Sexual minigame costs publisher $20 million

Would a 100,000 settlement not be enough ? Why 20 million, or why not 100 million or 2.5 billion? Why are we doing this to companies that employ people when we desperately require more employment. Who is truly benefiting from this for of lottery? Stop the insanity! Mr. Obama, is there no limit to "actual damages" incurred by this silly game? Who was truly hurt?

joseph davidovic

so it's ok to commit murder, theft and utter mayhem on the game, but a little love scene is way too much for the young minds. Get a life

What I don't get is how a company can be sued over a game that was clearly marked "M" for mature...if anything Take-Two should counter-ue the 85 year old grandmother for failure as a parent because she bought a game for a 14 year old that was intended for MATURE audiences. Take-Two SHOULD have removed the content before release, I agree, but to be able to sue a company because you were offended that there was content in the game that your kid may/or may not even been subjected to (and if he was it's because he VIOLATED the game code; the only way to activate the mini-game) its just rediculous. Worse than that woman who sued McDonalds over her coffee being hot! How about we sue Stanley Kubriak for "Dr. Strangelove" because it's obvious that movie influenced North Korea to develope Nuclear Weapons. This is absurd and just shows how Sue happy money hungry the people in this country have become!

Yet another example of the American 'victim' mentality. Bar tender, its YOUR fault I drank that fifteenth beer and crashed my car. teacher, its YOUR fault I goofed off and have no education and so can only get a menial job... No 14 year old young man is 'damaged' by simulated sex in a game. Get over it already. The reason we get called stupid Americans is that a number of Americans keep on acting stupidly and we all get covered with the same brush. This kind of stupidity should be laughed at, not rewarded with big payouts.

this will make the existing games with the code very valuable. EBAY anyone?

the game was rated mature!
once again the results of poor parenting is being blamed on the entertainment industry.

Leave it to one old bitty to Screw us all.

What gets me is the grandmother had NO PROBLEM buying her 14 year old grandson a video game that includes ROBBING, KILLING and BEATINGS and lots of other violent crimes, but heaven forbid there should be any sex on it.

People will do anything for a buck

I do not see fault of company. Actually person who broke the code to watch the porn is criminal. They have no right to use unauthorized application to break the code to watch porn. People who took this money, Shame on them.

@ joseph davidovic

How exactly does our president tie into this?
Getting past that seemingly irrelevant comment,

The grandmother was obviously at fault for purchasing a game that was three years over the maturity level of her grandson; All you can blame take-two interactive for is making a game that millions of people purchased. But afterall, that is captialism.

Well now that his video game has been taken away he can just go back to watching porn on the internet like everyone else. And I wonder how many times this kid has been beat up since the verdict by all those others kids who lost their favorite video game?

Porn is on Public TV in other countries that have more stable and smarter kids than the US. So how is this HACKED material going to ruin our kids

should have NEVER BEEN CODED to begin with.Must have been INTENTIONALLY programmed in to be there in the first place. HACK or NOT, should have NEVER BEEN CODED.

They should pull the game entirely off the market. FALSE advertising and IMPROPER PROGRAMMING...should have sued for DOUBLE that. 3D code, well, DOUBLE that comment. Takes a **** ton of effort to do 3D game programming.

If that woman is so distressed by the sex scene (which, by the way, is NOT that bad compared to the constant bad language, drug usage, gang activity...) then DONT BUY THE GAME THATS RATED M FOR YOUR 14 YEAR OLD GRANDSON.

"Rated M for Mature"

Do people just not know what this means? Does it not say that there is sexual content, language, violence, and the likes?

The judge on this case should have thrown it out as to make them pay a settlement for this is a bigger crime than having porn code on there that **had to be hacked to be viewed**.

People need to own up to their own stupidity, read the game's box which conveniently has this little box with an M on it which also tells what the game has in it and decide whether it is proper for their child or not, and actually make the parenting choice before giving the game to their child. ask the child if he found this little sex game, tell him if he does that it is too much and you'll take the game away from him. Supervise his playtime if necessary.

@ take two: you guys should appeal it if you can.

