Hot Coffee was controversial WHY?

[RayB]

OK I know this is yesterday's news, but last night I finally got to a point in San Andreas (PS2) where, well, I got to see new parts of the game.

[shmokes]

Not all of the sex scenes in hot coffee feature fully clothed women.  In fact, they generally feature nearly or fully naked women.  It is essentially like a cartoon version of late-night Cinemax.  No penetration.

That said, I agree that changing the rating from what is supposed to be the equivalent of R to the equivalent of X or at least NC-17, over Hot Coffee is absurd.  It was political pressure, pure and simple.  Hot Coffee is the least of Grand Theft Auto's inappropriate content.

I beat the game about a week ago, btw.  I consider it one of the greatest games in the history of gaming.

[paigeoliver]

This was controversial only because of the fact that the game was also a big console title, and morons can't tell the difference between console titles and computer titles. The average computer gamer is a lot older than the average console gamer. They have to be, a decent gaming computer costs 4 or 5 times what a console does.

I didn't realize COMPUTER games even had ratings, I thought that was for console games.

[ChadTower]

It was controversial because a couple of big name politicians used it for a photo op weeklong platform issue.  Had they not mentioned it, the media wouldn't have cared, Congress wouldn't have cared, and most people would never have learned about it.

[RayB]

Not all of the sex scenes in hot coffee feature fully clothed women.

[Felsir]

That is part of how absurd the thing got. The scenes weren't accessable in the regular version. You had to apply a patch - by my book that means the person is willingly changing content that could affect its' rating. Games should be rated on their content accessable out-of-the-box, not after applying some patch.
The first (and probably the other) Tomb Raider game had a patch to see a naked Lara Croft. Dead or Alive volleyball had a patch to see the girls in the nude. In all these cases one had to apply a patch to get to the content.
From what I understand, in these cases the publisher/developer is accountable for a mod the user applies to the software?

[ChadTower]

The publisher isn't responsible for an unauthorized patch, but they are responsible for content on the disc, accessible or not.  I agree that it was stupid but Rockstar made a calculated marketing gamble by leaving that there and it backfired on them in a big, big way.