Controversy
The moral panic, its participants and its evidence. Hot Coffee, the ESRB re-rating and what was actually on the disc, the campaigners and the politicians, the press coverage, and the research that was cited on both sides. Rockstar, the games press and the campaigners were all interested parties and each is named as one.
Part of Grand Theft Auto
76 moments in this segment.
- - House of Lords. Publisher BMG Interactive hired publicist Max Clifford to court rather than avoid outrage around the 1997 game. Clifford was an interested party who built his reputation on claiming credit for manufactured stories, so his own account is not neutral. House of Lords - DPLA - cd380d3a407ccd83cdc5cde2386707ce.
- - Standing room only at Capitol labor hearing. Washington, D.C. June 4. The S.R.O sign was hung out today as Secretary of Labor Perkins appeared before the House and Senate Labor Committee. The Family Entertainment Protection Act, introduced 17 December 2005, would have federally penalised sales of M- and AO-rated games to minors and required annual FTC checks for hidden content. It was referred to committee and never became law. Standing room only at Capitol labor hearing. Washington, D.C. June 4. The S.R.O sign was hung out today as Secretary of Labor Perkins appeared before the House and Senate Labor Committee.
- - Prince's Chamber in het Palace of Westminster in Londen The Princes' Chamber (titel op object) The British Houses of Parliament (serietitel op object), RP-F-F05022. Publisher BMG Interactive hired publicist Max Clifford to court rather than avoid outrage around the 1997 game. Clifford was an interested party who built his reputation on claiming credit for manufactured stories, so his own account is not neutral. Prince's Chamber in het Palace of Westminster in Londen The Princes' Chamber (titel op object) The British Houses of Parliament (serietitel op object), RP-F-F05022.
- - Violence in Video Games - An ABC News Report (1994). ABC News reports on video game violence three years before the first Grand Theft Auto shipped. The hearings of this period produced the ESRB, the ratings body whose 2005 decision on San Andreas became the series' largest commercial crisis.
- - United States Capitol - west front. The western front of the United States Capitol . The Neoclassical style building is in Washington, D.C. , on Capitol Hill , at the east end of the National Mall . The Capitol was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. Senator Hillary Clinton petitioned the FTC over Hot Coffee on 14 July 2005, and with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act that December. The bill died in committee.
- - Reportagem sobre a proibição do game GTA no Brasil em 1998. Brazilian television reports the 1998 ban of the original Grand Theft Auto. A separate 2010 Brazilian action against Episodes from Liberty City was a music-licensing dispute, not a violence ban, and is often miscatalogued.
- - 2002 CBS News Report on Violent Video Games by Byron Pitts with Bonnie Behrend and Doug Lowenstein. CBS News reports on violent video games with Byron Pitts, interviewing industry representative Doug Lowenstein. The trade body and the campaigners each funded advocacy of their own throughout this period.
- - Rockstar Games GTA Vice City News Segment w/ Peter Jennings (ABC News 2002). ABC News with Peter Jennings covers Vice City in the year of its release. The game was set in a Miami analogue in 1986 and was censored for its Australian release, where no adult classification for games existed at the time.
- - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - News Clip (2002) WSIL-TV News 3. A local US broadcast reacting to Vice City's release in 2002. The game drew separate objections in Miami over its portrayal of Haitian characters.
- - US Navy -N-2383B-063 Senator and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John Warner listens alongside Senators Carl Levin. Senator Joe Lieberman joined Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh in introducing the Family Entertainment Protection Act on 17 December 2005. It was referred to committee and died there at the end of the 109th Congress. It never became law. US Navy-063 Senator and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John Warner listens alongside Senators Carl Levin.
- - US Navy -N-2383B-091 Senators John McCain, John Warner, Carl Levin, Joseph Lieberman, and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee listen to testimony. Senator Joe Lieberman joined Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh in introducing the Family Entertainment Protection Act on 17 December 2005. It was referred to committee and died there at the end of the 109th Congress. It never became law. US Navy-091 Senators John McCain, John Warner, Carl Levin, Joseph Lieberman, and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee listen to testimony.
