Gamertell

Take Two announced today that it has finally settled all consumer class action lawsuits pending in the US against the company and its subsidiary Rockstar Games regarding the controversial third party program called “Hot Coffee Modification” that unlocks a sex scene in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The lawsuit began when 85-year-old Florence Cohen who, up until July 20, 2005, didn’t care if her 14-year-old grandson played mature rated games like GTA: San Andreas. That is, until her grandson, who had the modification program unlocked a very steamy scene in a game where the player’s objective is to please the woman he’s with.

The program Hot Coffee v2 was made available online on a few GTA-specific websites on July 7, 2005, allowing players to unlock the scandalous secret hot sex minigame that Rockstar hid in the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the GTA: San Andreas game. Since posted, there have been more than 31,200z viewers and has been downloaded more than 7,200 times.The most recent download was made November 10, 2007. The download also unlocked other secret sex scenes and the ability to interact with any female characters any time the player wanted.

“If the case had continued, we believe the court would have agreed that Take-Two was not liable for consumers acting independently to modify their games with third-party hardware and software to access normally inaccessible content,” said Ben Feder, Chief Executive Officer of Take-Two. “Nonetheless, we believe it is in the best interest of the Company to avoid protracted and costly litigation to prove our case and to finally put this matter behind us.”

It was already bad enough that Take-Two’s subsidiary, Rockstar Games, had already caused controversy because of its violent content, but things got out of control when it was discovered that sexually explicit scenes could be unlocked.

As a result, under the terms of the settlement Take-Two agreed to offer the following benefits to consumers who were upset or offended by the “hot coffee” content of the game if they:

• Bought a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas before July 20, 2007.
• Were offended and upset by the ability of consumers to modify and alter the game’s content using the third-party Hot Coffee modification.
• Would not have bought the game had they known that consumers could modify and alter the game’s content using the third-party Hot Coffee modification.
• Would have returned the game, upon learning the game could be modified and altered, if they thought this possible.

Take-Two also agreed as part of the settlement to offer benefits that ranged from exchanging the game disk for an edited “sex free” copy of GTA: San Andreas to paying consumers up to $35 if they can submit detailed proofs of purchase for the game. The actual value of cash payments will depend on the number of consumers who actually apply for these benefits. Take-Two said in their press release that it’s prepared to commit to $1.025 million in settlement benefits.

This amount is in addition to the out of pocket costs, cost of providing notice to class action members and paying a fee to the plaintiff’s counsel, the expected cost of the settlement and other related expenses Take-Two must endure as part of the agreement.

“Its coming out of a rough stretch and we’re very optimistic for the new year,” said Mike Hickey, Janco Partners analyst, who added that this lawsuit would not likely have any negative effect on the company but its organizational restructuring would help their earnings.

Take-Two took the initiative to set aside more than a million dollars to pay the benefits and set aside as much as $2.75 million if needed to meet the needs despite the companies shares dropping 9 cents and closing at $16 per share prior to their announcement of the settlement.

Read [CNN Money News] Read [Take-Two Press Release] Read [Game Politics] View [Original Complaint] Site [GTA-themed Forum]

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