ESRB: San Andreas getting the big "Adults Only" stamp
by Ross Miller 
{ Jul 20th 2005 at 8:18PM }
Well, it's official: the ESRB is changing their rating of
GTA: San Andreas from M (Mature) to AO (Adults Only). In response, Rockstar games has ceased manufacturing the
game and has sent out little "AO" stickers to the retailers who want to keep the game in stock. Rockstar will
start manufacturing the game again once it finds a way to prevent the Hot Coffee mod from being accessed.
According to a spokesperson for Rockstar, the mod was never finished and therefore never considered to be part of the
actual game (must be why CJ wears pants throughout the whole mod). Furthermore, they are no plans to sue the
modders (why would there be in the first place?) who sparked the Hot Coffee controversy, and that Rockstar must now
lower its fiscal project 6 %, from a hefty $170 million to a now paltry $160 million.
For the ESRB, they have decided to change their rules of submission: companies must now submit explicitly every bit of
information that may affect a game's rating, including things not intended for access. It is also stressing that
companies take extra care to protect their games from third party modifications.
Let's take a quick moment to reflect on this whole issue. I know this will not be the last we hear about the
case, as Washington is still pushing for legislation on the matter, but maybe this is a sign that the whole debacle
will start to gently slide into history, and San Andreas articles will now be downgraded to only every other
topic of discussion. Okay, maybe not, but it's a thought.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
lord vader @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
I think that this has gone to far. Have any of these people looked at god of war and seen the sex mini game? I think that these people should be looking at the movie industry indstead.
dazx @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
And Micro$oft will now submit explicitly every bit of information that may affect your PC's operation, including things not intended to happen e.g viruses, trojans, spyware.
Companies should take extra care to protect their OS's from third party modifications.
"Back in my day videogames were common..."
Ran @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
Ridiculous. Virtually every game that has girls has a nude patch/mod floating around. Will they now all be rerated to AO also? I can't wait for the day when the politicians suddenly discover the nude mod available for The Sims and goes after them too, despite being one of the most tame games ever. There's no stopping modding no matter what companies do so we might as well kill the industry now and go back to offering kiddie games only.
danny @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
It's obvious that GTA SA is being made an example of. Leisure Suit Larry: MCL had sex AND nudity (full frontal with a mod) and it got a M rating. God of War is another example. The ESRB is just caving in to the demands of Hillary Rodham Candidate and the press hoping to circumvent the whole issue.
chill @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
I think that these people should be looking at the movie industry indstead.
Yeah thats something to wish for, Sheesh. Jack Thompson just nutted in his pants....
Vagabond Artist @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
this is outrageous!
what business is it of the federal govt. what content is in videogames in the first place?
Now that the govt. has effectively taken this precedent I think user modification of games is going to disappear (at least in the way it is today) meaning no more maps, skins, or mods.
I know that sounds extreme right now but take these kinds of knee jerk reactions the industry is getting and make some projections...
GO AWAY FEDERAL GOVT.
stop taking people's private property by force to build wal-marts and then playing the "good guy" to keep us safe from videogame content.
retro @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
Oh, of course Joystiq, don't thank the guy who tipped you. :D
Ross Miller @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
heh, sorry retro, it was one of those things where i checked 1up, and then gamespot, and then i checked the tips and while, yes, i remember your name as a tip, i think we got about 40 tips in a matter of 15 minutes. sorry if you sent us a tip and i didn't credit you; consider this a "thanks everyone!" and you can hate me.
retro @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
:D Dude, I'm being sarcastic. I'm fine with no tip, especially since I read that number you just said. (40 in 15 minutes, man? Dude, are you like an email-checking robot? O_o) Besides, if there was that many, it would be greedy of me to get a Thanks. However, GameSpot's been slow lately. I only got the info from a message from 1up. (I had Gmail Notifier while I was out watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory :D) See ya!
Rare Hare @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
i think this sucks. it's wrong for that title to be forced under an AO rating.
what about 'Feel the Magic: XX/XY'? why isn't THAT on AO?
ryan @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
the difference with god of war other than you do see naked women in the game, the mini sex game doesnt really show kratos actually doing the dead, all you get is sounds
and a close up of the table beside the bed
Ben Striegel @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
Doing the dead? I'm pretty sure that's wrong for a different reason.
/necrophelia!
Dragons_fire666(Hatred Form Hell Burns In My Soul) @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
okai ppls this sh** has gottin out hand becuz if this is wut it has com down to everyone needs to take a check on the reality of games
and life
cuz with that said everything in a game EVERYTHING AND N E THING can be modded
their for ever single game that comes out is gona be AO all hell even f***in hocky games wil be ao juss cuz it has ppl in the game that u control and wut they look like can be modded
if u kno wut i meen, be cuz ANYTHING with a texture can be modded ,and i think that this has gottin outa hand .soon i can se it u walk in to a store to pick up a fighting game say dead or alive,or say a baseball game or baskit ball and ur say 14 all good n shi no drugs all a goody good in to ur sports and being healty and u want to play one of thoses gaems liek maddin ,nhl,baseball etc... u cant cuse its AO becuz the polatitiohns and ESRB(BURN I HATE U)
say its AO cuz it has ppls that could be moded to be nude BIG DEAL ITS LIFE NAKED IS NAKED AND GAMES ARE GAMES THSES PPLS NEED TO GET A GRIP ON WIT IS RIGHT N WUT IS WRONG ASK THE PPLS THAT PLAY EM WUT THEY THINK AND BASE UR DESION ON THAT ............
