstar makes adult fare. Everyone tries to carve out their own niche. San Andreas will likely still be the best-selling game of the year. Their biggest hurdle lately has been finding a way to get new GTA product on the shelf fast enough - they had to postpone essentially every other product in-development in order to get San Andreas done on time, and I'd expect a similar sequence of events to predate the Next-Gen GTA title. Some people might want Rockstar to "do something different", but the buying masses have clearly said they want bigger and better GTA games (myself included).

awesome!

Sorry, didn't realize it'd been posted before.

Hi, welcome to 14 whole posts ago:

I have given a name to my pain. And it is Jack Thompson.

In a search for more info on this waste of genetic material, I came across an article on CBSnews.com that was home to this gem:

Not really up on the whole concept of supply and demand, are we, Jack?

P.S.--Because it's a REALLY slow night.....

Playstation 2
Total Number of M Rated Games Released in 2004: 47
Total Number of E Rated Games Released in 2004: 92

GameCube
Total Number of M Rated Games in 04: 6
Total Number of E Rated Games in 04: 50

XBox
Total Number of M Rated: 40
Total Number of E Rated: 69


Back to my older post, and another fact discovered in my travels: Forget highest profile title with an AO......Congrats Rockstar. You've officially created the ONLY CONSOLE GAME with an AO rating.

All night long, like Lionel Richie.

And it won't have the AO rating for long...

The important thing to realize is that this is not about any specific game, or even games in general. Politicians know ass about video games. It's not about kids - they're just a useful political tool. If the politicans cared about the children, they'd spend a few minutes each year on our woeful education and health care systems.

This is about censorship. It's about ignorant people who derive satisfaction from trying to force others to live and think like they do. It's about people who are largely powerless and impotent to affect positive substantive change in the world, so cling to easier targets that give them plenty of press and the appearance of doing something. It's about opportunistic fanatics shamelessly exploting people's fears to advance their personal moral agenda.

Or maybe polygonal boobies really are the end of civilization. The world could end not through a bang, but from banging a rectangle.

Clear game ratings? Have you actually read the distinction between Mature and Adults Only ratings?

So AO differentiated from M by having longer scenes of violence and sex? What the fuck does that mean? San Andreas can amount to upwards of 100 hours of gameplay easily. Shouldn't it have had that rating from the outset? Oh, right, but then the ESRB would be minimizing the sales potential of one of the hottest properties out there.

Seems to me that the ESRB still does today what it was originally set up to do years ago: keep politicians and parents off the game industry's back. I respect you guys defending gaming and the industry in general, but you really need to find a better example than this from which to do it.

Furthermore, how is this a ploy to demonize the game industry, when Rockstar is responsible for it? They put in the content, they coded it. But politicians are trying to demonize them?

Maddox said it best when he said: I just wanted a video game, not eternal damnation in hell

I fail to see the big deal to be honest...over here in the UK all of the GTAs have an 18 certificate...not a mature certificate...but a full blown 18 (equivalent to your NC-17 i believe) which should in theory make it illegal to sell to kids. Still doesn't stop the game littering the shelves of every game store going

San Andreas is featured in the Target ad this week, on sale! I guess Target doesn't keep a really short lead time on their ad like some other companies do.

Uproar grows

This whole situation has gone beyond funny and predictable, US politicans are so fucking stupid. Like Maddox amusingly comments in the link I posted above, they have no problem selling a game that involves murder, car jackings, prostitutes and all other kinds of criminal activity, but as soon as sex pops up they lose their minds even more. The original rating was 17 and over for this game right? Arent people over 17 allowed to have sex in America anyway? Hell, dont kids see sex all the time in the media anyway!?

Game developer goes into cage. Cage goes in the water. Politicians in the water. Our politicians.

Meanwhile, on the still funny side of this whole situation:

Amazon Top Sellers List

The funny part isn't that all 3 versions of San Andreas are at the top of the list. The funny part is that they're all being outsold by a Nancy Drew game on PC.

Nancy Drew fucks everybody in that game.

The funny thing is, like 3 days before this all happened, I almost picked up the game at Gamestop, along with getting NCAA 2006. But I didn't. Now I wish I did, for the pure fact that I would've sold it on eBay after this happened.

How is it not clear?
E=G
E10+=PG
T=PG-13
M=R
AO=NC-17

It's just as clear as movie ratings. And you know what? I bet the ESRB set it up that way on purpose. The only problem is that parents either don't know that video games are made for adults, or the give flying fuck-all about it. I bet many parents bought this game for their 8-yr olds and didn't realize that it was the equivalent of a rated "R" movie.

