Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Games & Gameplay >

GTA San Andreas secret sex scenes rumpus

Hattie's Kitchen

09:31 / 26.07.05

Never mind the senseless acts of violence, gang warfare and fucking shit up in general, it's people having sex that will corrupt our youth!"

Like anyone is going to be shocked at sex scenes in GTA San Andreas...anyway, it seems that there are secret sex scenes in GTA San Andreas that can be unlocked using a fan's specially created software, and now US politicians are calling for the heads of the game publishers in a "Ban This Filth" stylee.

Haven't seen the scenes in question and I can't say I particulary want to, so I have no idea of what nature they take. But I can't help thinking this is all linked to the right-wing crackdown on porn in general in the US, and makes a mockery of the ratings system - if the game has an adult rating, then what justification is there in allowing scenes of violence to pass muster, but not sex scenes?

Thoughts?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:01 / 26.07.05

Cracking down on violence would mean questioning basic US tennets, such as the right to shoot people and the death penalty. Good, wholesome American values. Banning sex means questioning equal-rights for people based on who and how you're boffing and abortion, what the Right would like to be equally wholesome American values.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:57 / 26.07.05

Someone on TMO was talking about this, and said that a lot of the brouhaha about this stems from the fact that the game was given a lower rating due to its NOT having sex scenes in it, and that it's Rockstar's apparent "cheating the system" that kicked it all off- a higher rating would have seen the game on sale practically NOWHERE in the US, so it was something they were keen to avoid. (Note- the guy didn't really provide sources to back this up, so I can't quote them- just thought I'd mention the idea here).

That said, it is rather ludicrous that violence goes unchallenged while sex is... well, a bit wrong, by all accounts. (I guess this applies to the ratings sytem as well, but that's a topic for a different thread).

Apparently this shitstorm has really hit Rockstar's shares- they've lost about 11% or something. (Although bearing in mind that these are the people who brought us Manhunt- which I loved, incidentally, despite some repetitive gameplay towards the end, but which I wouldn't give to children- they'll no doubt bounce back again).

To be honest, I can't see anything damaging GTA sales too substantially at the moment. For starters, I'm guessing its sales curve has probably peaked, the last two formats having been out for a couple of months now, and for another thing I'm guessing they could parcel up some actual, genuine faeces in a box and call it "GTA" and everyone (sadly, probably including me) would buy it.

All Acting Regiment

11:35 / 26.07.05

They sold it as if there wasn't sex but there was sex. I don't agree with lying to people about what you're selling them, even if it was very unlikely that anyone would actually see the sex.

But of course, the reaction is totally over the top.

12:07 / 26.07.05

Someone on TMO was talking about this, and said that a lot of the brouhaha about this stems from the fact that the game was given a lower rating due to its NOT having sex scenes in it, and that it's Rockstar's apparent "cheating the system" that kicked it all off- a higher rating would have seen the game on sale practically NOWHERE in the US, so it was something they were keen to avoid. (Note- the guy didn't really provide sources to back this up, so I can't quote them- just thought I'd mention the idea here).

It's sort of true, in that the scenes were left in the game's code for other people to unlock. You just don't do that sort of thing - include the code for controversial and potentially sales-affecting material in a game - unless you're wanting for the fan community to discover and unlock it for everybody else. Code for unfinished sections, fair enough - Fable's riddled with it - but something as questionable as this? No.

And it's Rockstar. For the first game, iirc, they (or possibly Take-Two, who I think have published the series since day one) hired Max Clifford to create a fuss in the tabloids in order to boost sales. Given their usual PR tactics, how likely is it that they wanted to create this sort of fuss?

I've got little to no sympathy for them, especially given comments like those in this piece, where the president of Take-Two tries to lay the blame for this on the community, on the modders who discovered and opened these scenes up. Lots of talk about how "unauthorised modifications" that are out of thier hands are leading to the game being "misrepresented." Talk about trying to dig yourself out of a hole - dude, it was your developers who created this stuff and failed to remove it from teh final product. It was your testers who failed to do their job properly and discover its existence.

Got to love the bit at the end of the piece that mentions possible legal action. My arse. All that's happened, as far as I'm aware, is somebody's managed to discover a way of getting to content that was on the disc they bought - content that Take-Two provided them with.

I'd love to see Rockstar and Take-Two take a proper battering for this, I really would.

