Take-Two gets subpoenaed

By Ellie Gibson Published 27 June, 2006

Hot Coffee just won't go away.

Poor old Take-Two. They probably thought all that Hot Coffee nonsense was behind them, what with the FTC deciding not to fine them any money earlier this month.

But, alas - now New York's grand jury has issued subpoenas ordering the publisher to produce a load of documents relating to the hidden mini-game which was discovered in GTA: San Andreas almost a year ago now.

According to an official statement from Take-Two, the jury wants documents dating as far back as October 2001, including ones which relate to "the knowledge of the company's officers and directors regarding the creation, inclusion and programming of hidden scenes (commonly referred to as 'Hot Coffee')" in San Andreas.

Take-Two has also been ordered to supply documents relating to acquisitions, partnership deals and earnings, and the company's financial dealings with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young.

And that's not all - other requested documents include those relating to the submission of San Andreas to the ESRB for rating, plus "certain compensation and human resources documents" concerning current and former officers and directors, and "documents concerning the activities of the company's board of directors and committees there of."

Take-Two is keen to point out that it "has not been advised that it or any specific individual is presently a target of the investigation", and "is fully co-operating and providing the requested documents."

Rockstar, you may recall, initially claimed that Hot Coffee was a third-party mod - but it was later discovered that it was built into all the different versions of San Andreas. The game was re-rated in the US from Mature to Adults Only, which cost Take-Two a fortune.

It's not clear why New York's grand jury has taken an interest - or exactly what they're going to do with all those documents. Well, read them, most probably, but then what? Could Take-Two be in a whole new heap of trouble? We'll have to wait and see...

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (27) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • jellyhead #1 6 years ago

    oooooh, They wouldn't let it lie!
    Seriously though, I hope this is just more knee-jerk sensationalism rather than anything sinister but from the requests for documents the jury have made it does seem like they are looking for someone to hang. :(

  • Darkedge #2 6 years ago

    the initial lies were a bad idea- but ffs why does sex make the game adults only when one character likes to go gang banging and do drivebys.
    Thats not adult content then? The US is DUMB.

  • Wrestlevania #3 6 years ago

    A case of "better (very) late than never" I suppose. It's so much easier to wade in with the last couple of punches, too - and claim the glory of a knockout - after someone else has done all the roughing up.

    I think we, as a community, 'got' this message several months back. Developers are also now well aware that they can't frivolously include Stupid Shit(tm) in their latest products any more, expecting they'll get away with it. Take Two are already neck-deep in the brown stuff as we all know--I reckon this is the action of just one of several groups now striving to land the killer blow and proclaim themselves the saviours of "decent consumers" everywhere.

    Face it; poking a legal stick at Take Two, Grand Theft Auto or Rockstar right now still guarantees you headlines. Especially as it's the so-called "slow season" in the games industry.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/06 @ 11:16

  • Talha #4 6 years ago

    It's not the adult content that let them down, it is the lying and the lousy subsequent cover up.

  • Swannzie #5 6 years ago

    Pretty clear that there all out to get Take 2.

  • smelly #6 6 years ago

    @Darkedge


    As far as americunz are concerned - guns, violence and killing = good (thus sending people to war at 16).

    but sex = bad (religious right wing types dont beleive anyone should have sex ever, except for making babies)

    And god forbid anyone who shows a nipple.

  • Stickman #7 6 years ago

    Its amazing what people will spend time kicking up a fuss about, when you consider other things they could be doing.

  • smelly #8 6 years ago

    It's not the adult content that let them down, it is the lying and the lousy subsequent cover up.

    Rubbish. That code was never meant to be accessible. ALL games ship with code like that, eg mini games which were removed because they were deemed crap.

    They were correct in saying the only way to acess it was via a fan made mod downloadble from the internet (of which there are a lot worse things available out there to download online).

    "hot coffee" was obviously never meant to be included in the game. Its shit. They obviously tried it out, realised it was shit and ditched it

  • Schiraman #9 6 years ago

    @smelly

    I agree, it was clearly not intended to be played - hence being locked in a way that was not unlockable by just playing the game.