Yes, yes and yes. But still this country is ass-backwards. I live in Virginia, and most of the "acts" going on in the GTA clip I saw are illegal in this state. Stupid? Yes indeedy. I've never heard of anyone getting arrested for getting a blowjob, but hey. It's also illegal to kill to cops with a flamethrower or beat an old lady to death with a dildo, but hey, those things are acceptable in a video game in this country. Don't me wrong though, I love beating old ladies to death with dildos, and thus, GTA is one of my favorite games.
From that link you posted...
I don't want to resort to petty name-calling, but this man is an anus.

Did you even bother to read the entire post? According to what they define as M and AO, a game that has longer scenes of explicit sex and violence rises above the M category, and ends up as Adults Only. Which is why I say that it isn't clear; how do you quantify longer, exactly? GTA is a game that can easily run upwards of 100 hours and features prostitutes, stealing, murder at random, and general mayhem. According to the way the ratings are set up, I don't see how it wasn't rated AO to begin with, if for no other reason than to avoid having the game hurt by retailers not carrying it due to the AO tag. To say that the ESRB and the industry aren't guilty of kinda really looking the other way over this issue is silly. I'll be the first to admit there are some laughably asinine parents out there, but it's pretty obvious that the industry isn't paticularly interested in rating games in any way that would really mean anything.

Yeah I read the whole post. What's the difference between an R rating and an NC-17 rating? Other than the fact tha hardly any movies are rated NC-17, because theatres won't show them. Showgirls was rated NC-17, and it doesn't really contain anything that I haven't seen in a R rated movie. Yeah, all the GTA games are rated M instead of AO so that it would sell in places like Walmart and Target.

I'm not saying that the games industry is blame free. I agree that it's a bullshit way to rate games. I agree that I think Rockstar does it just for the publicity. But the fact is that some people are complaining that Rockstar is selling this to children, when they're obviously not (sorry, they are selling to children over 17, but so are R rated movies). My point is that if parents would read the ratings, or learn anything about the games, they would understand that this never was a game for children, whether it's rated M or AO. I know some parents do find out about this stuff, and keep their children from playing it until they're old enough. But if children are playing these games as much as some politicians say, there must be some lazy parenting going on in this country. My point is that children usually have access to these games, and it's usually the parents that provide it.

Fair enough. I can agree with you on those counts. But I'll just say that the argument that "the movie industry does it too!" doesn't really fly with me. It's true of course, but it shouldn't set a precedent the game industry follows. Whether they like it or not, gaming is associated with children to the public at large. [Which is something I actually agree with, but that's a post for another thread.]

And so it begins... My favorite part of the article (which can be read in full HERE)is the grandmother admitting that she bought the game when it was rated M. Now I know most of us realize how stupid this fuss is, but I love how the grandmother had no issues with killing hookers or bashing someone's skull in with a bat... but video game sex.. NO WAY!

I really wish I could smack that greedy old hag.

I don't understand how anyone, this old bitch, Congress, whoever, can accuse Rockstar of deceptive business practices and false advertising when Rockstar NEVER INTENDED for this scrap of programming to be seen in the first place. I'd much rather see those stupid cheating, hacking Game Genie gimmicks thrown out the window than the GTA series.

Two other things I found interesting from that article.

The woman is doing this on "behalf of consumers nationwide". Pretty ballsy to say that every consumer who bought this game is upset over this.

Second I didn't realize that pretty much every big box retail store had pulled it. Are the game specific stores still selling it?

Florence Cohen, 85, of New York is a dumb, neglectful and ignorant BITCH. If anything, her 14 year old grandson could sue her for exposing him to adult material in the first place (I have no idea why she isnt being sued, she even admitted she bought a mature game aimed at 17 and overs for a 14 year old). Its like her walking into a video store and buying him a XXX DVD (uh porn, not the shit Vin Diesel film), exactly the same situation and we're supposed to take her seriously?

Just all comes down to that age old argument: The masses still perceive 'computer games' as a child-only passtime.

And adults dont know how to read the back of games for the blurb.

I bet she'd complain if she had to share the settlement money with "consumers nationwide".