What isn't mentioned is that the 14 year old kid most likely has seen (and sought out) much worse porn on the same internet he needed to download the hack. Did Granny bother to limit his access online?? I mean, if you don't look at a game and play it before you give it to your kid, then you should not be able to hold a game company liable for the damage done. I could understand if somebody put a porn scene in a Disney movie then Disney could be held liable. Thats something the average parent would think to be safe for their kids to watch. Or if Mario Cart had a hidden scene for Mario to have sex with the Princess, then yeah, Nintendo should be held liable. But, the Grand Theft auto has murder, hookers, drugs, and other actions in it that a normal parent who has an active part in their kids lives and cares about what their kids watch would avoid. If you don't care enough about your kids to NOT buy them a game where you get points for blowing peoples heads off, then you shouldn't get 20 million bucks for being a lousy parent.

i wonder if there is a way we can sue the people that sued take 2.i believe that these people have infringed on my rights.due to their stupid tactics.

This is just another great example of how ridiculous our society has become.

Hey! I remember another game where you can have sex too. It is called life. We better start censoring that too, and ban it.

@Ben

Funny you should actually use "The President" and capitalism in the same post. They don't really mix these days...at all. But yeah, Take Two is not at fault, it's the parents that obviously needed some cash for their failures and found an opportunity to make some. I think the "Pres." can actually come into play a little there though. He clearly wants to reward failure and he wants Americans to do the same. Back on subject, our system is so flawed that only in America can you actually sue for your own stupidity and win. It is starting to pain me just to capitalize the A in America anymore. Unfortunately, it's the little things like this that show how the country is slipping away from us. Has anyone noticed that when we were kids USA used to be at the top of programs when it asked what country you were from... it's no longer at the top and we now have to hunt for it at the bottom. I know it sounds miniscule but having to find my own country name in a program sold in my country is ridiculous. Yes, it's just one little thing but these little things are showing up more and more and they add up fast. Lawsuits like these, a president that apologizes for a country that is the envy of all countries, and the people that cheer these individuals on are the reasons we fail and will continue to fail until we are no more.

Anyone who buys this game for a child clearly has failed as a parent to begin with. Furthermore, how do the plaintiffs have a legal leg to stand on when the game is clearly marked M for mature? American stupidity and entitlement at its best.

There's a ratings system people! USE IT! If the game says "M for Mature", it's more than likely not appropriate for your children! That's just common sense.

Its rated mature for a reason. Any individual of even marginal intelligence would not let a child play this game. This doesn't mean its immoral or bad, just not for kids. Same idea as rating a movie as "R." Incidents like this are furthering the victim mentality that was mentioned in a previous comment. You don't see this in other countries where parents actually take responsibility for their actions and those of their children.

Class action law suits hurt us all. Only the lawyers and the judges benefit from them. A typical plaitiff in the case gets a few dollars, while the lawyers get millions. But you don't see our government cracking down on this economy killer that impacts the same companies that provide us jobs. Lawyers will definitely burn in hell (or so I hope).

Instead of attacking the Grandmother, who exercised her right to sue under our current legal system, why don't you people work to change the system, if you think it's wrong? Part of living in a big, free country is the right to address grievances. The judge agreed with her. Take Two will survive. Get a life. (or at least graduate from high school)

This was a settlement, no one won or lost the case. It clearly should have been thrown out and I can't fathom why a judge would take this case. Take Two is clearly more worried about economic losses the media frenzy has caused and is trying to minimize the damage. However, they clearly set a bad precedent. People's mindset is reinforced that they can sue over their negligence and absolve themselves of their own responsibility. The mentality of "I'm the victim" is pathetic.

@pratherth

Another right-wing nutjob taking potshots at the President of the United States. First it was health care town hall meetings with political illiterates foaming at the mouth, and now it's a comment board about a video game lawsuit. Obviously, this was a frivolous lawsuit designed to generate income for the plaintiffs and ends up further destroying the legitimacy of our legal system and the reputation of our attorneys. Parents need to wake up and take responsibility for the raising of their children. The game had warnings on it describing sex content, language, graphic violence, adult situations, drug and alcohol use, and is not suitable for anyone under 17. This was not a child's game and was not marketed to children. This is a free speech violation at it's worse.

