The only problem with this is that a game where you shoot people is Mature, but a bit of nookie is ADULTS ONLY YOU FILTY PERVERTS!!!1!

I don't see any problem with appropriate ratings on games, or asking retailers to stick to those ratings.

Well, since it's a hack, and adding something that (sort of) wasnt really there in the first place....

Say I were to download an episode of a TV show that had censored scenes. Then I manipulated the censored version to have the parts that were censored out. This suggestion would state that my actions after the fact should change the rating of the original show. That seems kinda absurd.

I used to play doom a bit. Once upon a time I installed the porno mod. While I'll admit doom certainly wasnt a kids game in the first place, there was certainly a difference between how acceptable the two versions of it were. Someone should make a porno mod for a Harry Potter game. Then they'll have to change the retail version's rating to AO, too.

I think a mature rating safely covers Nudity/sex in a video game since it's a 17+ rating, same as an R rated movie that contains sex scenes like Monsters Ball or brown Bunny. It's up to retailers to not sell restricted games/movies to under age kids and mostly parents to monitor what their kids are playing.

So basically what she is saying is that it is the company's fault for creating a game in which people can make mods, on their own, and it is the company's fault if the mods are offensive? So in theory we should sue artists from the 50s, and the grandchildren of classical musicians, because sometimes hiphop artists sample their songs and put violent or sexually charged lyrics to it?

Just because I don't feel like bucking tradition, I'm going to say that parents are in a far better position to protect kids from questionable content than politicians are. How about doing an ad campaign about videogame ratings just like they do for tv ratings and the v-chip? If parents weren't so clueless about stuff like that and didn't judge games based on whether or not the box art shows a tit...

And on the subject of the hot coffee mod, any kid with enough internet access to get it has probably downloaded worse stuff anyway. The same preventative measures parents take to keep their kids from unwittingly falling into cyber orgies should keep them from nudie hacks as well.

Not quite. there's some debate about whether the game as distributed contains the shagging, in a locked unaccesable form, or not.

how about we tell these people who have children from the age of 7 to 11 or whatever the news said who own this game and kick them in the teeth.

"i didnt know that billy had such a violent and explicit game."

of course not, billy is 7!!!!!!!!!

besides, you have to go and get this cut scene from the internet and download it into your gaming box. its not like its IN the game. (internet porn is so much easier to come across then this thing.)

Not to nit-pick, but the M rating on video games covers sexual content (ie - nudity), not explict sexual content (ie - porn). That's what the AO is for.

Also, Monster's Ball was rated R for showing nudity and sexual situations, while Brown Bunny was Unrated... because showing someone get blown would skip up right past an NC-17 rating straight to X.

Small, but important distinctions.

That said, yes, parents are absolutely responsible for what their kids buy, play and watch.

At the same time, the video game companies created a rating system for the most part (maybe even entirely) to deflect the heat they were getting from lawmakers and parents... but, dumbshits, their enforcement polices are ass.

If they were smart, they would have bent over backwards to try and pressure retailers into following them... when the heat came, they could have passed the buck faster than the politicians that created the pressure in the first place.

But they didn't... and now they shouldn't be acting surprised that laws, fines, and outrage is spinning their way.

PS - For the record, 1) I think parents should take a more active roll in their children's buying habits. 2) I'm all for creators trying to petal the most tasteless, bloody, boob-ridden uninspired pieces of shit that pass for video games these days... I'm a GTA player myself. 3) I'm okay with retailers and manufactuers getting their ass fined off for selling or promoting violent and sexual ridden games (movies, books, whatever) to kids.

They had their chance.

Hillary's just mad that everyone else is getting laid but her.

Next thing you know she'll approve of the invasion of Iraq. Oh wait, she did

I remember hearing about this a while back, but wasn't that "hack" just an unlock code for something that was already programmed in the game? That's quite a bit different from a mod if you ask me.

No, it wasn't. As said in the news article, the mod developers reverse engineered some of the code to create the mod, and Rockstar is not responsible for any of this mess. They should be able to keep their current rating.

I agree with you 100%. However, parents nowadays are too fucking lazy to monitor anything that their kids are doing. Parents want the government to raise their kids because they don't want to. So the government is exercising it's parental rights.

If my 7 yr old son (he's 2 now) wanted to play a game like GTA, I'd be like "Hell NO!" and if a store clerk SOLD my son a game like that, I would be pissed and taking the game back and wringing some necks. Parents don't want to be active unless it suits THEM.

Sure about that? I just googled for info about the "hot coffee" hack and this is what I found from the download page:

With this mod you will be able to unlock the uncensored
interactive sex-games with your girlfriends in San Andreas.
Rockstar build all this stuff in the game, but decided to
disable it in their final release for unknown reasons.
And now this mod enables these sex-games again, so now you
can enjoy the full experience.