- - Jack Thompson vs Tony Romando on GTA San Andreas | Today Show NBC (10/26/2004). An NBC Today Show debate on San Andreas dated 26 October 2004, the game's US release day and months before the Hot Coffee affair broke. Jack Thompson argues opposite an industry representative.
- - US Congress Discusses GTA: San Andreas. Congressional discussion of San Andreas following the Hot Coffee re-rating. Senator Hillary Clinton petitioned the FTC on 14 July 2005, and with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act that December. It was referred to committee and died there.
- - Rockstar Games GTA 60 Minutes segment (2005). CBS 60 Minutes on the series in 2005, the year the ESRB re-rated San Andreas to Adults Only on 20 July. Major retailers pulled the game because AO product is effectively unsellable at mass retail.
- - CBS 60 Minutes: Can A Video Game Lead To Murder?. CBS 60 Minutes covers the Fayette, Alabama case in which Devin Moore killed two police officers and a dispatcher while being detained over an allegedly stolen car. Moore had said he played Vice City. He was convicted of murder in 2005; the civil suit against the industry that followed lost on summary judgment and again on appeal.
- - Jack Thompson Going After Video Games | 2005 - 2008. Compiled broadcast appearances spanning 2005 to 2008. Across that period Thompson's suits in Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, New Mexico and Florida were dismissed, withdrawn or lost.
- - Rockstar Games GTA: San Andreas 2005 MSNBC Segment| Game Sex Worse Than Violence?. MSNBC covers the Hot Coffee affair in 2005, framing the sexual content as more troubling than the violence. The material had shipped intact on the retail discs and was merely made inaccessible; a modder disabled the restriction.
- - Fox News: Link Between Teen Killers and Video Games?. A Fox News segment asserting a causal link between games and teenage killings. The American Psychological Association later warned explicitly against attributing violence such as mass shootings to game use.
- - Joe Lieberman Leads Senate Judiciary Hearing on Violence in Video Games. A full Senate hearing on violence in games chaired by Joe Lieberman, who with Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act on 17 December 2005. It was referred to committee and never became law.
- - Clock Tower - Palace of Westminster, London - September 2006. The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster, colloquially known as "Big Ben", in Westminster, London, England. Lord Campbell of Croy condemned the first Grand Theft Auto in the House of Lords. A named peer speaking in Hansard is the hardest record in the British side of this story.
- - Nightline: Jack Thomson (2006). An ABC Nightline profile of Thompson at the height of his campaign. His wrongful-death claim over Manhunt in the UK rested on a link between the game and a murder that the police investigation did not support.
- - Hillary Clinton Hates On Video Games. Hillary Clinton on game regulation during the period of her proposed legislation. She had petitioned the FTC on 14 July 2005, days before the ESRB re-rated San Andreas.
- - Capitol, Washington, D.C. USA4. United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., USA. Senator Hillary Clinton petitioned the FTC over Hot Coffee on 14 July 2005, and with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act that December. The bill died in committee.
- - JackThompsonAttorney. ) speaking at a debate at California University of Pennsylvania. Jack Thompson filed repeatedly against the industry through the 2000s and did not win. His 2008 disbarment was for conduct toward tribunals and opposing counsel, not for his opinions about games.
- - Fox's Cashin' In with Jack Thompson. A Fox Business panel putting Thompson opposite industry defenders. Take-Two filed suit against him on 14 March 2007 seeking to enjoin him from bringing public nuisance actions to block unreleased games.
- - 2007-12-13 madd 03web. Mothers Against Drunk Driving objected to the drunk-driving mechanic in GTA IV in 2008 and asked the ESRB to re-rate the game from M to AO. The ESRB did not re-rate it. Rockstar replied that its mature audience was sophisticated enough to understand the content.
- - Sex And Violence In Games (CBS News). A CBS News segment on sex and violence in games, three years after the Hot Coffee re-rating. Rockstar's reply to MADD that year was that the mature audience for the game was sophisticated enough to understand its content.
