So this is the SOB responsible for the whole mess...

... hang him.

Does he have ANY idea what he started with that mess?!?!?

Rockstar loves all the attention they got from that.

I never did see this.

I missed out on that whole ordeal, I played GTA:SA for 30 minutes before I couldn't stand the graphics/sound and gave up playing it.

I recall trying to sell back the game at GameStop & they wouldn't take it because it was flagged.

@Enigma_20XX: ...if it wasn't him, someone ELSE would have discovered it! He simply stumbled upon it.

It's a shame that the game had to be recalled and/or re-rated as a result of some innocent hackers. I wish America wasn't so afraid of sex.

Heh heh. It really was blown WAY out of proportion. Either way, I really don't want to see poorly-rendered human forms gettin' it on in (what I'm sure is) a crappy rhythm minigame. I'd rather just have Rockstar do away with the whole girlfriend thing altogether. It's way too much to keep up with and really bothersome when you have to stop what you're doing to take some chick on a stupid date that consists solely of driving around sometimes.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents on the issue.

@Enigma_20XX: Not really... It only affected little kids that couldn't buy it and gave Rockstar more time in the spotlight to hype their upcoming games.

I would laugh if he finds another hot coffee hidden content in GTAIV, but I doubt that. Rockstar won't go that far and call on the wrath of "STOCK-HOLDER/ Attorney JACK THOMPSON"

They should send him a free copy. The publicity he generated is more than enough to warrant a free game...that and a position at Rockstar R&D Dept.

If I was this guy, I don't know what I would have done. I would have seen the negative media reaction coming, but I wouldn't have known if it would be good for Rockstar or not. I can't imagine the responsibility that comes with uncovering something like this (even if the code was not accessible without a codebreaker device and technically wasn't Rockstar's responsibility).

@eastx: Yeah. Kind of funny how we'd advocate violence over sex. "Let's not make babies, stop em from being conceived." Just kidding, must be that teen pregnancy rate. But honestly, other countries are probably the opposite. They block out violence and have excessive amounts of sex.

Meh ... kid looks like an ahole.

I know know 'cuz we can smell our own kind. Though, I'm not a thieving bastard and thus, am still alive.

Huge success all around, IMNSHO.

I've never understood the whole Hot Coffee thing.. I remember seeing someone play through Farenheit on the PS2 before, and that had like 3 sex scenes just on that one path through the game that I saw

@Enigma_20XX: Jack?

@Enigma_20XX: you were thinking of Rupert Murdoch

Pixel pr0n.

More reasons why people need lives.

I hear that in GTA IV they're putting in the "Luke-warm coffee" mod.

@kyosuke9999: It was pretty silly. It was about as society-threatening as the Janet Jackson tit slip and got just as much attention. I guess there was a war going on somewhere in the world that wasn't exactly unfolding as they planned, and they badly wanted to draw our attention away from it or something.

well the fault itsn't hacker's one, that dumb rockstar coders had to do an "#IFDEF debug #DEFINE hotcoffee" on the code instead of compiling it also on the release version.
A lot of guys made trainers, mods or hacked versions for games, it's this way almost from the Commodore 64 era, so if you're making a big commercial title it's 100% sure that someone will search around assets and hex code, and so it's sure that someone will discover your hidden stuff

@apartment42: Wrong story?

that comment sounds like its for the story right under this one.

@Collapse The Control:
Haha... I just played with the bugs because the missions never worked. I'd try to spray paint and get paralysed, I'd go to kick off a mission and get in a car - before I was supposed to, freezing the game, I'd hit the brakes on a bicycle and wedge it permanently halfway into the street, I'd look directly at dozens of cops materializing out of thin air in the middle of nowhere trying to stop me, I'd get shot while indoors by cops who were outside and could see and shoot through opaque walls... mission mode was pointless to even attempt (shocking since it rocked in Vice City...)

But it was fun using a gun to jump 5 storeys on a bicycle and leap over apartment buildings and onto rooftops.

Lol....

I remember playing this game and give cash to a hooker, than pull out my gun and shoot her to get my cash back, than walk around the town and trying to roll on many civilian i can to get 5 star.

But the sex scene of Hot coffee change the rating to M...

very funny!

