Paul Frew
No more GTA games?
June 11th 2006 04:51
Boy have Take-Two Interactive been given a battering lately with the United States Federal Trading Commission (FTC) warning them to disclose any content or information in advertising/packaging of their future games which may influence the rating of the game or face the consequences. Consequences include a fine of US$11,000 per title sold which infringes the rules set out by the FTC. Yes you heard me right… for every title sold…meaning San Andreas which sold 7.27 million copies in the US would have resulted in a fine total of over US$80 billion had this law been in affect earlier!
This follows the ‘Hot-Coffee’ scandal that is related to the Rockstar game GTA: San Andreas which saw players able to play hidden ‘sex games’ (with the use of modifications) which prompted a removal of the game from the shelves, editing and release with a higher rating.
The warning is quite severe, and Take-Two have been on its tiptoes lately by recently axing a violent title name Snow, which saw players take control of a upcoming drug dealer in a gameplay nature similar to that of GTA. In my view, the next GTA title in the series – GTA 4, will be testing step for Rockstar considering the implications that all violent and explicit content has to be declared and rated appropriately. Any mistake on their behalf would result in a whooping fine.
For gamers in Australia (like myself), we will be affected dearly since whatever happens in the States relating to game classifications, usually follows through here. Even worse, there is no R rating for games in Australia (unlike AO 18 classification in the US), and we might not even see such games hit our shore. On the other hand, game developers have succumbed to the media and laws and have resultantly modified the content of their games and dulled the violence in order to acquire a lower rating and hence sell the game (and gather their profits). Take Two will also do the same (as they have done in the past) and at the end of the day I think we will still see such games like GTA 4 make it to our shops.
Source: GameSpot news
Screenshot taken from TeamXbox.
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