BBC News: The best-selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game has been given an adults only ratings in the US after explicit sexual content was found in it. The Entertainment Software Rating Board changed the rating as the game’s publisher Take Two admitted it created sex scenes found in the title.
There would be nothing especially remarkable about this news were it not for that fact that Take Two denied that the explicit scenes were in the game from the outset, saying instead that they were the result of modifications made to the game by a game fan. Now they’ve come clean with the truth.
Here are the immediate consequences of being caught out with an untruth:
[…] The news had an instant impact on shares in Take Two, owner of GTA maker Rockstar Games, which fell 11% in after-hours trading. The change in rating led to shops such as Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy removing the game from their shelves as they have a policy of not stocking titles with AO ratings.
BBC News | Technology | Hidden sex scenes hit GTA rating
[UPDATE 22/7/05] From the Financial Times 21 July – Adult rating damages Take-Two:
Take-Two Interactive Software lowered its fiscal third-quarter guidance yesterday […] The video game maker said it expected to post a loss of 40-45 cents a share on sales of $160m-$170m for the quarter ending July 31. Analysts had been expecting Take-Two to report a quarterly loss of 6 cents a share on sales of $213m. Shares in the company were down about 6 per cent at $25.40 in after-hours trading.
Isn’t this fun? A game that glorifies car theft and includes vast amounts of gratuitous violence, yet it stays in the stores until we see some (gasp!) toon sex. Sheesh.