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Not that the ESRB had too much credibility to begin with, but today it lost all what remained. The video game rating agency has decided to re-rate Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from "Mature" to "Adults Only". For those who didn't follow the story, this is what happened: A hack for the game, called Hot Coffee was released by an anonymous gamer. This hack, when installed, allowed people playing the game to have sex with their girlfriend (a movie of the action is available here). All politicians act enraged, and pressure the ESRB to change its rating of the game. ESRB does so, and says that Considering the existence of the undisclosed and highly pertinent content on the final discs, compounded by the broad distribution of the third party modification, the credibility and utility of the initial ESRB rating has been seriously undermined."

Now let's back up for a second. The Grand Theft Auto series started a trend of ultra-violent video games, where you play a street-level gang member. The game allowed to kill people, including prostitutes that the player didn't want to pay, and cops. Drug dealing and trafficking, robberies and carjackings were even more common. While some people blamed the game for real-life killings, the ESRB (and the majority of politicians) did nothing. However, as soon as a little skin is shown and the player engages in consensual sex with his girlfriend, quite possibly the only display of love in this violent series, everybody runs amok. It's good to know where people's priorities are...
July 21, 2005 at 3:48 am GMT by Jozef