Recently, a mod has been released for the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which adds a new minigame in which you can have sex with girls. Some political guy named Leland Yee says "Once again, ESRB has failed our parents [...] I have urged the ESRB on numerous occasions to rate this game AO based on its blatantly graphic nature. [...] Clearly the ESRB has a conflict of interest in rating these games." Based on these comments, I deem Yee to be an idiot for several reasons.

First, if you buy GTA:SA, and install it on your computer, and play it, you will never encounter these sex games. The only way to encounter it is to go on the Internet and download the hack which MODIFIES the game files to make the sex games appear. Here's an analogy. I buy Disney's "Bambi" movie DVD. I then copy the contents of the DVD to my disk, and then use a video editing software to add hardcore bestiality sex scenes in. I burn the resulting movie to DVD and watch it. I'm shocked and apalled that these sex scenes appear in the Bambi movie, and so I protest and demand stricter regulation of the movie ratings industry.

Second, GTA:SA is rated M for mature. That means you need to be 17 years old or older to be legally allowed to buy the game. Yee says it should have been AO, which means you'd have to be 18 years old or older to legally be allowed to buy the game. That's one fucking year. Obviously Yee isn't a parent, or else he'd realize nothing "magical" happens at 18 years of age that suddenly makes you mature enough to know of the concept of sex. Furthermore, the description for an M rating is "Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language." (emphasis added).

Third, GTA:SA was not yet released when it was given to ESRB for review. The hack was not yet released when it was given to ESRB for review. There was no way to play the sex mini game when it was given to ESRB for review. There was NO sex mini game when it was given to ESRB for review.

Fourth, how is it that the ESRB clearly has a conflict of interest? ESRB and its members is a non-profit organization, and the reviewers are randomly selected people from a varied background, including teenages, parents, and people who normally do not play videogames. These people watch a movie of the game being played, and are given a form filled out by the company producing the game (Rockstar in this case) listing all the content that appears in the game, and these people vote on a rating. Where in this process does the opportunity for a conflict of interest show up?

Now that we've established that Yee is an idiot, time to address some related topics floating around the blogosphere.

Some people are theorizing that Rockstar left this content in on purpose, or that it was careless of them to forget to remove it, or that they helped release the mods, etc.

As a professional programmer, let me tell you, shit gets "left in" all the time. It's not 'cause we developers are being mischievious or sneaky or secretive; it's because the design requirements change. When a client comes in saying "I want software that does XYZ", we'll start working on such a product, and plan to release it in 3 years or so. Then 6 months in, the client will say "I changed my mind. Now I want it to do ABC". That adds another year of development time. This upsets the client 'cause the client says the deal was for 3 years, not 4 years. We get into arguments, etc. Anyway, the end result is we the developers don't have TIME to actually go through and "sterilize" of all the old cruft. We just disable an unwanted feature, and "code over it" so the speak. This happens all the fucking time. If you take even an undergraduate programming course in university, you've probably done this: You started coding something, realize you misunderstood the homework assignment, and then modified your code so that it worked. You didn't start over from scratch, you modified yoru existing code. That means there's still ghostly remanents of your old code laying around in the new code.

As for the free publicity and the "OMG, now sales for GTA:SA are gonna skyrocket!!1!" comments: the GTA series of games was already a best seller. Before this mod ever came up, lots of people wanted to play this game. Now there exists a section of the population who wasn't interested in playing this game (e.g. my mom). Do you seriously think that the people who were not at all interested in playing GTA:SA are now going to run out and buy the game just because someone released a mod which allows you to have sex within the game? GTA:SA is a good game (I'm going to post a full review soon). I'm not gonna bother downloading the sex hack because I don't really see it making the game any "better". I'm not saying it'll make the game worse or anything. I'm just saying it really has very little appeal to me. It'd be like someone posting about this new way to play GTA; basically, you gotta play it using only your left hand while you use your right hand to hold up a copy of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and keep it open on page 42. Yeah, if you like playing that way, good for you. Probably not something I'll bother trying though.

Great comment by "ferr". (s)he says: "How is an M rating even any different from an R rating in film? Both restrict audiences under the age of 17, and for mostly the same reason. [...] If A Clockwork Orange can get an R rating, then San Andreas should be able to get an M rating."

Then there's the whole issue of America's perception that sex is worse than violence, which I don't want to get into too much detail, except to point out: if a boy plays a sexually explicit game and believes that this game reflects reality, the worst that can happen is that they become sexist have aids, and unwanted pregnancy. If a boy plays a violent game and believes that the game reflects reality, the worst that can happen is he takes some guns to his school and shoots random people.