An open letter to Senator Clinton about her awesome proposal to waste $90 million in taxpayer money

Not really anything we haven't seen before but it's still fun to read.

hopefully the guy's from New York, or has a NY address. I wrote that bitch some words and they sent me back a letter that my thoughts don't matter cuz I'm so totally one of those californian queer hippies...

democracy works! speak your voice, and then we'll forward you to someone who probably, but won't, give you the time of day.

Agreed. I am amazed they wasted money developing a feature that anybody in marketing could have told them would create problems with the ratings board. And they are even more stupid for not removing it entirely once they decided to kill the feature.

Dem or GOP, Left or Right, politicians will grandstand at every opportunity. Look for "liberal" politicians to make fools of themselves proving that "we are pro family also!".

With the GTA:SA sales,I would not be worried about the franchise. And you know damn well people will buy it just to check out the sex feature....

Submitted for your approval.

But otherwise, I'm with him all the way.

Clinton and the other moronic legislators can enjoy their limited sphere of influence over digital entertainment now, because every year their opinions on the matter become more and more meaningless. Todays internet and gaming junkies are tomorrows regular voting populace, and anything they can enact now will be overturned or ignored once the 14-30 year olds in this country become politically salient.

I think perhaps this almost obsessive revulsion towards video games is tied in with what that letter mentioned a few posts ago - they just don't understand the technology. They're afraid of it, so they want to destroy it.

Well, we can take solace because in 20 years they'll all be dead and we'll be the ones making the laws. Ha ha.

$90 million for a study that's already been done numerous times. It all boils down to "Look! I can be *moral* too! Give me votes!" That said, I'm not sure how far it will go. The whole FTC investigation seems somewhat overblown and unnecessary, and everything has pretty much been revealed up to this point.

Actually I would like some answers about why the code was put there, why it wasn't submitted to the ESRB, and why has Rockstar lied about where the code came from.

Think is I would rather have the ESRB investigate than the politicans, but I do blame Rockstar for this on the most part. They made it easier to attack almost all video games thanks to a stupid mini game that "was never meant to be played". I hope Rockstar plays the price for this, they given the whole industry a black eye because of stupidity.

I like how the Blockbuster Video I work at consistantly carries the 'Unrated' versions of movies and a slew of softcore cable porn both straight and homosexual, but they're too much of a "Family Store" for GTA:SA.

Hypocrites.

Watching G4tv.com at the moment. Usually, this show is annoying. But they had a California Assemblyman (Leeland Yee) call in, and they asked him straight up all the common sense shit we've been discussing recently. And on every count, the fucker made a walking, puckered anus of himself.

They asked him what makes CG sex in GTA so bad as opposed to, say, puppet sex in Team America. The answer: GTA is interactive.

They asked him if he'd ever actually played GTA. The answer: No, but he'd seen screenshots. Which is expected. They then suggested that maybe he should at least try to experience the game before passing judgement. His words: "Well, I'll never have the experience of being a black man, but....."

When discussing how responsible parents should be for this game getting into the hands of children, he made the point that "There's only so much parents can do, and that's when society has to step in and do something."

I think that all speaks for itself. As does my new user title.

I'm still trying to understand why chasing someone down & carving 'em up with a chainsaw (ok, that was GTA II, but still) is perfectly acceptable entertainment, but dry humping is totally out of the question.

I keep asking my probation officer that exact same question, Frank.

Because sex is evil, Frank. FYI, you can still use the chainsaw. The big addition to San Andreas is a big, purple double dong.

Also, am I the only one who NEVER tries to kill a cop unless it's part of a mission? Even if I have to break into a squad room or something, I'll do whatever I can to not kill Johnny Law. I'd much rather kill pushers and hos, at least I can get some cash out of them.

I kill anyone and everyone, usually beating them to a pulp long after they're dead.

I take a specific delight in targeting every granny I see.

They're the most dangerous people in the game. You've got to head-shot them right away. Plus, it's fun to see how high you can get your star rating and get away with it.

Thinkgeek.com strikes again:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/gaming/7925/

Try to arrest me while I'm on a mission, I'll show mercy. Shoot at me while me and my girlfriend are on a date, and I'll drive away as fast as I can. Cut me off in traffic, however, and you will fuckin' die.

That shirt is now mine.

As always, the internet comics deal with it in their own ways..

You could do that in Vice City, a game which also featured a porn studio. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't it have a huge boobie spotlight?

Also, Penny-Arcade's take on it.

GTA effectively banned in Australia

*bangs head against wall*

The more I think about this, I think it is a grand scheme by Ebay to drive up the prices of MA rated version of the game. Bastards... all of them.