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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive has agreed to a $US20 million settlement in a class action suit brought against the company over allegations that they knowingly put hidden sexual content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the publisher announced today.
The Xbox Originals program continues to pump out classic Xbox titles (can we call them classic yet?) in downloadable form on the Xbox 360, and this month sees the release of one of the most controversial games of all time, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Of course the Hot Coffee content will not be accessible when Rockstar’s final last-gen GTA becomes available on the 20th of this month, but I’m sure enough of us have seen the videos by now that we can simply close our eyes and imagine it’s in there anyway.
Take-Two won’t be writing out as big a check as we expected to settle a class action lawsuit filed over “Hot Coffee” claims — the Court has issued an opinion on the matter this week, refusing to certify the proposed settlement class. That, according to our friendly neighbourhood legal council, means that the publisher of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may not have to pay out a proposed $US 1.025 million in settlement benefits, possibly because there was no actual representative class. In short, too few people were offended, or could agree to be offended in the same way, for the Court to see the class as worthy of getting a cool million.
You may recall that in November of last year, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted preliminary approval of a settlement of several class action suits against Take-Two. TTWO expected then to pay out up to $US 2.75 million for the settlement, pending Court approval.
Who would have possibly thought that in a game filled with violence, foul language and generally deplorable behaviour, that so few who owned Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas would be so apathetic about the hidden sexual content buried deep within? Certainly not the law firms who filed a class action suit against Take-Two over the “Hot Coffee” incident, as the New York Times reports that just 2,676 of the millions who bought GTA: San Andreas have filed a compensation claim. The chance to cash in on Take-Two’s legal woes ended on May 16 and the final tally must just shock you.
We saw proof eariler that Liberty City may have a mutant problem. However, it looks like San Andreas was GTA‘s Tasmania* a few years before it. If you check out the above picture (larger version after the jump) you’ll see the middle gang member has at some point sprouted a fifth finger. That, or he has the world’s most awesome thumb.
The photo here was taken from a poster reader Grant picked up during his time at EB Games. Thanks man!
UPDATE: Here’s the full image for comparison.
* Sorry to Tassie. It’s a great place, lots of trees.
As part of EGM’s extensive GTA IV preview coming out in their April issue, the feature an interview with Patrick Wildenborg, the Dutch modder who was credited with discovering GTA San Andreas’ Hot Coffee content. In the still choppy wake of the greatest scandal to ever impact the video game world, it’s interesting to read Wildenborg’s response. We never anticipated how this thing was going to be blown out of proportion by the mainstream media and the politicians…
He continues:
The recently settled class action lawsuit against Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two Interactive has born cash fruit for those who have had their sensibilities offended by the type of salacious content seen above. Now’s your chance to cash in, as the attorneys involved already have, reaping a $US 1 million payment (minus $US 45,000 in costs) as part of the agreement. Your profit? Up to $US 35, should you have the receipt in hand, or as little as $US 5 if your willing to take the time to file. The pay-outs are as follows.