- - Eye To Eye: Grand Theft Auto (CBS News). CBS News covers Grand Theft Auto IV at release. The game arrived the same year Mothers Against Drunk Driving asked the ESRB to re-rate it from M to Adults Only over its drunk-driving mechanic. The ESRB declined.
- - Capitol, Washington, D.C. USA13. United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., USA. Senator Hillary Clinton petitioned the FTC over Hot Coffee on 14 July 2005, and with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act that December. The bill died in committee.
- - CBS News: Grand Theft Auto 4. Contemporaneous CBS coverage of Grand Theft Auto IV. Jack Thompson called the game the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio, a direct quotation from the year of its release.
- - CNN Headline News - Rated "M" For Money. CNN on the commercial incentives behind M-rated games. Grand Theft Auto IV sold strongly despite, and partly because of, the coverage treating it as a public danger.
- - Fox Morning News 1. A local morning-news panel on Grand Theft Auto IV and minors' access to M-rated games. The ratings system had by then existed for fourteen years.
- - Gamers Await Arrival Of Controversial Video Game. Local news on Grand Theft Auto IV launch day frames the game as a public concern. The game returned the series to Liberty City with a markedly more sober tone than its predecessors.
- - CNN Headline News - Grand Theft Morality Pt.1. A CNN Headline News special on the series and morality, broadcast around the Grand Theft Auto IV launch. The same year, Mothers Against Drunk Driving asked the ESRB to re-rate the game and the ESRB declined.
- - Jack Thompson Interview on Fox News. Jack Thompson makes his case on cable news months before his disbarment. He filed repeatedly against the industry across a decade and obtained no judgment; his one concrete result was a 2005 Best Buy commitment to enforce ID checks.
- - MADD is MAD at GTA IV!. MADD objected to the drunk-driving mechanic in Grand Theft Auto IV and asked for an Adults Only re-rating, citing roughly 13,500 US drunk-driving deaths a year. Rockstar replied that the game's mature audience was sophisticated enough to understand its content.
- - Grand Theft Auto 4 Complaints and Protests. Organised objections in the days after the Grand Theft Auto IV launch. Jack Thompson called the game the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio.
- - Palace of Westminster, Millbank Tower, Lambert Bridge and Vauxhall riverside. London, UK. Lord Campbell of Croy condemned the first Grand Theft Auto in the House of Lords. A named peer speaking in Hansard is the hardest record in the British side of this story. Palace of Westminster, Millbank Tower, Lambert Bridge and Vauxhall riverside. London, UK.
- - R18+ Classification for Video Games 7.30 report. Australia's ABC on the country's missing adult classification for games. The structural cause of every Australian ban was that the highest available rating was MA15+ until R18+ arrived in 2013.
- - Part 1 of 2 - Chris Ferguson - Violence & Video Games. Christopher J. Ferguson sets out the case against a causal link between violent games and violent behaviour. He later co-authored a 2020 meta-analysis arguing the American Psychological Association's own position was still too strong.
- - New Violent Video Game Study Released. Local news treats a single violence study as settled science. The distinction that most public claims fail at is between aggression as psychologists measure it and violence as the public understands the word.
- - Flickr - USCapitol - Hart Senate Office Building. The Family Entertainment Protection Act, introduced 17 December 2005, would have federally penalised sales of M- and AO-rated games to minors and required annual FTC checks for hidden content. It was referred to committee and never became law. Flickr - USCapitol - Hart Senate Office Building.
- - House of Lords 2011. Publisher BMG Interactive hired publicist Max Clifford to court rather than avoid outrage around the 1997 game. Clifford was an interested party who built his reputation on claiming credit for manufactured stories, so his own account is not neutral. House of Lords chamber, Palace of Westminster, London.
- - Brendan O'Connor press conference on R18+ classification for games. An Australian minister's press conference on introducing an adult classification for games. Grand Theft Auto III had been modified to obtain MA15+, and San Andreas lost its rating after Hot Coffee.
- - New restricted rating for video games. Australian network news on the agreement to create an R18+ category, which finally took effect in 2013. Until then games that would have received an adult rating were refused classification or censored.