Yesterday, CNN included a video of a "device" that allows ladies to go to the bathroom standing up on this very web site. Oh, yes, folks, that is acceptable for a major media outlet to do. On the other hand, a video game that is clearly marked "M" for Mature, that requires more computer skills and determination to hack into than the average attention span of normal teenagers results in a $20 million judgment !!! What hypocrisy!

Granny needs a psychiatric examination! The title of the game is "Grand Theft Auto". It headlines that it is about committing crimes. Most people believe that stealing is immoral. If a video game contains one immoral act, it is highly likely to contain several. So Granny should never have bought the game. The title alone says this is not something you want to be teaching the kids. So why is Granny shocked that it contains even more things you don't want to be teaching the kids.

I have to agree that Take 2 got a raw deal with this....I wish they had just laughed in the plaintiff's face and held out...
I also feel the same as several other posters here, in that the game plainly states on the box that it contains "sexual content" and is for mature players only...No one was defrauded...
I can only hope for karma to come to the plaintiffs.

A little porn is nothing in comparison to bashing in the head of passerby with a baseball bat, strafing pedestrians with a submachine gun, or lobbing grenades into a mall. Grandma was an idiot for buying a game that includes primarily violent content for a CHILD!

Take 2 messed up here.

That said:

1) just disabling the minigame so it was inaccessible via any 'normal' means is not a completely unreasonable thing for them to have done. They *should* have completely removed the code from the build, but having worked in software development, things like this happen. Especially if a problem is found or a decision is made close to a deadline.

2) It seems like a *VERY* bad precedent to hold Take 2 responsible for the ability to access something that can only be accessed by downloading an unauthorized third-party hack/patch. Differentiating between a hack/patch that adds in unauthorized content and one that "unlocks" unauthorized content seems like splitting hairs to me. (eg, let's say someone wrote a patch that modified textures so that all the female characters in the game appeared naked. Nobody would say Take 2 can be held responsible for something like that.)

3) $20M sounds like a lot of money - and it is. But *if* you think they should have a fine applied to them, for it to be more than a slap on the wrist it needs to be a reasonable fraction of the money they made selling the game. If you charged them $100,000 it would be completely meaningless.

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!?!?!

I hate you so much, grandma.

@Fred

lol right-wing nutjob eh? I haven't made any pot shots at anyone. I simply stated facts about our new reality and the campaign for "change." Then you want to talk about how this is a violation of free speech... Funny you should bring that up. You're wonderful President is trying to shut down other "right-wing nut jobs" i.e. conservative media, with his newly appointed czar who is in love with Chavez and quotes him religiously. Our right to free speech may be short lived as well as our health care system (flawed as it may be is still the best in the world), right to bare arms, and regulation of what kind of vehicle we drive under this presidency. Its not the man, its the ideas that he embraces.

Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.

And we wonder what is wrong with the youth of our country. Graphic Violence is fine, but show sex and OMG the world is coming to a end.

When will we, as a society, make people responsible for their own actions.

These people purchased a violent game, labeled for 17 and up for a 14 year old girl and were unhappy with the content. Instead of rewarding them and encourging others to sue over their own mistakes all they should have gotten was a lecture on paying attention to the ratings.

I'd read somewhere else that the actual benefactors of the $2 Mil lawsuit were the stockholders of Take 2. They sued after a major stock plummet caused by "Hot Coffee" being discovered and Take 2 management lied to the media. If the benefactor[s] was in any way an 89 year old grandma who bought the 18+ Only game for her 14 year old grandson... why isn't she in jail for providing adult materials to an underaged minor, instead of being allowed to sue someone over her own lack of intelligence? "Ignorance is not an excuse", remember?

I see infants, little children, and tweens in the theater when I go see PG-13 and R rated movies. It doesn't surprise me that granny buys violent video games for her grandson. She probably punishes him for cursing, all while wondering where he learned such language.

Grandma will probably give her grandson some of her ill-gotten gains to the underaged grandson, who in turn will use it to buy his own real life hooker. The whole thing sounds like a set up.

