American gran sues Take-Two

By Tom Bramwell Published 28 July, 2005

17+ GTA suitable for her 14 year-old grandson. 18+ apparently not.

Games journalists are running out of witless punnery to help frame stories about the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas "Hot Coffee" scandal, it emerged today.

"I've tried just about every variation imaginable on burnt tongues, frothing, taking people for mugs, dark stains and the like and I just don't know where else I can go with it," an anonymous source told this website. "Why couldn't the joke have been something to do with a night-cap? You could refill that endlessly... Refill! REFILL!" he yelled as he reached for his laptop and ran off adjusting the first two lines of his news copy.

Journalists are thought to have been caught short of puns this week by the news that an elderly American woman has filed a lawsuit against publisher Take-Two, following her discovery that the game she bought for her 14 year-old grandson was deemed suitable for people over the age of 18, not 17.

Florence Cohen, 85, claims to have been damaged by the discovery of a sexual mini-game hidden in San Andreas, accessible through modification of the PC version or using a third-party utility like Datel's Action Replay device on PS2, which led the ESRB to reclassify the game "AO" instead of "MA", and is seeking in excess of $5 million on behalf of herself and consumers nationwide.

Cohen is seeking class-action status for buyers of the game, accusing Take-Two of committing or engaging in Consumer Deception, False Advertising, Common Law Fraud and Unjust Enrichment citing various civil statutes.

"They should really make sure this doesn't happen again," her lawyer, Laurence D. Paskowitz told the Associated Press. "The least this company can do is offer refunds."

The British Board of Film Classification, whose legally-enforceable 18 certificate remains in place on all copies of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in the United Kingdom, has added nothing to its original statement on the subject of the American controversy. A fortnight ago, a spokesperson told this website: "Even if we had been aware of it, we would not have had a problem. From our point of view the hidden material does not contravene the 18 rating and so the rating stands."

Apparently TV ads were still running in the US on Comedy Central and MTV this week with the words "Rated AO for 'Adults Only'" replacing previous notes about the "M for Mature" rating. US website GameSpot has since reported that Rockstar claims the ads were the result of a pre-existing media purchase with broadcaster Viacom and have now been suspended.

Meanwhile, fans of the game reacted to the latest Hot Coffee development with exasperation. Popular gaming blog Kotaku railed against Florence Cohen's childrearing skills, demanding that more attention be paid to the fact that she had considered a 17+ rated game suitable for her 14 year-old grandson in the first place. "What I really think is that someone needs to knock on Cohen's front door and ask her at what point did our nation's ability to parent get replaced by a subcommittee and frivolous lawsuits?" the blog demanded.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (42) Latest comment 7 years ago

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

  • ave #1 7 years ago

    ridiculous

  • Aretak #2 7 years ago

    Woo! Go Team America!

  • abeit #3 7 years ago

    I believe she bought the game on purpose, knowing the game's content so that she can sue rockster and try and make some cheap money.

    It is all getting a bit pathetic now.

  • Burton2000 #4 7 years ago

    silly americans

  • Greebo #5 7 years ago

    Silly American legal system.

    Still, where they go the UK seems to follow.

    /sighs

  • dadrester #6 7 years ago

    pathetic

    [edit] not that i'm a vindictive man, but i hope her she and her lawyer get ripped to shreds in court.
    Edited by 1 at 28/07/05 @ 09:43

  • bivith #7 7 years ago

    Storm in a coffee cup?

    you can have that one for free.

  • tonynibbles #8 7 years ago

    From the BBFC: "Even if we had been aware of it, we would not have had a problem. From our point of view the hidden material does not contravene the 18 rating and so the rating stands."

    Welcome to Britain.
    We're not total fucktards over here.
    Edited by 1 at 28/07/05 @ 11:58

  • Dizzy #9 7 years ago

    Linky

    Nuff said.
    Edited by 1 at 28/07/05 @ 09:59

  • archieversace #10 7 years ago

    AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH! it makes me soooo mad!

  • PearOfAnguish #11 7 years ago

    "What's that you're doing, Timmy? Having sex with hookers, then beating them to death with a dildo? Oh look, that policeman burns very nicely when you hit him with a molotov cocktail, and look at the detail when you blow someone's head off. And...DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN, POORLY DIGITISED BREASTS!"

  • Yossarian #12 7 years ago

    The sad thing of course, is that somewhere along the line they will settle and this deranged crone will be vindicated.

    America needs to start acknowledging glaring contradictions in its supposedly strong 'moral fabric' or whatever they're calling it these days.

  • President_Weasel #13 7 years ago

    Yes this is a glaringly obvious attempt to make money off the latest controversy.
    Yes, this woman should be sued for exposing a 14 year old to 17+ material.
    Yes, America is clearly the Land of the Fat Idiots.

    There's an actual point that can be taken from teh story though - if America just had a proper ratings board like the BBFC then none of this crap would have happened. The game would have had a legally binding 18+ slapped on it from the first.

  • Roamer #14 7 years ago

    Is God of War rated AO in the US, by the way?

  • rinoaMW #15 7 years ago

    this will be thown out as soon as it hits the courts, but its just another fine example of americans sueing for the sake of it...

    ...and the monetery gains of course :)

    what can you do?

    /ignore :)

  • captain-future #16 7 years ago

    hmmm, from the obvious joke that this matter is... I get more and more the strange feeling that it will have serious impact on game publishers and modders. a development that frightens me.

  • Spiral #17 7 years ago

    There's an actual point that can be taken from teh story though - if America just had a proper ratings board like the BBFC then none of this crap would have happened. The game would have had a legally binding 18+ slapped on it from the first.

    If America's rating system was legally binding I imagine it would have been much worse for Take-Two. Not declaring the content has already been taken pretty seriously, imagine if the result was that by doing so they had made content available to people that it should not legally be sold to.