- - 12-07-13-washington-by-RalfR-08. United States Capitol, Washington D.C. Senator Hillary Clinton petitioned the FTC over Hot Coffee on 14 July 2005, and with Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act that December. The bill died in committee.
- - HuffPost Live: Jack Thompson on GTA V (Part 2 of 2). Jack Thompson speaks on Grand Theft Auto V five years after his disbarment. The Supreme Court of Florida removed him on 25 September 2008 on 27 of 31 findings concerning false statements to tribunals and the humiliation of litigants and lawyers, not for his views on games.
- - '13 Kia Forte Koup Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada (MIAS '13). 2013 Kia Forte Koup MADD Canada photographed in Montreal , Quebec , Canada at the 2013 Montreal International Auto Show. Mothers Against Drunk Driving objected to the drunk-driving mechanic in GTA IV in 2008 and asked the ESRB to re-rate the game from M to AO. The ESRB did not re-rate it. Rockstar replied that its mature audience was sophisticated enough to understand the content.
- - Mother shares story, educates about drunk driving -M-NG901-002. Theresa Paulette, Mothers Against Drunk Driving Hawaii Victim Committee Chair, shows the last picture she took of her son during a MADD session aboard Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kahuna’s Community Ballroom, April 5. Mothers Against Drunk Driving objected to the drunk-driving mechanic in GTA IV in 2008 and asked the ESRB to re-rate the game from M to AO. The ESRB did not re-rate it. Rockstar replied that its mature audience was sophisticated enough to understand the content.
- - Reverse side of L'Etoile du Nord in Senate Hearing Room. The Family Entertainment Protection Act, introduced 17 December 2005, would have federally penalised sales of M- and AO-rated games to minors and required annual FTC checks for hidden content. It was referred to committee and never became law. Reverse side of L'Etoile du Nord in Senate Hearing Room.
- - CBS News: "Grand Theft Auto V" Bashed for Violence, Cruelty to Women. CBS News criticism of Grand Theft Auto V on release. By this point the American Psychological Association had not established a causal link between violent games and violent behaviour, a position it reaffirmed in March 2020.
- - Grand Theft Auto V - Patrick Scott Patterson speaks to the media (WFAA - Dallas/Fort Worth). Local television on Grand Theft Auto V launch day, with an advocate pushing back on the panic framing. The game took US$800 million in its first 24 hours.
- - 'Grand Theft Auto V' success is bad for creativity. CNN argues during launch week that Grand Theft Auto V's commercial scale is bad for creativity. This is criticism on cultural rather than violence grounds, a strand usually lost in the moral-panic framing.
- - How GTA V Was Changed For Japan. Documents the territory-specific changes made to Grand Theft Auto V for its Japanese release. Censorship of the series has more often been about local classification regimes than about any single global objection.
- - Evan Bayh. Governor Haley Barbour and Senator Evan Bayh, "Milstein Symposium: Commission on America's Manufacturing Future" 2/5/14. Senator Evan Bayh co-introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act with Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman on 17 December 2005. The bill would have federally penalised sales of M- and AO-rated games to minors. It never became law.
- - Palace of Westminster from the dome on Methodist Central Hall. Lord Campbell of Croy condemned the first Grand Theft Auto in the House of Lords. A named peer speaking in Hansard is the hardest record in the British side of this story. Palace of Westminster from the dome on Methodist Central Hall.
- - Australia Bans Grand Theft Auto V For “Violence Against Women”. Coverage of the Target Australia withdrawal of Grand Theft Auto V in December 2014. This was a retailer decision following a petition, not a classification ruling.
- - 'Grand Theft Auto V' pulled by Australian retailer. Target Australia withdrew Grand Theft Auto V from sale in December 2014 following a petition. This was a retailer decision, not a classification action; the game kept its rating.
- - Target AU removes GTA V from its shelves - Dec. 5th, 2014. A same-day long-form response to the Target Australia withdrawal. The retailer acted on a petition rather than on any ruling by the Classification Board.
- - CNN: Expert: Video Games Don't Trigger Violence. CNN airs a researcher rejecting the causal claim. The APA's own 2020 resolution found a small reliable association with aggressive outcomes such as yelling and pushing, but insufficient evidence to extend that to violent behaviour, and warned explicitly against blaming mass shootings on games.
