By now, it's all but certain that Take-Two Interactive wishes it had never made its hit title Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas mod-able by users. The latest—and surprisingly tardy—development comes courtesy of the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, which has filed a lawsuit (PDF) in Los Angeles Superior Court accusing the developer of unfair business practices and making "misleading statements" in its marketing of the game.
First, a recap of the whole sordid mess. Early in the summer of 2005, word hit the street that there was a mod available for GTA: San Andreas that allowed the main character to get his mack on with any number of poorly-rendered ladies. The resulting game action was rather explicit, albeit cartoonish, and went far beyond the pale of the M for Mature rating bestowed on the title by the ESRB. Rockstar and Take-Two initially said that Hot Coffee was the result of "a determined group of hackers," but the ESRBalong with just about everybody elsedidn't buy the explanation, and revoked the game's M rating. Rockstar ended up releasing a patch to remove the mod's functionality after the ESRB yanked its M rating and retailers pulled the title off store shelves. The company subsequently reissued a version with no Hot Coffee.
Since the Hot Coffee debacle, the ESRB has made changes to its rating system, requiring developers to document all content, hidden and otherwise.
In the suit, the LA City Attorney's Office says that Rockstar's and Take-Two's failure to disclose the existence of the additional game content falls into the category of unfair business practices because it allowed the title to escape an all-but-certain Adults Only rating. In a statement, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo pilloried Take-Two for the Hot Coffee mod:
"Greed and deception are part of the 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' story — and in that respect, its publishers are not much different from the characters in their story," LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said in a statement Thursday. "Businesses have an obligation to truthfully disclose the content of their products —whether in the food we eat or the entertainment we consume."
The City of LA is seeking a percentage of the profits from the Hot Coffee version of GTA: SA along with an unspecified fine. According to the LA City Attorney's Office, 12 million copies were sold prior to the discovery of Hot Coffee, with over 200,000 those being sold in California.
The timing of the lawsuit is curious, coming over half of a year after the existence of Hot Coffee was discovered. Delgadillo is currently embroiled in a primary campaign for the California State Attorney General position. Given the amount of publicity lawmakers and other elected officials enjoy with their misguided attempts to crack down on video games, it's fair to wonder if the suit is a ploy to raise Delgadillo's profile in the primary race for the Attorney General's office. Still, the possibility of legal action and heavy fines might be enough to make other developers think twice about dropping ratings-busting content into future titles.
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