The next version of Grand Theft Auto for the PS3 and XBOX will feature a bonus round where you can run down 85-year-old hypocritical grandmothers with a spike-tipped lawn-mower.

And I'm buyin'!

The game was rated M. Why are people buying it for their kids?

The American public should be sueing the parents!

I agree that these frivolous lawsuits hurt everyone, but I'm guessing grandma here would have agreed with that, too, before the hot coffee put dollar signs in her eyes. I'm thinking most people are greedy enough to try something like this, but haven't had a good enough opportunity. Can you honestly say you wouldn't find a way to justify a different point of view if there was a $20 million payday?

Its always easy to play the blame game, but when it comes down to it. The ones that create games are in a business and hence it is there job to create games that appeal to the appropriate age group now when you turn things around it is up to the parents to dictate all of what the kids are playing and the fact that they would over look pass the rating system and allow there kids to play games as such is totaly their fault. And then have the nerves to file a class action suit. Honestly parents in America need to wake up and stop being so STUPID!!!

This country's legal system has gone straight to hell.

man that one thing that some of us in usa love to do is sue for anything i was 13 when the game was release and my mother bought it for me and laughed at the hot coffee scene

That's America for you: Make War, Not Love. We give little kids toys to pretend to kill people with, then freak out when it's possible (though sufficiently non-trivial that I never bothered to do it) to see a very rough, blocky, and obviously unfinished animation of a couple of video game characters making love. True, I've only seen screenshots of the Hot Coffee sequence, but if they're representative, well, I've seen raunchier stuff in ads on buses. And while the odds are 2:1 that the 14-year-old in question was still a virgin, at least technically, Gramma is kidding herself if she thinks he's never seen any porn. 30+ years ago, in what was supposedly a more innocent age, we all knew how sex worked (well, maybe except for Harry, but he had issues) and porn was passed around surreptitiously. A girl in my school had a child at 12. I knew girls on birth control in 9th grade. It's just a money grab by Granny. Just why she deserves to become a millionaire because of her bad grandparenting skills escapes me entirely.

Personally, this game has never attracted me. I never placed it in my collection for a few good reasons.

One it encourages gang related violence. Some of you folks are going to say that I am full of it, and you are entitled to your opinion. However, because the game is set in rural Los Angeles, regardless of what you may think, Its a gmae that should have never been allowed production.

Second, its a game that encourages violence against Law Enforcement Officers.

Now yes I understand that folks need to use their discretion to seperate fantasy from reality. However, there are those in our society that are not that responsible, AND have been willing to let their children obtain and play these games.

Do I have violent First Peson Shooters such as Farcry, HALO, Half Life 2, Farcry 2, the Battefield Series, Call of Duty Series, and a few others of this type? Yes, and they are indeed fun to play. But, the situations are either so far-fetched from reality, or its an ailen bug hunt.

GTA, does not provide that type of environment. Case and point for me never purchasing Hitman, or Max Payne. They encourage the same type of urban organized crime and urban gang related violence environments that encourage crime.

I feel the same way about some of the road rally games too. They encourage poor driving practices on our city streets and highways. GTA encourages all of this rolled into one game.

Another game that disturbed me was the game Postal and Postal 2 by Ripsaw. Columbine anyone?

I don't think its right that folks should sue over the game, but I do believe that some software makers should be forced to be more responsible about the products they produce and market. The GTA series games being just one of them.

I know this always starts the contraversy over what should and should not be produced, but I think the line has to be drawn some where as to what the games are allowed to have in their context and environments. Urban gang related garbage, that promotes domestic violence, targeting Law Enforcement, and other such urban issues that we as a nation are facing, are at issue in this game.

These are just my thoughts, but I can say I have seen the game and played part of it, and was not impressed, nor encouraged to place it in my personal collection.

We could stop all these frivolous lawsuits very easily. Change the system so that punitive damages don't go to the plaintiff. As the name implies, punitive damages are to punish the defendant for wrongdoing, not to compensate the plaintiff for injury. There is no reason for such awards to go to the plaintiff.