12:54 / 26.07.05

Personally it all seems a bit odd. Kids shouldn't really be playing GTA. Even with my anti-censorship views I wouldn't really consider it suitable for anyone under 15. Even if there's some "naughty" sex scenes, it doesn't seem any worse than copping off with a prostitute, hanging around a strip bar, or for that matter running amok through the streets with automatic weapons. However even if the reaction is bizarre & completely over the top, Rockstar are entirely to blame.
What I think interesting is how this "scandal" sheds light on the fact that the general public still think gaming is for kids, and that how whenever a game comes in with "adult" (and I use the term loosely) themes the press fails to see that this is no different from releasing a DVD that you shouldn't really give to kids. Stop messing around with voluntary schemes and just give games the same legal classifications as films. Then when parents complain you can point out that it is their responsibility to stop their kids having access to adult games, just as with videos.

rising and revolving

13:44 / 26.07.05

Talk about trying to dig yourself out of a hole - dude, it was your developers who created this stuff and failed to remove it from teh final product. It was your testers who failed to do their job properly and discover its existence.

Yes (and with the caveat that Rockstar represented themselves very badly in this whole affair) but it's not possible for testers to find this content. It's not "unlockable" in the traditional sense, it requires an external program to run and modify the executable. Simply using the CD you bought it is impossible to access the material.

You need someone elses program to make it accessible - this is definately not the same as "Hold L1 and R1 while pressing X, X, Start, Select"

All that's happened, as far as I'm aware, is somebody's managed to discover a way of getting to content that was on the disc they bought - content that Take-Two provided them with.

Yes, but again - that's illegal in the USA. That's what the whole fuss about the DCMA was all about - just because it's on the disc you paid for does not (explicitly DOES NOT) give you the right to hack that information in any way you choose.

The whole issue isn't as clear-cut as people would like it to be - unfortunately, Rockstar has fucked up completely in terms of explaining that.

14:05 / 26.07.05

Aren't there testers who read through the dry code, though, not just the QA/gameplay testers? Somebody to check and make sure that this doesn't sneak through? This sort of thing has happened on (rare) occasions previously, so I would have thought any publisher with half a brain would want to ensure that they knew exactly what they were releasing.

Yes, but again - that's illegal in the USA. That's what the whole fuss about the DCMA was all about - just because it's on the disc you paid for does not (explicitly DOES NOT) give you the right to hack that information in any way you choose.

I don't know anything like as much about this as I should, I'll admit. Is this really a major hack, though - I'd always presumed that you weren't allowed to alter content (as with the whole Dead or Alive XBV nude patch nonsense) but simply accessing content already provided was fair game.

15:42 / 26.07.05

Aren't there testers who read through the dry code, though, not just the QA/gameplay testers?

Whilst the area of the software industry in which I work couldn't be more different from computer games, just going on what I know I'd have to say this is very unlikely. Often code will be written and checked, but that would be by another coder and if those two people decided they wanted this in the game, it would go in. If a non-coding tester read the code, they would probably be looking for a bug, and wouldn't be looking at the parts not relevant to the problem they had. I assume it would be hidden quite well, even within that -these things are hard to find, and for most games the priority is going to be catching the huge, obvious bugs, because most won't have hidden content anyway.

Of course, Sylph can correct me if I've got the world of games testing all wrong!

rising and revolving

15:42 / 26.07.05

Aren't there testers who read through the dry code, though, not just the QA/gameplay testers?

Nope. Not anywhere I've been, anyways. And there really isn't "dry code" in the sense that you mean it once the game goes to the publishers (the only people who'd be doing testing to make sure that the developer hasn't done anything they ought not).

I don't know anything like as much about this as I should, I'll admit. Is this really a major hack, though - I'd always presumed that you weren't allowed to alter content (as with the whole Dead or Alive XBV nude patch nonsense) but simply accessing content already provided was fair game.

DCMA is all about bypassing measures that exist to stop you tampering with information in a way not intended - so there's no real concept of a "minor hack".

A lot hinges on this concept of "content already provided" - was it provided? In what sense?

Given that it's not possible to access it without breaking the law of the US, I think it's a stretch to say they "provided" it.

All Acting Regiment

20:13 / 26.07.05

To look the horse in the, er, mouth, what actually were these sex scenes, anyway? Were they made using the in-game engine or were they CGI FMV or just random bits of real life porn? Surely the exact nature of the material must be taken into account?

rising and revolving

21:07 / 26.07.05

They're a mini-game that was going to be in, but got cut (which is why the content is on the disc, albeit unaccessible without additional software) - featuring clothed in-game models humping, basically.

There's also naked versions, which I guarentee are the ones that are going to get shown when people make a fuss about this, but those are NOT on the disc, they're a third party add on. Basically someone made naked skins for the chars after the release of the mini-game.

