- A tempest has struck the American video-game industry
after the publisher of the country's most popular series, Grand Theft Auto,
acknowledged that its latest instalment includes embedded pornographic
content that allegedly was never meant to be seen by players.
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- The globally successful game sold one million copies
in Britain in nine days when it was released last October, where it attracted
an "18" certificate.
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- The regulatory board in the US that applies ratings to
video games stripped the game of its "Mature" ranking and upgrading
it to "Adults Only". Mainstream retailers yesterday removed the
best-selling title from their shelves.
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- The game, which is playable on computers or on portable
consoles such as Sony PlayStation or the XBox, has been under assault by
politicians and family values advocates for several weeks since the existence
of the hidden sexual material was first revealed.
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- The company that produced it, Rockstar Games, at first
accused hackers of somehow polluting the title, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
This week, however, it admitted the sex scenes have been within the games
since they were first shipped. Players found they could unlock the illicit
material simply by downloading a modifying software programme, called Hot
Coffee, from the internet.
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- Grand Theft Auto is one of the most popular game franchises
in the world and when the San Andreas episode came out in October, it sold
more than five million copies in the US. With the software modification,
users of the game are able to direct their characters to the house of a
"girlfriend" to engage in sex acts. While the characters remain
largely clothed, the acts are said to be entirely explicit.
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- The outrage grew quickly as parents and other groups
accused the company of trying to pervert the games rating system. It is
the first time that the Entertainment Software Ratings Board has been obliged
to change the rating on a product after it has already entered the market.
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- "Apparently the sexual material was embedded in
the game. The company admitted that," said Senator Hillary Clinton,
who was among politicians lobbying for action against Rockstar Games.
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- Some video games makers have recently begun encouraging
the more sophisticated games players to try to manipulate their products.
The best of them can alter a game's code to change its plot. This kind
of interaction with buyers can extend the shelf-life of a title for months.
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- But Rockstar denies any such strategy in this case, suggesting
the sex sequences were left inside the code by mistake. "An artist
makes a painting, then doesn't like the first version and paints over the
canvas with a new painting, right?" said a spokesman for the company.
"That's what happened here. Hackers on the internet made a programme
that scratches the canvas to reveal an earlier draft."
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- But critics said that would suggest an extraordinary
lack of quality control at Rockstar.
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- There was some relief from family groups that action
had finally been taken, mixed with concern about how to control the industry.
"I tip my cap to that first step of showing responsibility,"
said Tim Winter of the Parents Television Council. "Phase two needs
to get to the bottom of this coding issue. How did it get past the ratings
board?"
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- The owner of Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, said
it expected net sales to drop by about $50m (£30m) in the current
quarter. Not everyone was sympathetic. Critics say the punishment is negligible,
given the Grand Theft Auto franchise has earned it revenues of nearly $1bn
in four years.
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- © 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article300723.ece
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