Rockstar Blames Hackers For Hidden Sex Acts In Game
Rockstar Games is still facing heavy criticism for what was originally thought to be a special code that unlocked secret explicit sex acts among characters inside the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game. Rockstar says they did not put explicit sex acts in the game and blames the hidden sex acts on a hack called the Hot Coffee modification. Slashdot reports
that Rockstar has issued the following statement
explaining how the Hot Coffee modication took place.
"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," reads the statement. "In
violation of the software user agreement, hackers created the 'hot coffee'
modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering
the game's source code. Since the 'hot coffee' scenes cannot be created
without intentional and significant technical modifications and reverse
engineering of the game's source code, we are currently investigating
ways that we can increase the security protection of the source code
and prevent the game from being altered by the 'hot coffee' modification."
Despite Rockstar's hacker defense, Gamespot.com
reports that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) will call on the
Federal Trade Commission to launch an inquiry into the Hot Coffee
mod.
Clinton, a vociferous critic of violence in the media, will be joined by David
Walsh, president and founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family;
Mary Bissell, fellow at the New America Foundation; and Kiersten Stewart,
director of public policy for the Family Violence Prevention Fund.
Clinton is expected to call on the FTC to determine who is responsible for the
Hot Coffee mod, a modification that unlocks sexually explicit minigames in
Rockstar's recently published PC version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
While the game is rated M, and therefore not readily sold to those below the
age of 17, the mod is easily available online.
IGNIQ.com
reports that the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) has also
launched an investigation into the content of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
It will be important to determine if Rockstar is correct that a group
of hackers was able to modify the game and insert lewd content.
If games can be modified easily from the outside then other video games might
face similar problems in the future.