Phil @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
This is pathetic. Ao is for games with GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT. The only reason this game gets an AO rating is because of the political pressure, the actual ESRB guidelines would not warrant this an AO rating. But you know what? This will actually be a good thing. The more games get the AO rating, the less it matters. GTA is the most popular game around. If the next-gen GTA gets an AO rating I bet it will still outsell any other games and it will make the AO rating or any rating a joke. Then no companies will be afraid to make AO games and all will be well. Unless Hilary Clinton and her thugs still want protection money by putting pressure on the biggest companies. I hope she never gets a penny from the industry for her campaigns.
Jay @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
Okay...let's get this straight. I want to be sure I'm clear on this.
Stealing others' personal property to advance in a game...rated M.
Running over gang members with a car...rated M.
Bludgeoning gang members with blunt objects...rated M.
Shooting gang members with automatic weapons...rated M.
Running over innocent bystanders with a car...rated M.
Bludgeoning innocent bystanders with blunt objects...rated M.
Shooting innocent bystanders with automatic weapons...rated M.
Sex acts implied by sounds of ardor...rated M.
Sex acts implied by seeing a car bounce up and down...rated M.
Picking up prostitutes for sex and bludgeoning them to get your money back...rated M.
Stealing personal property while running over, bludgeoning and shooting gang members and innocent bystanders while committing sex acts with prostitutes you'll later bludgeon to get your money back complete with sounds of ardor and cars bouncing up and down...rated M.
Stealing personal property while running over, bludgeoning and shooting gang members and innocent bystanders while committing sex acts with prostitutes you'll later bludgeon to get your money back complete with sounds of ardor and cars bouncing up and down and sometimes maybe seeing a chunky badly textured naked woman grind on a fully-clothed person...rated AO.
Okay. Whatever.
Rare Hare @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
that's exactly the point Jay, this is f***ing stupid.
it makes me feel as if they really aren't accepting video games as a central form of media.
compare to movie ratings:
porn, rated NC-17.
but a movie with naked people in sex acts that are not actually graphically portrayed, that's only rated R.
in GTA, one of them is fully clothed, and there is no genetalia shown whatsoever. so why does that get the equivelant of an NC-17 when if it were the same case in a movie it would only be an R.
they aren't viewing it equally, and that's not fair.
J @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
Bulls**t.
This is a loss for the industry.
The politicians did this for approval ratings
and votes. Those responsible for the leak
should be punished not the developers who tried to
hide it. Truly a loss.
Blame in all the wrong places.
Sex is on TV. Stores sell guns over the shelf.
War is broadcasted on CNN. Blame is on Videogames.
Imp @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
For the record, I feel that the ESRB rating is skewed on the upper end. It is too subjective. However, let's play a game.
Let us pretend that this sex scene was actually in the final release of the game.
If it was, then we should assume that the game would have been AO off the bat.
Now we come back to what is happening. The code IS there in the game, and therefor, is part of the game. How accesible something is should not be a determining factor in it's rating. IT IS THERE.
nod @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
#17 Agreed.
#13 OMG U R RUInig teh entertnet. Stop b4 U Doo perminint dammage. K thks.
Jason @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
If the code was there an AO rating makes sense to me.
Jason
http://www.xboxsoftmods.com/main/
Spartan VIII @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
I am very confused....Games like The Guy Game, and Liesure Suit Larry are out with m ratings, but the entire point of the game is to get girls naked, or screw them, (including sexual scenes in the latter, with minimal black censor bars, covering only lower body parts....But a hidden piece of half functioning code that to be accessed the game has to be hacked gets it an AO rating?
I am just totally and utterly confused.
Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
About bloody time!
snortin_php @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
#15 - Spot on
As for what I would assume to be Republicans bashing Clinton on this board, go look at your own camp. You honestly think that Repubs didn't have a say in this? Just go ask Jack Thompson.
That being said, I'm a democrat and I despise Clinton right now, but I'm not throwing all the blame on her. That stupid prick Thompson was the catalyst for all of this.
32_Footsteps @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
Instead of the usual link, my name goes to my piece today about the controversy.
And to be fair, nobody did any modding to the character models. They just modded a flag designating whether or not to show a scene already hard-coded into the game. So we should talk less about people modding the game and more about what Rockstar actually threw in.
SparkStalker @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
There's a simple solution to all of this. Next election, vote Libertarian.
Twist @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
If they are going to have to recall and repackage the games with an AO rating they might as well go ahead and release it with the mini game unlocked as well.
Next time they should just stick an AO rating on there anyway. I doubt it will hurt their sales any.
chill @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
#26 Yeah it would hurt sales to some extent, because most retailers would not stock it...
Leandro @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
We need more people pointing out just how stupid this whole thing is. Have any of these beaurocrats ever typed 'porn' into google? who's protecting the kids from that. The Neistat Brothers provide some interesting context to this whole controversy with their film about the hot coffee mod. see it at their website;
http://videogamesareevil.com/
Chris @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
They're not recalling and repackaging. They're modifying the game to completely remove the code to keep their M rating, but they're sending out AO stickers to retailers who already have a copy.
BETRAMS @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
17+ to 18+.
Big deal.
I just don't see a justificaion for it.
In GTA, you have hookers, in which they give you "health", massive amounts of violence, and many other meanial items.
It should have got an AO rating in the first place, as the others in the series.
Don't get me wrong, GTA is a great game, but I am pretty sure the average time watching the "hot coffee mod" is less then 5 minutes, unless you have it as a screensaver.
I just wish Hilary would focus on more important issues, like her states defeceit. She is just mad she lost the olympics :D
But to get back on topic, its a 1 year age difference, and kids, smart kids, can get the origional version for the PC via Bit Torrent.
-Bet
robert @ Dec 18th 2005 10:08PM
could someone please tell what the hell the nude cheat is i've had several friends looking few times a day but it just dosn't f%^#en exist in Australia.aahhhhhhhhhh help