Rockstar Games, despite tons of tons controversy and other shenanigans is by far my most favorite game developing company out there. They just keep me hooked for so long.

I still wonder how much they paid Charlie Murphy and Sandra Oh to pose for that screenshot.

@Enigma_20XX: What's up your ass? Its not like he made the content, dickwad.

@Collapse The Control: If you have the AO version, gamestop won't buy it back, I tried.

You can get some ebay money off it though.

I still don't understand how all this got so blown out of proportion like it did. It's just a sexual minigame that you have to actually hack the game to access. Most people will never ever see it. I still haven't.

Its not this guys fault, or even Rockstar's for adding the content, its pretty much the politicans like Billary and a certain lawyer and all that.

Ugh, disgusting really.

So Rockstar took the blame for something people had to actually 'work' for to find?

And it's not even like:
Person A uncovers Mod.
Persons B through ??? suddenly have said Mod right in front of them! And their eyes are bleeding!

I beat Rockstar hides somethings in GTA 4 too.

Ugh Hot Coffee was a damned mess. You couldn't access the minigame without a mod (or Action Replay). So that should've been enough where people wouldn't care.

In any event, somehow being a crime lord is less of a concern to people than sex. Gotta love America.

@Enigma_20XX:None at all..

"We never anticipated how this thing was going to be blown out of proportion by the mainstream media and the politicians...".

@nintend0nick: That was what totally confused me.

Selling drugs - fine!
Murdering innocent civilians - fine!
Sleeping with prostitutes - fine!
Running people over - fine!
Stealing thousands of cars - fine!
Killing policemen...on purpose....a lot - fine!
Crashing planes into things - fine!
An incredibly tame and rather dull sex minigame - SATAN HIMSELF!

I wonder if this kid is blackballed by the industry... meaning: on a list of people seeking jobs in videogames, but who's name is consistently placed at the bottom of the list. I know it got R* a lot of attention (like they needed it), but it cost Take 2 a lot of money. I would think it also caused a lot of extra work, and hassle to the rest of the developers out there, as well.

People really miss the point here. The point isnt that there was sex in the game, the point is Rockstar didn't tell us about it, and thus some people feel that Rockstar lied to the ESRB about the content made available to end users. In a sick kind of sense, they did.

Of course the actual sex is comical dryhumping. It's obvious these game characters don't have real genitalia and only like pretending. Which is kind of sad. They're trapped in this endless loop of violence and binary interactions with no way to escape, procreate, permanently die. It's the worst possible groundhog day scenario.

@Nayl: Amen. This is why the rating system is completely and utterly broken.

Also: Guitar Hero and Rock Band rated T for Teen. For language? What the hell?

@dowingba: The other major issue of course being on the part of the Consoles. 17+ game: A-OK. 18+ game: NOT IN A MILLION YEARS YOU PERVERT!!

@gamadaya: It is Rockstar's fault for hiding it from the ESRB, lying about it to the ESA, and then claiming that "hackers put it there", basically throwing out the industry's image of responsible self-regulation.

He was looking for whatever was there to be found, they were the ones who thought it would be better to just pretend they never coded it. If he had found a hidden pair of bunny slippers for the character model, or a way to generate free pizzas, people would be suing McDonald's over hot coffee, not Rockstar.

@Sunjammer: you aparently type faster than I do. Thank you.

@Enigma_20XX: Hey, it's not like he meant for all this to happen. He just wanted to make the game more fun for those who were insterested.

I think we should salute this man. He (inadvertently) created the opportunity for an open discussion about sex and games and what is acceptable, etc. Also, he will most likely be responsible in part (due to this) for the maturation of video games.

Side Note:

I don't particularly see the point in examining why people would be alright with violence and not with sex, or anything about how this was blown out of proportion or why there shouldn't be a problem. We covered that when this was first discovered. Not trying to be an ass, and shit on everyone, I'm just saying.

Well to be honest to the guy, in the Netherlands our sexual morals are a bit different than those over in the US. I don't remember the whole hot coffee thing getting alot of publicity other than a couple of ironic reports of how a pretty violent game got into trouble in the US over some harmless hidden sex scenes. And that it was a dutch guy who started it all. On the whole we're not that bothered by sex, it's mostly violence that people have problems with over here. In fact, a couple of weeks ago 'Deep Throat' was shown on National TV which is funded by the government. It was part of a special theme night about sex in the media with discussions and documentaries. So with that in mind he honestly couldn't have expected the whole thing to blow up like it did.