  • Teeth #18 7 years ago

    Stupid cow must die!

  • Spiral #19 7 years ago

    hmmm, from the obvious joke that this matter is... I get more and more the strange feeling that it will have serious impact on game publishers and modders. a development that frightens me.

    In all honesty what I see happening is this: Publishers submitting a game for rating will have to declare everything that is on the disc, not just what is accessable via the game. Whether this will extend to commented out code or not I don't know, but even if it did it still wouldn't be a major issue.

  • rinoaMW #20 7 years ago

    there has to be a 'hidden' mini-game in GTA where you runover lawsuit screaming granny's within a time-limit...

    ...and if there's not, there should be! :)

  • Derblington #21 7 years ago

    There aren't any old or young people in GTA, are there?

  • PES_Fanboy #22 7 years ago

    The hot coffee section wasn't commented out code - that's the problem. They merely hid it fully formed and some geek found it.

    If the code was #ed out, then - at least for the PS2 version - there would be no way to access the modules as you obviously can't change code or decompile from a read-only disc.

  • rinoaMW #23 7 years ago

    it was commented out, thats why you need an action replay to unlock it for the PS2.

    theres no-way to find it in a normal un-modded version of GTA.

  • gaijin #24 7 years ago

    @ derblington

    yes, there are a few - I decapitated a mexican granny only the other day. Still looking for babies to sacrifice tho.

  • PES_Fanboy #25 7 years ago

    It wasn't commented out, it was merely just not accessible via the game logic - the code must have been 'live' in order to reference the area on the disc that it resided.

    Hidden and #ed out code are two separate things. One can't be accessed without reverse engineering and decompiling, and one can be found just by snooping around...

  • rinoaMW #26 7 years ago

    yes.. sorry, i assumed that when you said "They merely hid it fully formed and some geek found it" that you meant via the game..

    ..you're totally right of course, hidden and commented code are two seperate things .

  • angryTone #27 7 years ago

    Um, actually, I think we're a bit confused about our programming. If you comment code out of a program it will not be compiled at all. Which basically means that if Rockstar commented it out, it wouldn't be in the game code and you couldn't access it. Unless you wrote the entire Hot Coffee scene yourself- which is pretty unlikely.

    As far as I know, the Hot Coffee code was left in the program, but was disabled with a simple check of a variable. The modders changed this, and lo and behold, the scenes were unlocked. But there's absolutely no way that you can reverse engineer blocks of code that were commented out- as they aren't even in the compiled executable!

  • smelly #28 7 years ago

    angrytone, you forget most games are script based.

    But as I keep saying. Chances are they put the minigame in, realised it didnt play well, and only left it in as they thought they might come back to it to make it better.

    I cant for the life of me think they left such a crappy mini game in on purpose!

    Even then, the nudity was added (I understand) by the modders by changing the textures.

  • angryTone #29 7 years ago

    smelly- Good point. These games are evolving pretty fast these days ;-)

  • Nexus_6 #30 7 years ago

    What about the fact that the game takes its title from a serious crime in the first place? Grand Theft Auto (as a term) isnt as immediately connectected (in my mind) to crime - if they called it Car Thief, or whatever the term actually is over here you would see how the title must appear in america.

    Can you imagine the same (bitch) granny going in to a shop here, buying a game called Grievous Bodily Harm, or Car Thief Extravaganza or something then trying the same shite?

    I remember my gran got me presents like a jumper with a lego guy attached at the bottom that could pop on and off......nothing about serious crimes....

  • space_ace #31 7 years ago

    wonderful

  • KraftWerk #32 7 years ago

    I'm still wondering why we haven't seen flying pigs yet. They are far more likely than having anything blowing this much out of proportion.

  • yautja #33 7 years ago

    "Car Thief Extravagansa" is the funniest thing I've heard in days.

    Almost as funny as ignorant, shameless, greedy Americans. Sigh.

  • Mr_Whacker #34 7 years ago

    Well I think Take Two should account for this. They have brought a serious murder and theft simulator into disrepute.

    Seriously though someone should sue her for being a twat.

  • davyuk #35 7 years ago

    Gran heft veto?

    Bah... I'll never be a pun writer.

  • Feanor #36 7 years ago

    "Is God of War rated AO in the US, by the way?"

    Nope, only about 20 games have been rated AO by the ESRB. You can see a list of them by going to www.esrb.com and looking searching for games with an AO rating. Most of them are sex games you've never heard of, let alone played.

  • Freddy #37 7 years ago

    Totally unrelated:

    OMFG!!! Open Source Beer!!!!!!!!!

    htt p://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4718719.stm

  • space_ace #38 7 years ago

    look! a three-headed monkey!

  • Darth_Flibble #39 7 years ago

    It's a shame Harold shipman didn't pay her a visit.

    Stupid bint

  • Xerx3s #40 7 years ago

    Wait, so her gandson HACKS into the game and knowingly unlocks hidden game content, and SHE sues T2? T2 should sue HER for breaking the eula!

    "is seeking in excess of $5 million on behalf of herself and consumers nationwide." - Ah, good, so she will be sharing with anyone "damaged" by this game? How many copies have been sold? Lets say 1m, that would be a fiver each, forgetting about costs and such. Shes doing it for the "right reasons" so she should pay the costs and not look to make a profit, right?

    Is it just some kind of genetic defect that makes them have so many morons overthere?

  • AOFanboi #41 7 years ago

    She bought a Mature-rated game (17+) for a 14-year old. So she should be charged with something as well, methinks.

    Then again, growing up in the Bronx she probably thought it would be good training for his future carreer as a gangsta. :p

  • Kengro #42 7 years ago

    She's only in it for the money... F*** her