Hot Water Over "Hot Coffee"

If you watch CNN, no doubt you've heard of the "Hot Coffee" Mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Here's the scoop for the uninitiated...

Grand Theft Auto is a mature rated video game released for the Playstation 2, X-Box and PC. The game got its mature rating by the ESRB for some pretty serious violent content. Having played the game myself, I can tell you it's not presented in any serious fashion. Basically you play a street thug trying to gain rank in organized crime. This requires you to go on missions which involve stealing cars and killing people.

The Hot Coffee Mod was, as far as I can tell, written by a fellow calling himself PatrickW. The mod unlocks some pornographic content in the game. The content was hidden in the game code - perhaps as a joke, or perhaps abandoned game code left in there for whatever reason. The only way to access it is by unlocking it with a third party mod.

The ESRB changed GTA's rating from Mature to Adults Only. Wal-Mart, Gamestop and several other large retailers have pulled the game off their shelves (at an estimated 50,000,000 dollar revenue loss I might add). Rockstar Games has not fought any of this, and they have agreed to pull the content out of the game code making it suitable for a mature rating again.

The only reason Rock Star is getting hammered is because the content was buried in the game code somewhere. The content is NOT ACCESSIBLE without the Hot Coffee Mod. I'm not sure why Rock Star is responsible for 3rd party software, but it is nice of them to remove the code.

Enter Jack Thompson, who runs www.stopkill.com. Jack Thompson is a Miami attorney who has it out for video games. He brags about being voted one of the ACLU's "top ten" censors of the year. Jack Thompson believes that violent video games cause kids, or anyone playing them for that matter, to act violently. Since GTA is one of the most violent games out there, he's jumping all over this one.

I recently found an interview with Mr. Thompson on CBSNews.com's GameCore column. In the interview, Thompson states that GTA series "has sold 30 million units, with San Andreas expected to hit 20 million on its own." Fair enough, apparently the game is popular.

Next question:
How many hate or violent crimes would you say are linked to or directly related to violence in video games?

I have no earthly idea, and no one can guess at that. I can tell you that some crimes would not occur but for the violent entertainment. For the families of the deceased, that is the only statistic that matters.

OK, Mr. Thompson has stated that he has no earthly idea how many violent crimes and linked to video games. How does one get anything accomplished in court without any proof?

Next Question:
According to the Center for Child Death Review, 1,242 kids were murdered with guns and 174 children died from accidental firearm-related injuries in 2000. Aside from stories that get covered in the news [like Columbine], there are few, if any, actual statistics that show how many children's deaths are directly linked to video games. Do the facts speak for themselves? Or is it just that nobody is really keeping tabs?

The federal government found that in the school year 2003, there were 48 school killings. The year before that there were 16, and the year before that 17. Something is going on. I submit that the video game generation is coming of age.

Despite the fact that he just solved child violence issues with no information to back up his claims, I want to spend some time dealing with numbers here. Grand Theft Auto is the number one selling video game series and the most violent to boot (I'll admit to that) selling a record 30 million units. 30 MILLION is an awfully big number. AT LEAST 30 million people are playing GTA and that not including roommates, siblings, friends, and people who stole the game. Over 30 million people are playing the brain rot that is violent video games and, what's this? 48 school killings? Lets see, how many times does 48 go into 30 million... 625,000 times. Man, these games are working slowly. 625,000 times more people are going to have to jump on their PS2's and get angry!

The point I'm trying to make is that, numerically, there is no evidence that games are making kids violent. People like Jack Thompson are loud, and people listen to him even though he doesn't know what he's talking about. By creating an outlet for violent behavior, violence in video games could be helping the problem instead of hurting it. I know I feel better when I blast a few demons on Doom 3 after a hard days work.

Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Hillary Clinton are jumping on the political bandwagon. The government is surprisingly good at regulating imaginary violence, but they're not so good at regulating the actual violence they are responsible for. Maybe the kids are sick of getting picked on at school. Maybe they're watching too much CNN, where they show hours and hours of real violence (every time a bomb goes off on TV, someone is DYING).

I understand that Jack Thompson is attacking The Sims now due to a third party mod that removes the naked Sim blur effect, exposing The Sims for what they really are: anatomically incorrect Barbi Dolls.