It should be old news by now… a couple of mini-games have been uncovered in GTA:SA, PC and PS2 editions. Of course the politicians are now circling like vultures. And the ESRB has opted to bump up the rating from Mature to Adults Only, which caused a recall. And now, finally, we have our first law suit in NY…

To the people that are in an uproar about this… well, um, shut the fuck up.

You’re pissed about a sex mini-game. Or worse, you’re pissed about some religion related mini-game. Either way, what the fuck is wrong with you? The game is already marked Mature. This is akin to a rated R. Yes, that’s the corelation. ESRB’s rating of Adult Only is akin to NC-17 or X.

Let’s work with that. Cinemax switches to “Skin-e-max” at 11pm EDT. They do not show rated NC-17/X movies. Their movies are rated R. They show topless women, bare asses, and a brief shot or two of full body/frontal female nudity. They show people having sex. No penis, no vagina – no penetration – but it’s still sex, plain and simple. The Hot Coffee mini-game has a fully clothed male. I’ve heard the woman is in some state of nakedness. In every reporting, it’s softer than Cinemax “after dark”.

Yet for some reason, parents monitor this type of viewing. At least they don’t hand a kid a remote control at 11:01 and say “Whoa, look at the tits on her, son!” If a parent wants to do that, that’s up to them. Most parent doesn’t buy rated R, soft core porn movies for their kids to watch at home and then say “Oh, I thought it was Debbie Has a Play Date In Dallas!”. Most parents won’t even keep their “more mature” movies within “reach” of their kids.

So back to gaming. GTA:SA is clearly labeled. GTA3 and GTA:VC had the same game play: killing gang members, running amok in a city, stealing cars, gaining health for picking up hookers in the streets, and a large selection of weapons… version five was lauded – by all of the lauders that care about this crap – as “more of the same”. You let your kid have access to a rated R game, you let your kid control the game console or PC, your kid has enough free time to play the game itself, and now… wait, you’re pissed? Because two pixels are rubbing two other pixels with as much skin showing as an MTV Spring Break special?

Are. You. Fuckin’. Kidding. Me?!

This should be so completely forgotten by now. Especially now that the politicians are involved. Let’s look at that now. Some officials want games like this to be banned. OK. Yet it will still be legal to carry a gun in public, right? If I have a momentary reason of insanity, I’ll be able to shoot at someone – i.e. OJ? Road Rage? HS flashback? – and be set free for manslaughter? Or simply criminal intent? Pft! Yet, virtually – where no one is getting hurt – that may some day be illegal. Real people are getting shot around the world defending our nation or simply going to seventh period english and our fuckin’ government is concerned about video games. Brilliant.

What’s next? A discrimination suit the Pac-Man only ate white dots? That Ms. Pac-Man belittled the ghosts? How about that blue is a racist color for powered-down scared sprites? Type casting for Mario because he’s Italian? Sexual harassment charges for Link because he checked out Zelda’s ass in her short skirt? PETA for Pokémon? NRA protesting Master Chief’s use of the needler in junction with the magnum?

*sigh*

I’ll say it one time, and I hope all of Congress is listening: we’ve got real world problems that need fixing. We’ve got parents that side step the law for abandoning children and other forms of abuse. We’ve got an entertainment industry that is shoving sex down our throats at every channel, station, or magazine. Hell we’ve got porn-on-demand that’s only $8.99 and four clicks on a remote away for any cable subscriber.

Don’t. Pick. On. Video. Games.

The key to protecting our children in society is to arm our parents with knowledge and a bigger stick. That’s why the MPAA rates movies: so people are aware of what’s coming. That’s why there’s a TV rating system on almost every publicly broadcasted show. That’s why there’s the ESRB. GTA:SA is an adult game, the same way South Park is an adult cartoon or George Carlin is an adult comedian. Everywhere it is reviewed, posted, advertised, and promoted: it’s an adult game. They don’t put the ads for this near the Hello Kitty under-roos. What the hell are parents thinking, buying this for their kids, or worse, letting the kid have the run of the TV system 24/7, that they don’t notice, oh, I dunno, a sniper moment or three? They want their kids to have it, fine, but don’t give them access to it and then get pissed over it.

Rockstar Games did make a mistake. They allowed – or encouraged or forgot to remove – an Easter Egg into their game. I miss Easter Eggs. They were a lot of fun. I helped put one into a Symantec product like a billion years ago. It was a cheesy animation sequence if you… um, I dunno what ya did to get it anymore – it was off the About box somehow. That was then. Now a days, I’m against them. The last five or six years or so. Software is complicated enough that it doesn’t need hidden things in there. Not to mention that it only increases the attack surface of an application. Why make put more risk on a product’s security than you have to, right?

So they screwed up. But in all ways, having a mini-game that requires some hacked interface or module to get at? Where a fully clothed animated sprite dry humps a half naked sprite? After a virtual day of shooting gang-bangers and jacking cars? Hello? Anyone else think that that sound absurd? It should.

Even the LA Times agrees.

The fifteen minutes are over – give up, move on, get onto something real… I’m beggin’ ya!