This puts in to mind some lyrics I once heard from a song and it goes something like this – "the world is full of stupid people". He was telling the truth.

why are little kids playing gta san andreas any way. the game is rated M for a reason and it list sexual conntent on the esrb rating. Only 18 year olds should be playing this game any way

Maybe she should have sued ESRB for not making the "M for Mature" logo large enough for her old eyes to see. I'll bet if she had seen the rating she would have never bought it for her grandson in the first place.

Haha...Shame on the censors for not advertising loudly enough

So this person grandmother didnt have a problem with her grandson playing a video game that rips people out of there cars, beats them up, kills them, and runs from the cops? God forbid they show a sex scene in it we all know THAT emotionally distresses hormone full 14 year olds..

I never understood peoples problem with this game much less the verdict in this lawsuit. You had to Hack the game to access the scene. You had to add in code to access the scene which would void any enduser agreements. Should the have pulled the full content yeah. So, I guess if I poke holes in the fuel line in my car i can sue when my car catches on fire right.
I used to sell games and had idiot parents, grandparents etc buying M games for 8 years olds even after I told them explicitly what the M rating meant and what kind of content was in the game.

A game rated "Mature, 17+" is purchased for a 14 year old.... and then you complain that the content isn't suited for him?

I'd sue granny for poor guardianship, contributing to the deliquency of a minor and a littany of other things

Don't you guys get it it? It's the LAWYERS who stimulate these types of suits to pad their pockets. Shame shame.

Are kidding me – THIS IS RIDICULOUS lawsuit and they should have NEVER have been forced to settled! The game is rated MATURE (17 and older) for a reason! Okay they had to listen to their corporate idiots to get the game out there and had no time to remove the content so they restricted the content. The game is mature because you go out and kill people but that is okay, but it isn't okay for a MATURE game to show some sex, when the suit was brought by a 85 yr old grand mother who didnt do her research and bought the game because her little boy asked, that is HER fault NOT the company's!!! What is next, in this country's JOKE of a Legal System – my 8 year old can sue Disney because there isn't enough educational content in fictional fantasy content, what a JOKE – sorry Take-Two, you are the ones who got screwed! But Hollywood can still put out sex and violence but they can't get sued like this!

Mr. Obama? how is the president involved in this??

I agree. This is truly ridiculous. Our justice system is screwed up – It's your job to set the stand of moral integrity – or I forgot many of you are engaged in immoral acts so how can you truly JUDGE! Take-two was wrong- No Integrity moral/ethical standards – you knew the code was there and could be exploited don't insult me! The families that bought the game for anyone under 18 was wrong – Piss Poor Parenting – It's Your job Grandma to protect and teach! The money should have been given to worthy organizations the promotes abstinences from drugs, sex, crime and teaches youth to stay in school and encourage our youth to make a positive impact on their communities!. Boys club, YMCA, Youth church organizations. But as was commented many time MONEY..MONEY..MONEY. -->The LOVE of MONEY is the ROOT of ALL EVIL. There is nothing wrong with MONEY/WEALTH it's when we cherish it more than life and the well being of others.

The problem with this judgement as I see it is that these games ... they never should have been bought for children anyway ... and honestly parents and grandparents should know better. I mean I've played this whole series there is nothing appropriate for a minor in it and a "little sex game" is hardly that bad compared to all the murder you commit as part of the game. This is "cool" parents wanting someone else to pay when they bought their kid beer and he crashed the car.

In this game series you can have sex with a prostitute and then run her over to get the money back .... and people are complaining about a little sex....

This is amazing. I've never been a fan of these games. Like Shane I think these games send all the wrong messages. Especially to kids.

Without all the details I can't know for sure, but this grandmother getting a $20 million dollar judgment in her favor because her grandson hacked a game and unlocked a scene is so insane that I can't believe it.

I agree with the earlier poster who said punitive judgments should not go to the plantiff. They should go to the local, state, or federal government in a highly-regulated fund to be used on public service programs educating the public about the issues that caused the judgments.

Max Payne is my favorite game and i also like the movie.*,*

i love to play Max Payne all day long, it has lots of action in it."*`

Max Payne is so full of blood, gore and violence but i like him*~;

i watched the movie MAx Payne and it is sort of psyschedilic he he he ~"

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