22:16 / 26.07.05

Just out of interest, how do developers normally sign off finished products for publishers, Sylph? I've always presumed that they provide thorough documentation about disc content, but now I'm guessing that I may have presumed wrong.

rising and revolving

23:43 / 26.07.05

Well, it varies a little from place to place, but there's definately a sign off process - this is usually based on the milestones provided to the publisher at the start of the project, mainly because that's the criteria for getting paid. Beyond that, there's pretty comprehensive playtest sessions done, but they're for feedback (and to fulfil milestone reqs, too) rather than auditing, per se.

The thing is, it feels to me like you're thinking of game development as big business, corporate, organised fare. And while it *is* big business, it's also this fledgling creative industry with only 30 years under it's belt, and most of those spent in a cave only talking to bearded chaps with slide-rules.

Thesedays big business and old game dev are crashing together, kind of like a supertanker running very slowly into a cheesecake. Game dev (as a whole) is only catching on to the new circumstances very slowly - so things are mostly still run ... well, pretty slipshod, ultimately.

There's an argument that this sort of atmosphere is essential for creative work - but I don't know that's really true anymore, if it ever was.

Nonetheless, it's a slow process and many developers are either autonomous (thus avoiding big business formality) or have been until recently (lots of indy houses getting bought these days) and certainly haven't reformed their practices dramatically (generally) for fear of killing the goose that's been laying the million seller.

Of course, most of the last wave of buyouts have been swallowed whole into the corpus of the parent publisher - so the move towards more formal development cycles is coming, for sure. This massive shift from indy developers working with publishers to publishers developing and producing only their own products is going to be the tipping point.

rising and revolving

14:40 / 28.07.05

And now the government is investigating officially. Which means for sure that the whole process is going to be more stringent from now on, facts be damned.

Fuck you, Rockstar, for making everyone elses lives harder.

More importantly, this bodes the coming of a comics code equivalent for games. And we know how integral the CC was to ensuring creativity and boundry pushing in the field of comics.

Fuck.

09:14 / 30.07.05

This is sensationalist bullshit, as per usual, with many people's priorities warped out of all recognition.

To touch more on the original thread summary, as opposed to the question of why the publishers left the code in, it's interesting to note that the moral compasses of idiots have been wobbling over mini-games in which two people enjoy themselves, they don't seem to bat an eyelid at the game allowing you to run amok in the streets, gunning down innocents with automatic weapons.
Actually, I've found situations like this are an almost perfect barometer of idiocy.

With regards to the leaving the code in issue, exactly - and here I admit to being on shaky ground - how culpale is Rockstar? Sure the code is there, but you could apply a little common sense and argue that since whatever code allowed you to view it was not on the original dispatched discs, it is not Rockstar/Take Two who are to blame.

11:19 / 30.07.05

it's interesting to note that the moral compasses of idiots have been wobbling over mini-games in which two people enjoy themselves, they don't seem to bat an eyelid at the game allowing you to run amok in the streets, gunning down innocents with automatic weapons.

Firstly, I don't believe this is true, nor Stoatie's comment about violence going unchallenged. How many times now have the media kicked up a storm about violence in videogames? Plenty - it's something which is happening constantly. To say that they're making more of a fuss about the depiction of sexual activity than they are violence is simply wrong - maybe it's right in this specific instance, but in general, no. And that's all this is - one single, specific instance of people kicking off about sex scenes compared to the unending series of complaints and accusations about violent scenes.

Also, most of the press had probably decided to give complaining about San Andreas' violence a miss, because they've banged on about how bloodthirsty the series is since the very first game.

Secondly, even if it is true, then why is anybody surprised? It's common knowledge that our moral guardians find sex more frightening than they do violence - this is hardly something peculiar to games.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:23 / 30.07.05

Thinking of ratings- how well do they actually work anyway? I have my (English XBox) copy of SA by be as I type, and it's clearly rated 18, though I doubt there's a gaming-inclined kid in the country who doesn't own a copy (and the fuckers are probably all better at it than me!).

I take your point, Randy, but in this case there's a lot more hoopla about the sex than the violence. And yes, it's an isolated case, but I don't think anyone's ever had their financial standing as a company hit by accusations of violence- I'd guess sales probably rocket. When Manhunt was briefly withdrawn from a lot of outlets, then surreptitiously put back on the shelves when the fuss had died down, it seemed to be selling MUCH better than it had before. Whereas in this case, possibly due to the "cheating the ratings system" thing, Rockstar saw an 11% drop in their SHARE PRICE. Which is a whole different level of financial repercussions than sales/profit.

