It's the spirit of the recall, that it is happening precisely because people had to go out of their way of the game-as-released (and the game-as-released is what was rated by the ESRB originally) to get the "obscene" minigame to happen at all.
To suggest that the ESRB should have full access to all of the game's source code, even routines that ended up not being used (and I'd assume there are more benign bloat routines too), is placing an undue burden on the rights of a private company on whether or not they need to disclose all relevant or irrelevant information, shared or proprietary information, that it is quite reasonable to assume could harm business practices under a doctrine of full disclosure. They didn't tell ESRB that the minigame code was in the game, because it wasn't in the game in any way that could be accessed via ToS-compliant use within the boundaries of the game's design. There wasn't a button-combination cheat code to activate it, there wasn't (AFAIK) any publication by Rockstar to their customers that the code had been left on the discs. It was the game hacking community that did their own detective work and discovered something that should have been removed from the source code, but which could not be accessed in any sanctioned way.
Note: I said it in my post, and I'll quote it again - "And it was stupider to not scrub it from the source code before public release." Do I think the minigame code should have ever been burned to the public discs in the first place? Hell no. That was a definite mistake on Rockstar's part. But to punish Rockstar for the actions of their customers when it was the customers, not Rockstar, that created a hack to turn on the code and it was the customers who then distributed and promoted knowledge of the hack, is definitely unfair to Rockstar.
I would be perfectly satisfied with Rockstar willingly changing the entirety of the source code to remove the minigame routine (and any other unused bloat), and for any games shipped to stores hereafter, using the minigame-free discs. It would be one thing if Rockstar themselves acknowledged that there was code in the game, which could be accessed via a mod in the outside community, that some might find offensive (though I don't think the images are any more offensive than your average DoA tit-jiggle-physics-engine), and they will gladly replace any previously purchased versions with the new one. It's quite another thing to have discussion on the floors of Congress over what Rockstar MUST do.
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After typing in all of the above, it hit me what bugs me so much about this. It is yet another nail in the coffin of Personal Responsibility.
The code is on the disc, fine. But without assuming Personal Responsibility to access the code, it remains hidden and useless.
If parents are oblivious that their 15 year old son is curious and even interested in the notion of sex (!), they need to take a little Personal Responsibility to better shelter their child (not that I'd actually advocate such a thing), or better yet to explain sexuality in a way that makes it so that acknowledging sex happens is healthy and searching for little whiffs of it hidden in video games becomes irrelevant; else, they could just accept that junior is interested, and as long as he's just playing video games and not engaging in any risky sexual activity himself, there's really nothing dangerous going on.
The nation is being legislated and coddled into a society of helpless infants in perpetual need of hand-holding. (And before you perk up too much, I am not playing partisan here. I recognize Hillary Clinton is currently in the fore of the Senate push to spank Rockstar, and I recognize that just as much morality-based legislation in the past sixty years stems from traditionally poor, black, thoroughly Democratic voting "won't somebody think of the children" Baptists, as it does from privileged Republican WASPs)
To suggest that the ESRB should have full access to all of the game's source code, even routines that ended up not being used (and I'd assume there are more benign bloat routines too), is placing an undue burden on the rights of a private company on whether or not they need to disclose all relevant or irrelevant information, shared or proprietary information, that it is quite reasonable to assume could harm business practices under a doctrine of full disclosure. They didn't tell ESRB that the minigame code was in the game, because it wasn't in the game in any way that could be accessed via ToS-compliant use within the boundaries of the game's design. There wasn't a button-combination cheat code to activate it, there wasn't (AFAIK) any publication by Rockstar to their customers that the code had been left on the discs. It was the game hacking community that did their own detective work and discovered something that should have been removed from the source code, but which could not be accessed in any sanctioned way.
Note: I said it in my post, and I'll quote it again - "And it was stupider to not scrub it from the source code before public release." Do I think the minigame code should have ever been burned to the public discs in the first place? Hell no. That was a definite mistake on Rockstar's part. But to punish Rockstar for the actions of their customers when it was the customers, not Rockstar, that created a hack to turn on the code and it was the customers who then distributed and promoted knowledge of the hack, is definitely unfair to Rockstar.
I would be perfectly satisfied with Rockstar willingly changing the entirety of the source code to remove the minigame routine (and any other unused bloat), and for any games shipped to stores hereafter, using the minigame-free discs. It would be one thing if Rockstar themselves acknowledged that there was code in the game, which could be accessed via a mod in the outside community, that some might find offensive (though I don't think the images are any more offensive than your average DoA tit-jiggle-physics-engine), and they will gladly replace any previously purchased versions with the new one. It's quite another thing to have discussion on the floors of Congress over what Rockstar MUST do.
...
After typing in all of the above, it hit me what bugs me so much about this. It is yet another nail in the coffin of Personal Responsibility.
The code is on the disc, fine. But without assuming Personal Responsibility to access the code, it remains hidden and useless.
If parents are oblivious that their 15 year old son is curious and even interested in the notion of sex (!), they need to take a little Personal Responsibility to better shelter their child (not that I'd actually advocate such a thing), or better yet to explain sexuality in a way that makes it so that acknowledging sex happens is healthy and searching for little whiffs of it hidden in video games becomes irrelevant; else, they could just accept that junior is interested, and as long as he's just playing video games and not engaging in any risky sexual activity himself, there's really nothing dangerous going on.
The nation is being legislated and coddled into a society of helpless infants in perpetual need of hand-holding. (And before you perk up too much, I am not playing partisan here. I recognize Hillary Clinton is currently in the fore of the Senate push to spank Rockstar, and I recognize that just as much morality-based legislation in the past sixty years stems from traditionally poor, black, thoroughly Democratic voting "won't somebody think of the children" Baptists, as it does from privileged Republican WASPs)
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