More Hot Coffee

Hey! A new commentator! Awesome. In response to the last post about the Hot Coffee issue with Rockstar and the ESRB, high.as.a.kite responded: "It was, in fact, a MOD that needed to be downloaded to open this file in the game. Further more, the ESRB is given the code of the game. For all of the people that will be reading this htat don't know what I mean, the ESRB is given a paper that shows the internal make up of the game. It shows everything including a "sex scene" that is "locked"." (There will be more of high.as.a.kite's responses quoted later. His words will be in italics from here on out.)

This first peice of information has serious ethical implications. The question has now been raised: if the ESRB knows that there is something in a game not currently accessible, but which may later--and on a reasonably wide scale--become accessible, should they rate the game as if the content were readily accessible. I confess I was operating under the assumption that, for whatever reason, the ESRB had no knowledge of the Hot Coffee scene. If I may ask, high.as.a.kite (by the way, he's a friend from De La Salle North Catholic High School whom I will refer to for brevity as Wygal), are you positive that the ESRB was aware? Was the stuff shown to them purely in code form? I guess that perhaps seeing code, if they have someone who can read it, could show them what the scene was. I admit to wanting to protect the ESRB here much more than I want to protect Rockstar; one is a well-intentioned although oft-misguided agency; the other is a money-driven oft-misguided game company. Let us proceed to more of Wygal's commentary:

IN MY OPINION, and the most probable reasoning for this problem is that Rockstar created the scene as part of the original game. Then they realized that if this was part of the content then they would not get the M rating. So they locked the coding that contained the sex scene "Hot Coffee". The reason they would have locked it instead of deleting it is because a game that requires such an intrequite code would need a change that would be so drastic that it would require a whole deletion of a major section of the game' code. This would slow production and cause a later release date. When the ESRB was given the code I am sure that they knew it was there and that it was locked and I am sure that it was locked tightly. Then some pervert, computer nerd, that has no life, opened up the code and saw "Hot Coffee" a sex scene. To him it was gold. This problem is all because of some pervert that wanted to see sex and figured he would find it hidden in the code of a game that has lots of killing and cussing.

Interesting thought. I don't think, however, the responsibility for this is on the nerd. At least, not all of it. One could argue that the nerd was the one who unlocked it, but the question remains:

If we assume that Rockstar (as we have much reason to believe) knew what was on the disc, and that the ESRB (as we have been given some reason to think) knew what was on the disk, then should they be rating every little bit of the disc or simply that portion which is readily accessible? Obviously, if Rockstar believed that it was "locked tightly" enough, and it was enough to convince the ESRB, we might refutre the calls that the ESRB (and possibly even that Rockstar) screwed up here--given a situation like Rockstar's where they might not want something to be part of the game but at the same time not want to totally erase it, is it reasonable to expect it erased, or just tightly locked?

My question is (this is a conceptual question which it is unlikely we will be able to answer): If they can lock the code without compromising other parts of game code, why can't they delete it? How tied is this one scene to the rest of the game? I don't really know; perhaps it is tied together. I find myself thinking of the philosophical/theological implications of one event in our lives being predestined; that will be another topic for another post.

The one thing I am contending at this point: This is a very important ethical issue for game companies and the ESRB alike. We should study it further and come up with a more concrete rule of what, exactly, is fair game for the rating. If this was unlocked by some random nerd, was it locked tightly enough? If it had to be unlocked by some random nerd, should it be considered part of the game?

* Just a note to nerds who read my blog: I don't think you're all perverts. "Random nerd" and "the nerd" are just references to whoever did the unlocking.

-- One last note: Wygal wanted me to plug his blog--the first post has an important message for the DLSNCHS
Class of '05.

EDIT (added at 5:15 PM): Oh yes. On the University of Portland track of things, I got my first philosophy paper back. A red, circled A was on the cover. It felt awesome.