I've got to admit, I like Rockstar (even their crapper games- Red Dead Revolver, etc... have a wonderful degree of style to them. This could be another thread, though). Yes, they behave reprehensibly at times, but it'd be a bit shit to call yourselves "Rockstar" if you didn't.

15:04 / 30.07.05

maybe it's right in this specific instance, but in general, no.

Indeed, although I'd have thought it fairly obvious that I was referring to this one situation, and not to people's opposition to certain types of game as a whole.

Also, most of the press had probably decided to give complaining about San Andreas' violence a miss, because they've banged on about how bloodthirsty the series is since the very first game.

And of course - as Stoatie says - the knowledge that knee-jerk reactions have a tendency to grant a certain mystique to the focus of that reaction, which pretty much always drives popularity - and sales - up, not down.
That said, I'm quite surprised Rockstar shares actually went down as a result of this. I actually expected sales to increase marginally, and the share price to remain pretty static.

Incidentally, can anyone lend credence to the rumours I hear of somebody actually trying to bring a lawsuit against Rockstar over this?

16:49 / 30.07.05

I'd have thought it fairly obvious that I was referring to this one situation, and not to people's opposition to certain types of game as a whole.

Tez, you previously said "I've found situations like this are an almost perfect barometer of idiocy," which sounded like a pretty broad and general sweep.

There's something on the lawsuit here, and more if you Google "Florence Cohen" and "Rockstar".

Part of the problem here, imo, is that the ESRB ratings (and the PEGI ones for Eurpoe) are advisory. Would it be a bad thing if a legally-binding age-rating system was introduced?

17:24 / 30.07.05

Actually, scrub PEGI - I was forgetting that the BBFC provide a seperate rating depending on whether the game in question contains any sexual content at all or how 'gross' they think the violence is. Whatever that means.

14:21 / 07.08.05

I think Mattel should be sued for providing children with Ken and Barbie, who you can "modify" with secret knowledge, enabling primary school children to perform acts of lewd and graphic sexual intercourse in a much more realistic manner than you can with the Hot Coffee mod. They should never have left the genital regions in the toys, how did anyone miss that before it was released?

16:16 / 07.08.05

That's not an accurate comparison at all, really. It's more like the BBFC passing a DVD with a 15 rating, then somebody discovering later on that it contains 18-worthy footage which is only accesible through scouring the data on a PC, then using a seperate program to view. The stuff's there, but for the user to get to it ze has to fiddle with the disc in a way that it wasn't officially intended to be fiddled with.

19:38 / 07.08.05

that it contains 18-worthy footage
Which is kind of my point. The content of the mod is really not that bad. There are much easier ways for kids to find or create similar stuff (the Ken and Barbie comparison is apposite, as you can make them naked with no real extra knowledge - OK, you need to provide your own sound effects, but I recall seeing girls at our school doing it all the time). It was sloppy to leave it in the game (oversight or cocky in-joke among blokey coders), but compared to all the rest of your activities (popping heads, burying people in concrete, killing hookers to get your money back), it's pretty tame. What was that granny doing buying her 14-year-old such a game, anyway?

22:47 / 07.08.05

There's definitely an issue about parents and relatives buying these things for their kids with the idea that they're "just" games - the way that parental responsibility is constantly abandoned when it comes to buying videogames is frustrating. There's also an issue, in the UK at least, with parents buying games for their underage kids when the person selling it to them is aware who it's going to - I think I'm right in saying that it's illegal to sell age-restricted material to anyone if you know or believe that they're buying it for another person who isn't of the legal age. If I'm wrong on that count, somebody let me know.

The thing is, the game was rated based on the material presented to the ratings body. That didn't include these specific scenes. With the DVD analogy, the disc would be pulled from sale and resubmitted to the BBFC. That's what's being made into an issue here - that the game should be (has been? I'm not keeping up) rated again with the mod (and it's debateable whether or not it's actually a mod, in the strictest sense of the word) in mind. In the US, it takes it from an M to an AO rating, and, apparently, some major chains refuse to stock AO-rated material.

It's not really an issue over here, because it already has an 18 rating, which is more or less the highest available (until a game includes footage of yr actual real people penetration).

06:34 / 08.08.05

Ahh, I didn't realise that M was routinely sold to kids (according to Wikipedia "some retailers have a policy of not selling games with this rating to minors"). It does put a different light on it, and explains why our media haven't really given a toss about the issue. OK, it does look as if Rockstar tried to pull a fast one. If that's the way its biggest market works, someone should have known it shouldn't risk it. Even though it is a pretty stupid system: "You mean only adults can buy it? We don't have enough of those to make a living."