- - Elizabeth Tower, Palace of Westminster - west view. Elizabeth Tower , Palace of Westminster, London. Lord Campbell of Croy condemned the first Grand Theft Auto in the House of Lords. A named peer speaking in Hansard is the hardest record in the British side of this story.
- - The Story of the ESRB Ratings. A documentary on how the ESRB came to exist, following the congressional hearings of the early 1990s. It is the body whose 2005 decision on San Andreas triggered the series' largest commercial crisis.
- - Study Suggests Violent Games Do Not Equal Violent Countries. Cross-national data undercutting the claim that violent games produce violent societies. Modern preregistered and longitudinal studies have produced chiefly null results.
- - Hearing Room in the Hart Building. Central Hearing Facility in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., in the United States. The Family Entertainment Protection Act, introduced 17 December 2005, would have federally penalised sales of M- and AO-rated games to minors and required annual FTC checks for hidden content. It was referred to committee and never became law.
- - Mothers Against Drunk Driving Garden in Alton Baker Park. Mothers Against Drunk Driving objected to the drunk-driving mechanic in GTA IV in 2008 and asked the ESRB to re-rate the game from M to AO. The ESRB did not re-rate it. Rockstar replied that its mature audience was sophisticated enough to understand the content. Mothers Against Drunk Driving Garden in Alton Baker Park.
- - The Hot Coffee Controversy (Zero Punctuation). Commentary on the affair and the Adults Only re-rating. The ESRB's stated reason was that the material existed in a fully rendered, unmodified form on the final discs.
- - Stop Blaming Violent Video Games For Mass Shootings. An explainer on the absent causal evidence. The APA task force found a small reliable association with outcomes such as yelling and pushing, but held those findings difficult to extend to more violent outcomes.
- - GTA IV - Censorship in Australia [Analysis] - Feat. SWEGTA. The specific content changes made to secure an Australian rating. Until R18+ arrived in 2013 the highest available classification for a game was MA15+.
- - The Debate Behind Video Game Violence. CNBC on the evidence dispute after politicians blamed games for mass shootings. The distinction that almost every public claim fails at is between aggression as psychologists measure it and violence as the public understands the word.
- - Violent video games with Villanova professor Patrick M. Markey [audio]: So to Speak podcast. Patrick Markey, co-author with Ferguson of work challenging the consensus, weeks before the APA reaffirmed its position. Modern preregistered and longitudinal studies have produced chiefly null results.
- - CONTROVERSY: Grand Theft Auto IV. The objections that gathered around Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008, including the MADD campaign for an Adults Only re-rating that the ESRB declined.
- - Violent Video Games and Availability Cascades with Chris Ferguson | Chris Ferguson. Ferguson on how the moral panic propagated, recorded after the APA's March 2020 resolution. That resolution found insufficient evidence of a causal link to violent behaviour and warned explicitly against blaming mass shootings on games.
- - Sovereign's Throne, House of Lords. The Sovereign's Throne in the House of Lords, Palace of Westminster. Publisher BMG Interactive hired publicist Max Clifford to court rather than avoid outrage around the 1997 game. Clifford was an interested party who built his reputation on claiming credit for manufactured stories, so his own account is not neutral.
- - Oyunlar Çocukları Şiddete mi İtiyor? Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson - Skeptik Altyazılı. Christopher J. Ferguson restates the critique of the research consensus. He, Patrick Markey and Allen Copenhaver published a 2020 meta-analysis arguing the American Psychological Association's own position was still too strong.
- - The Complicated History of GTA Controversies. IGN surveys the series' controversies. The legal endpoint is routinely omitted from such tellings: Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association ended the campaign to restrict violent game sales at the US Supreme Court in 2011, 7 to 2.
- - How the Hot Coffee Mod Nearly Destroyed Rockstar Games. An account of the Hot Coffee affair. The content shipped intact on the retail discs and was merely made inaccessible; modder Patrick Wildenborg released a mod on 9 June 2005 that disabled the restriction.