    Still, they could have done with being more upfront and honest about the situation when the fuss first started - although the content isn't accessible without a mod, the content was theirs - not the mod-maker's as they originally tried to imply.

    What really worries me is that this stupid situation will pave the way for games being censored/rated/sued based on the content of entirely fan-made mods and end up with developers removing mod-support to avoid legal trouble and bad press.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/06 @ 11:48

  • kangarootoo #10 6 years ago

    There are a couple of lessons here for all devs working on future stuff.

    The first is obvious enough, a submitted build needs to ONLY include content that is part of the submitted codebase. Every else needs to be removed from the file structure.

    "ALL games ship with code like that, eg mini games which were removed because they were deemed crap."

    That is clearly not an excuse though is it? Saying "everyone does it" won't protect you in court. Of course, most of the time the erroneous content is pretty benign and won't get anyone into trouble. But a standard practice of removing it (code AND assets) seems a sensible policy to me.


    The second lesson is the way this was dealt with when it was first discovered.

    @smelly

    "They were correct in saying the only way to acess it was via a fan made mod downloadble from the internet"

    Some clarification of exactly what was said would be handy here, before we all get too het up about it.

    The article states "Rockstar, you may recall, initially claimed that Hot Coffee was a third-party mod". If the article is to be believed (and I do believe it as a starting point) then Rockstar basically twisted the truth somewhat.

    Needing a 3rd party mod to access the code is NOT the same as the code itself being a 3rd party mod, I'm sure you would agree. If Rockstar actually said that, it was a lie, and a stupid one. So I second Talha's comment in that context.

    If Rockstar didn't actually say that, then I will adjust my view appropriately based on any new facts that hove into view.

  • Talha #11 6 years ago

    @smelly: When you 'Ditch' something, it is removed completely, rather than just lying on the disc, waiting to be unlocked. I agree that all games contain easter eggs like that. But the nature of this one is far different from others.

    Also, I agree with you that in US people have some twisted standards. That said, many people do not believe in open exploitation and exhibition of sex. I find nothing wrong with that view, subscribing to it myself. However, making that an excuse to crack down on the gaming industry is plain ridiculous. Rockstar, knowingly or otherwise, fed fuel to the fire, which is bad for gaming as a whole.

    Of course, you can always call this 'rubbish' or 'bullshit' - that doesn't change the lousiness of Rockstar's response to the whole scam.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/06 @ 11:54

  • urban #12 6 years ago

    fucking america,

  • LetsGo #13 6 years ago

    Its rockstars own fault.

    They lost my support when they LIED about it being a 3rd party mod...

    Twats.
    Edited by 1 at 27/06/06 @ 11:56

  • peterfll #14 6 years ago

    Why the US can't have rating systems that work like the rest of the world is beyond me. An 18 certificate means exactly that in this country (whether it's enforced is another matter) but the principle is sound.

    In the US if a game gets a Mature rating, Walmart won't stock it. Same as films, if a film gets a NC-17 it's like a death notice, most cinemas won't show it.

    It's scarey, many people are predicting how increasingly isolated the US is going to become in the coming years......

  • alpha-0ne #15 6 years ago

    only in america ;-)

    im sure geore bush was immaculately conceived no sex involved

  • ecureuil #16 6 years ago

    God, I'm so fucking bored of this.

  • kangarootoo #17 6 years ago

    @urban

    Oh grow up. You post comments like that you because you don't/can't understand the actual details of what happened here.

  • Flabio #18 6 years ago

    If there is a paper trail, it'll eventually come back to the developer. Given that they're not in the US, there isn't a great deal they can do.

    I do think they're looking to make an example of R* here.

    As for saying that 'all games ship with stuff like this in', not anymore they don't (well, apart from Oblivion. Ish). I'm sure you can imagine how paranoid publishers and developers have suddenly got about stuff like this...

  • el_pollo_diablo #19 6 years ago

    I find the American legal system very odd, to say the least.

  • Talha #20 6 years ago

    Well, their legal system is odd, and it is equally odd for every kind of crime. The blame for the Hot Coffee debacle, however, lies solely on Rockstar/Take Two.

