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Settlement in Take Two - Chicago Bus Ad Suit
Posted by Owen Good at 7:00 AM on October 5, 2008
Remember the lawsuit over the Chicago bus ads for Grand Theft Auto IV that the city took down after a TV report created bad publicity? Seems a settlement is in the pipeline. GamePolitics is reporting an agreement has been reached but there's no comment and no specifics.
Back in April, Chicago saw a headline-grabbing wave of violence -- close to 40 shootings, seven of them fatal, 13 of the casualties school age. Around that time the GTA ads went up on city buses, like they were in other cities, per a $300,000 contract between Take-Two and the city. Because local television's business model depends heavily on the exploitation of others' fear and misery for profit, Fox News Chicago called up a bunch of chickenshit pols and huffed about the appropriateness of the ads. So they were taken down. Take-Two then sued for breach of contract.
I'm not sure what the terms of the deal are but maybe this'll teach someone to show a little spine next time some blow-dried shit-for-brains TV reporter waves a microphone in their face.
Take-Two Nearing GTA IV Ad Settlement with Chicago Bus Company [GamePolitics]
No, you read that right. There are fears that, despite already being one of the biggest-selling games of all time, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV isn't selling as well as overlords Take-Two would have hoped, with the game slipping to 46th on the NPD sales charts in August. CNN Money reports that, as the silent, secret takeover talks between EA and Take-Two continue, these "sluggish" sales are hurting Take-Two's only real negotiating point. With 8.5 million copies of the game already sold, this is all a bit hard to believe, but then we weren't the ones drinking the kool-aid at T2 HQ when coming up with official sales targets.
If you plan on building (or upgrading) a PC around the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto IV, the official Games For Windows web site has a helpful rough estimate for what kind of hardware you're gonna need. To make it look as pretty as 
From the Obvious Files comes news that Grand Theft Auto IV has unseated Xbox Live chart topper Call of Duty 4 as the title with the most unique users on the service. That's a lot of dead pedestrians! Liberty City has never heard this many racial slurs and synonyms for "homosexual" in such a short timeframe, we guarantee it. Former Live activity darling Halo 3 settles for third place from April 28 to May 5—and we predict for months to come—as the GTA IV masses flood the service in its debut week.
GTA IV isn't the hardest game around, but hey, maybe you're not the best gamer around. Maybe you've got stubby thumbs. Maybe you can game, just can't be bothered, and want the ability to spawn sports cars in front of you just for kicks. If so, take note of the following GTA IV cheats, which will do things like restore Niko's health, give you all the game's weapons, change the weather and adjust your wanted level. ACHTUNG: these mess with your saved game files and can stop you earning achievements, so you might want to turn autosave to the "off" position if you want to safeguard your progress against a tragic corruption.
X-Play co-host Adam Sessler joined Neal Conan on the NPR radio show Talk of the Nation earlier today to talk about the recent release of Grand Theft Auto IV. While the majority of the segment seemed to focus on relating GTA IV player experiences and informing the NPR audience on the realities, less so the media fantasies, of all things Grand Theft Auto, it took a dive about seven minutes in. That's when John "Jack" Thompson phoned in to drop his special brand of disinformation.
David Wong over at Cracked.com has written a feature titled "The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey", in which he takes a look at some of the dos and don'ts of video game design, calling out the big name, popular games that have broken the rules. Several of his proposed rules make a great deal of sense. Take #7 for instance: Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends. He cites GTA IV as a major offender in this case, and I would have to agree. It's the only game that makes me glad my girlfriend lives in another state so we can play it together. Others are a bit washed out, trying to shoehorn too many concepts into one commandment, as is the case with "Thou shalt not force repetition on the player", which crams in problems with save points, unskippable cut scenes, and fail and die quicktime events. I'd say the article is half-on and half-off target, but still a pretty great read. How do they stack up in your eyes? 
