NY DA's Office Going After Makers Of Grand Theft Auto... On Anything It Can Find

from the odd-requests dept

Mon, Jun 26th 2006 6:33pm — Mike Masnick

It's no secret that politicians absolutely love to bash Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive for putting out Grand Theft Auto. It's practically become an annual past time when they want to stir up some publicity without doing much useful. Now, it appears that the courts are getting involved with New York County's district attorney's office sending some subpoenas to Take-Two. However, it seems like a pretty clear fishing trip, because they're sending out subpoena for totally unrelated items. They want to look at a bunch of accounting/financial info... and they want evidence on how much Take-Two knew about the now infamous Hot Coffee mod. That would be the modification that let people who were playing a game that's all about stealing cars, violence, prostitution and murder, also engage in some cartoonish consensual sex. Apparently, all the criminal activity is no problem. However, consensual sex is a serious no-no. It's hard to see how the financial questions and Hot Coffee are related -- but the DA's office has decided that looking into both things is important.

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17 Comments

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wow, 26 Jun 2006 @ 7:34pm

this is so pathetic. (the DA)
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Eric, 26 Jun 2006 @ 7:38pm

Stupid
Politicians are so lame. Holy than thou dirtbags.
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Mr.T, 26 Jun 2006 @ 7:45pm

B.S.
of all the other important stuff that they should be focusing on, they waste time on this crap. Maybe they should get more involved with the WTC memorial than this.
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Sohrab, 26 Jun 2006 @ 7:48pm

Member Gay Marrige and GTA is far more important then our budget problem. Good thing atleast we accomplished the Iraq war a few years ago. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
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DB, 26 Jun 2006 @ 7:51pm

My guess
My guess is that they are going to try and use a "distributing pornagraphic material to minors" angle, and the financial information is just so they know how much money they made doing so. Either "Take-Two make 1.2 BILLION DOLLARS exploiting our INNOCENT CHILDREN!", or they are just looking for a profit amount so they can seek 'reasonable' damages.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2006 @ 8:07pm

I hate politicians
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kj, 26 Jun 2006 @ 8:40pm

Re:
i'm going to go buy my copy of GTA tomorrow.....
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I, for one, 26 Jun 2006 @ 8:52pm

What do they hate about it?
Our culture is built on violence. It's our greatest export. In just about any Hollywood film you will witness every concievable sickness, torture, rape, gun violence, money lust, reckless endangerment of human life, dismemberments and mutilations, racism, bigotry... we positively celebrate the darkness of human existence and relish our faults and fears. And it's mirrored in our reality, at home and abroad.

Interestingly GTA is a very freeform game. Nobody says you have to shoot at people. You don't have to murder prostitutes. You don't have to rob the store. You can if you want to, but you don't *have to* to enjoy or score well in the game. In fact the gameplay penalises violence, the more reckless and thoughtless you are the more difficult it becomes.

If you agree with these points put these two things together. Now ask yourself this question in reponse to "It's no secret that politicians absolutely love to bash Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive for putting out Grand Theft Auto."

What is it that these "politicians" hate about GTA?

Is it the violence? No
Is it the sex? No

In my opinion it is that they hate freedom. The game doesn't have enough constraints for their tiny minds. They reveal themselves as the pschologically fucked up, repressed freaks they really are.
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Sean, 26 Jun 2006 @ 10:11pm

Well now..
Well if does seem to be an annual event now a days. Looking back on some research I did a few years ago for an English Term Essay I found that Violence and Sex don't actually do ANYTHING to you. I just don't get what these fuck nuts are trying to do. Everyone can see that they're wrong (except those parents with the mentally disturbed kids [because of their parents]).

The DA is just a bunch of stupid politicians that are trying to get fake publicity, but they won't really need it soon as people will finally clue in to their bullshit and find a way to stop this, causing bad publicity :)

That's my two cents.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2006 @ 11:21pm

Re: Re:
This is what everyone's so excited about..
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ticket_to_hell
I'm just glad Hillary was there to save us all.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2006 @ 1:12am

Sorry
Let me be the first to appologies for any problems the politians from my state cause for GTA fans. Secondly I would like to say I'm not voting for Clinton b/c of this Hot Coffee b/s. On that note, if you don't like politicians then become one and get the dirty scumbags out. My ending thought addresses the youth of America. If you are old enough to vote please do. Old people vote and they get what they want, and usually don't get screwed. So if you all voted we could acutally fix this messed up country and bring it into the 21st centry.
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DigitalRAGE, 27 Jun 2006 @ 1:15am

Re: Sorry
To hell with "Anonymous Coward" b/s.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2006 @ 1:56am

postal
Its funny that GTA gets all the publicity in this stuff. Games like Postal 2 that can be a little more violent (like setting people on fire with gasoline) dont get as much attention.
Oh, sorry, I forgot Postal doesnt have sexual content as gta.
;)
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Dylan, 27 Jun 2006 @ 2:17am

10 years
In 10 years we will see tons of this

(50's = no saying "damn")
(21c = everyone is gay and we swear alot but no sex in rated m games.)
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Boo, 27 Jun 2006 @ 5:08am

irony
their morality bashing is actually driving UP sales of the game. It's an old game by now and it would be long forgotten were it not for people like this trying to float their political career on paranoid concerns of over anxious parenthood by bringing it back into the media over and over and over.

...actually - it's not ironic. it would be ironic if they were actually trying to quash the game by doing this. Do you honestly think the give a damn?

so more energy, resources and political investment has been put into publically harassing the makers of a game about gang warfare then there has been about getting real guns off the real streets and out of the hands of real gangs. THERE'S your irony!

but that's the states all over - 21 to drink, and 18 to be sent to war to blow the shite out of some distant enemy that has been deamonised by political properganda whose real basis is in the protection of large oil concerns - all in the name of political backing and another term in office... respect: 0
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Gabriel Tane (profile), 27 Jun 2006 @ 6:55am

Thank you, politicians...
"i'm going to go buy my copy of GTA tomorrow....."
-kj

On behalf of Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive (with whom I have NO AFFILIATION), I would like to extend a warm and hearty "thank you" to all of the politicians that are fighting to keep our children safe. And an especially large "thank you" to Miss (Miss? Mrs.?) Clinton for personally taking this on as a crusade.

It means so much to RG & TTI that they can be provided with that modern American dream: free advertising and publicity. And, if I was in their shoes, I'd be proud, yes proud, that I was the cause of the MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FACING OUR COUNTRY TODAY!

So, to all of the politicians and especially Hillary Clinton, a thank you gift is on the way... and none too soon, I might add. Hopefully, this gift can be put to good use and I wish you the best of it. Your FRICKIN CLUE should arrive soon. (SWEET JEEBUS, let it arrive soon).
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anonymous coward, 27 Jun 2006 @ 10:13am

If Luther Campbell and 2LiveCrew knew what the PMRC would do for their careers, they would have funded the organization out of their own pockets. I would love to see a chart of "Nasty As They Want To Be" album sales before and after Tipper went tilting at windmills...
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