WASHINGTON
(By Seth Schiesel, NYTimes) July 21, 2005 - Under pressure from Democratic
senators, the board that rates video games assigned the latest installment of
the Grand Theft Auto series an adults-only label yesterday, effectively
removing it from the shelves of most major retail stores.The decision comes a few weeks after independent programmers uncovered a sexually suggestive scene that the game's creators say was never meant to be seen.
The board's president, Patricia Vance, said yesterday that the move was the first time in years that the group, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, had changed the rating for a game that had already been released. The rating was changed to "Adults Only" from "Mature," which is meant to signal appropriateness for players 17 and older.
Several top video game retailers, including Wal-Mart and Target, said yesterday that they would no longer sell the current version of the game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Like the motion picture ratings system, the video game's review system is nominally voluntary but usually compulsory in practice. Just as major movie theater chains almost always refuse to exhibit NC-17 movies, most mainstream retailers refuse to stock adults-only games.
The game's developer, Rockstar Games, which is owned by Take-Two Interactive, said yesterday that it would stop making the current version of the game and would release a new version as soon as possible.
Fueled by a mix of freewheeling play and rough-and-tumble urban motifs, the Grand Theft Auto series has become one of the world's most popular game franchises. According to the NPD Group, a market research firm, the game had sold more than 21 million copies since 2001 and had generated $924 million in revenue for Rockstar Games.
Even as game players, mostly young men, have flocked to the series, politicians have singled it out for its violence and sexually suggestive material.
The franchise's latest installment, San Andreas, has sold almost six million copies since its release in October but has drawn close scrutiny in recent weeks after independent game enthusiasts uncovered a sex-oriented "minigame" that had been hidden in the program's code.
To unlock the hidden scene, a user must download a program from the Internet known as Hot Coffee that was created by fans of the game. The scene depicts mostly clothed digital people performing sex movements.
"An artist makes a painting, then doesn't like the first version and paints over the canvas with a new painting, right?" said Rodney Walker, a spokesman for Rockstar Games. "That's what happened here. Hackers on the Internet made a program that scratches the canvas to reveal an earlier draft of the game."
Yesterday's decision by the rating board is sure to fuel tension between game companies and a subset of their players, known as modders, who make modifications for their favorite titles. Many companies, including Rockstar, have traditionally encouraged modders as a way of extending the life and relevance of their games.
But yesterday's action may also encourage publishers to make their games less alterable so that they are not held responsible for the changes that modders make or the old code that they unearth.
In a statement, Take-Two said that it was considering legal action against companies that help game players change the content.
Game players can buy devices on Web sites that allow them to alter games for consoles like Sony's PlayStation 2 that are impossible for normal users to change. On personal computers, users can change their games without special hardware.
Ms. Vance, the board's president, said that the mere presence of the Hot Coffee scene on the game disc, even in locked form, was cause to change the rating.
"This is the first time that we have dealt with a third-party modification and this raises a number of issues that we as an industry will have to deal with," Ms. Vance said.
"We want to make it very clear to publishers that they must clean up their product before shipping it," she said. "In the past they may have included content on the disc that they never intended the audience to access, but now hackers have sophisticated tools to unlock this stuff and the publishers have to be sure to either disclose the material to us or delete it."
Yesterday's move came as the industry and the ratings board have come under increasing political pressure. After reports about the modification, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, called on the Federal Trade Commission last week to investigate the game's earlier mature rating.
Mr. Walker of Rockstar said the company intended to release a new version of the game without the Hot Coffee code as soon as possible.
Ms. Vance said such a move would restore the Mature rating, and a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said that her company would almost certainly restock the new version.
Nonetheless, Take-Two lowered its financial forecast for its year that ends in October.
The company said it expected net sales for the year of $1.26 billion to $1.31 billion, down from an earlier forecast of $1.3 billion to $1.35 billion. The company said it expected earnings of $1.05 to $1.12 a share, down from an earlier forecast of $1.40 to $1.47 a share.