@Enigma_20XX: Shut the fuck up. He didn't know that the politicians would create such a big to do over it when he found it. If you found it, you'd have showed it to people to. If you're going to blame anybody, blame the mass media and politicians for overreacting. Or put just a bit of that blame on Rockstar for leaving the content on the disc. But it ain't this guy's fault for finding it and showing it to people.

I demand the creation of an immunity like they have on Survivor for Ban Mondays.

I submit my immunity vote for Baked Ham.

the whole hot coffee fiasco illustrates what is so very wrong with american culture.

"what do you mean, in the game where you beat random strangers to death, commit crimes and curse repeatedly, a man puts HIS PENIS IN A VAGINA!!

my kids play that game, you monsters!!!!"

It's ridiculous how not-hot Hot Coffee really is. I'd say it's a good way to calm yourself down, not get excited.

I really don't think you can blame the guy. I really think it was just really overblown by the media. Here's the thing, Rockstar takes it out so people can't regularly access it so they really shouldn't be blamed and then the modder is just screwing around and looking through code so it really isn't much his fault either. I blame the media who just blew it out of proportion.

I think the big issue is that Rockstar hadn't mentioned that part was in the game - for better or for worse, they were already under the microscope, and this was one straw that broke the camel's back. In my opinion, they were responsible for it, and never should have included it on the disk.

It may not have been realistic looking, but people don't always need zoomed in shots in high-definition to make it worth an AO rating. The thing that set this little mod apart was also the ability to manipulate your positions and interact with the scene, pixelated and fully clothed or not.

In summation, it got "blown out of proportion" because Rockstar was stupid and sent it out with the game and didn't submit it for review or talk about it. Certainly not everyone would see it (I haven't, besides these pictures on Kotaku), but that wasn't the point, because it was accessible on the disc. It's just the consequences playing out for a company who did something dumb while they were already being scrutinized.

I played the mod one time, it was just dumb really. Not sexy at all. It was fun in the same way that Thrill Kill was fun: because you knew you weren't supposed to be playing it.

@Enigma_20XX: Do you have ANY idea on what you're talking about?
Wikipedia is your friend: [en.wikipedia.org]

It's fairly simple: If Rockstar didn't want that on their game, they wouldn't have put it there, period. And if they did, they are the ones responsible for that, and the only ones to blame.

Hidden or not, game developers spent likely several hours to do the Hot Coffee minigame/scenes.

When the game was to be released, they probably thought it would be fun to just let the minigame go along with the game.

Later, after the shit hit the fan, they were all "oh, we didn't do it"... and later "oh, that part was not supposed to be viewable".

Of course, that response was only due to the media reaction and the whole problem that it started.

@Bokusatsu_Tenshi: Indeed, in a day and age when even a few gamers may be more technically savvy than the people programming the games, you cannot leave anything in your games that you don't want out in the public eye.

I wonder what it must've been like when they first stumbled upon the data files... like a puerile and small version of some archaeological find, but still a discovery that would make one excited none the less.

@Nayl:

"Selling drugs - fine!
Murdering innocent civilians - fine!
Sleeping with prostitutes - fine!
Running people over - fine!
Stealing thousands of cars - fine!
Killing policemen...on purpose....a lot - fine!
Crashing planes into things - fine!
An incredibly tame and rather dull sex minigame - SATAN HIMSELF!"

ROFLROFLROFL.

I heard that GTAIV will have a special R Kelly Not Coffee mod.

@Ashurahori:

Then lemme rephrase that...

... hang whoever unlocked the content.

@Bokusatsu_Tenshi:

FYI, the content was masked, and inaccessible until HE came along ans showed everyone how to access it!!!

Before he popped up, did you even KNOW it was in the game?!?!?

baked ham... Spiffyness... debloon... Wow... Never realized how many foul-mouthed, horny SOBs were gonna applaud his actions on this thread. Bravo, fellas... keep the circle-jerk alive.

And is that your real handle, or did they call you baked ham because that's the odor you emit?

come on, you can't blame this guy for anything. he should be rewarded since he is obviously a sensational hack!!!!!! HACK on my friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!