  • smelly #21 6 years ago

    @ kangarootoo

    I agree totally, but the censors problem was with the NUDITY, which WAS fan made.

    oh, and for the record, in one of the in game cutscenes (where you start the drug war), you get to see hot coffee playing in the background. So if the censors didnt complain about that...


    Edited by 1 at 27/06/06 @ 13:48

  • Feanor #22 6 years ago

    "They were correct in saying the only way to acess it was via a fan made mod downloadble from the internet (of which there are a lot worse things available out there to download online)."

    WRONG. Do your homework. Rockstar said it was a third-party mod someone added to the game. LIES. The sex mini-game is also in the original Xbox and PS2 versions, and was able to be accessed using an Action Replay.

  • Feanor #23 6 years ago

    "In response to the PC mod surfacing and gaining wide notice, Rockstar Games, the Take-Two subsidiary that develops and publishes San Andreas, issued a carefully worded statement in reference to the mod. "So far we have learned that the 'Hot Coffee' modification is the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the game," it read."

    Haha, someone's fibbing.

    "However, Rockstar's statement did little to extinguish the fires of controversy. Soon, reports began to surface that console versions of San Andreas contained code for the sex minigame. Late last week, GameSpot editors unlocked the code from a PlayStation 2 copy of San Andreas bought in October 2004, using an Action Replay Max device and a series of cheat codes. Since console games are written on unalterable DVDs and cheat codes cannot introduce new content, the fact the minigame was playable at all means it was included in the original PS2 San Andreas, albeit hidden."

    Oops. Busted.

    "There was no misquoting Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB. In a sternly worded statement on the ESRB site, she said "we have concluded that sexually explicit material exists in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs of all three platform versions of the game (i.e., PC CD-ROM, Xbox, and PS2)." She also had harsh words for Take-Two. "Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined," she said. "Going forward, the ESRB will now require all game publishers to submit any pertinent content shipped in final product even if is not intended to ever be accessed during game play, or remove it from the final disc.""

    Pwned.

    "Vance did concur with Rockstar's assertion that the sex minigames were "programmed by Rockstar to be inaccessible to the player and they have stated that it was never intended to be made accessible. The material can only be accessed by downloading a software patch, created by an independent third party without Rockstar's permission, which is now freely available on the Internet and through console accessories." A Rockstar spokesperson said the company was considering legal action against Action Replay, GameShark, and other makers of console cheat devices that allow access to the sex minigames."

    So how's that legal action against the makers of Action Replay coming along, Rockstar? :)

  • smelly #24 6 years ago

    @Feanor : WRONG

    Read my ****ing post.

    The problem the censors had, WASNT with the fully clothed simulated sex. If they were bothered by that, then im sure they'd have censored the EXACT same cutscene which happens earlier on in the game in the background of one of the cutscenes when they saw it the first time.

    The problem was with the NUDITY in it, which was made by the Mod.

    Now before you go dissing people in the future, i suggest you READ what they have to say first.

  • dudefella #25 6 years ago

    oh my god

    GET THE FUCK OVER IT ALREADY! DIGITAL BOOBS OH NOS!!!!11

  • Talha #26 6 years ago

    @smelly: First you say Rockstar didn't lie. Then you implied that Hot Coffee was fan made. Finally you said that the mod wasn't fan made, but the nudity in the mod was. All these contentions have been demonstrated to be fallacious in other posts. Then you suggest that the censors aren't really bothered about what they are pretending to be bothered about, since that source of botheration can also be seen fleetingly somewhere else in the game which wasn't objected to. Wow, effing amazing line of logic.

    I don't know whether you want to defend Rockstar to the hilt, or is it just that your sole intent to continue posting in this thread is mudslinging or abuse for every other poster. For instance, the tone of your response to Feanor is questionable - he didn't say anything himself, he just quoted from others. And it would be best if you follow your own advice more often.

  • Talha #27 6 years ago

    Well believe it or not, for some public displays of cock and fanny are more disturbing to some than public displays of violence. When will people realize that the two are not the same and cannot be judged on the same criteria? Unfortunately, anyone pushing for moral/ethical standards of conduct today - be it against violence, against fraud or against exploitation/display of sex - is automatically politically incorrect and deserves a beating.