GTA: San Andreas: Do Hidden Sex Scenes Cross the Obscenity Threshold?
Did game mod makers inadvertently hand video game opponents the means to get restrictive legislation past constitutional challenges?
Those following the political scene know that laws restricting video game sales to minors are currently under serious consideration in Illinois, North Carolina, Michigan, California, and Washington, D.C. To date, however, no such legislation has survived a constitutional challenge. Nor did that seem likely to change. In fact, during his E3 keynote, ESA President Doug Lowenstein confidently stated, "...video games are under attack by politicians in states across the country...but all of these proposals to ban game sales are unjustified, unnecessary, unconstitutional...they will never be enacted... "
Up until now the video game industry's legal ace-in-the-hole has been the fact that courts have consistently held video game violence to be a form of expression that is protected speech under the First Amendment. In fact, the only speech that minors can legally be kept from is obscenity. Thus, municipal and state governments can pass laws restricting minors from, say, being admitted to a XXX movie or sold a copy of Hustler. They have not, at least not yet, successfully passed a law that prevents a kid from buying GTA:SA. The retailer may choose not to sell GTA:SA to the minor, but that is store policy, not law. A clerk who sells GTA:SA to a 10-year old might be fired, but not arrested, since the the game may be violent and profane, but doesn't meet the community standard for obscenity.
Got all that? If not, there is an excellent video discussion of this topic by a pair of lawyers who testified before the Washington, D.C. City Council on Wednesday. Note that the video runs almost four hours. The attorneys make their case in the last 45 minutes or so, in case you want to zip ahead.
So who are the modders and where do they come into the GTA:SA picture? Modders are serious, tech-savvy gamers who like to tweak their favorite titles. Perhaps you've heard of, or played, or are addicted to Counter-strike, the best-known mod of all time. The ultra-popular multiplayer shooter was built by fans on top of the source code for Valve's Half-life.
While surfing the popular game blog Kotaku earlier this week, GamePolitics came across an item titled, GTA Sex Authentic and Unlocked?. It reads, in part:
"It's starting to look like the sex in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was in fact real. A group of modders have released a hack that will unlock the sex in the PC version of the game. Having not actually installed it yet I don't know if this is a unlock hack or more of a sex mod."
Kotaku links readers to GTA SanAnreasNet, where users can download raunchy, animated sex videos that are clearly taking place in the GTA:SA world. The video features nudity, simulated oral sex, and simulated sexual intercourse in a variety of positions. It's definitely too hot for television, and almost certainly for your workplace. The sex animations surely would have earned GTA:SA an "AO" (adults only) rating if the ESRB had known about their inclusion in the game.
And that's the sticking point. While the modders claim that they didn't alter, but simply unlocked, images in the game, that fact has not yet been confirmed - or denied - by either Rockstar or its parent company, Take 2 Interactive.
Over at fan site GTA Garage, the GTA:SA mod listing has been viewed over 200,000 times since it was posted last week. The description reads as follows:
"With this mod you will be able to unlock the uncensored interactive sex-games with your girlfriends in San Andreas. Rockstar build all this stuff in the game, but decided to disable it in their final release for unknown reasons. And now this mod enables these sex-games again, so now you can enjoy the full experience..."
"The girlfriends will now be completely nude..."
"After the first release of this mod, I got a lot of requests from people that wanted the uncensored action...Hammer83 came up with a much better idea: he created a tool ("sacensor.exe" that will let
you switch just the "censored"-flag, either in a running game or in a savefile on disk. "
If the mod sites are correct, it seems that the uncensored sex scenes can be found in all three versions of GTA:SA: PlayStation 2, PC, and Xbox.
If - and it is still a huge "if" - Rockstar built the hidden sex scenes into GTA:SA, that might just be enough to have a court agree that GTA:SA is obscene, and therefore eligible for a legal ban on sales to minors. Not for violence, but for sex.
If you know more about the GTA:SA hidden videos, please use the comment feature to share.
GamePolitics can't escape the feeling that Doug Lowenstein was talking about Rockstar in his E3 keynote when he said, "We've all seen games that depict content which is constitutionally protected artistic expression and yet which also raises the question of whether it really was necessary to realize the designer's artistic vision...it is fair for critics, and us, to ask whether everything that is cool and pushes the envelope is, in fact, creatively necessary."
UPDATE, JUNE 19th: A reader pointed us to an excellent Wiki on the GTA:SA Hot Coffee mod. Thanks!