Hillary Clinton: She Got Game

The Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas issue seems to be gaining more steam now that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has jumped into the fray, with her recent request for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate explicit sex scenes in GTA: S.A.. The developer of GTA, Rockstar Games has had this kind of negative attention before with previous versions of the game and they've come out unscathed. Will Clinton's involvement make a difference, or will it just be business as usual for Rockstar?

Everyone that plays video games knows Grande Theft Auto and it's reputation for violence, especially GTA 3, GTA: Vice City and now GTA: San Andreas. Lately, however, GTA:S.A. has come under more fire than its predecessors and it's all because of something called the "Hot Coffee Mod." Apparently the .mod,which unlocks minigames that involve explict sex scenes, was created by Patrick Wildenborg, who claims his code merely opens content that is already included in the code of each off-the-shelf game. In an e-mail to the Associated Press Wildenborg had this to say:

"If Rockstar Games denies that, then they're lying and I will be able to prove that, my mod does not introduce anything to the game. All the content that is shown was already present on the DVD."

As of late, Hillary Clinton has come onboard to announce she will introduce legislation to help keep mature video games out of the reach of children, which coincides with California legislation introduced by Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) Assembly Bill 1793. The bill basically states the same thing, but Clinton expressed in a statement on her website that the legislation she will introduce will put some teeth into video game ratings. How, you may ask? The answer is simple - by instituting a financial penalty for retailers who fail to enforce the rules. Clinton, via her website, also went on to say:

"We need to do better. We need to do everything we can to make sure that parents have a line of defense against violent and graphic video games and other content that go against the values they are trying to instill in their children."

That's all well and good, but will it do any good? One could speculate that this is just political posturing. The current investigation by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and The National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF) hasn't concluded. As a result, we really don't know who is at fault yet. Rockstar recently defended itself in a statement to Game Daily Biz, saying:

"So far we have learned that the 'hot coffee' modification is the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the game. In violation of the software user agreement, hackers created the 'hot coffee' modification by combining, reconstituting, and altering the game's source code... since the 'hot coffee' scenes cannot be created without intentional and significant technical modifications to the game's source code, we are currently investigating ways that we can increase the security protection of the source code and prevent the game from being altered by the 'hot coffee' modification."

In the larger scheme of things for the short term, will Clinton's actions will make an ounce of difference? Probably not. We already have rating systems in place for music and film, which are scrutinized whenever a kid brings a gun to school. What will tougher ratings on video games really accomplish? One thing stricter ratings can do is drive up the demand for these types of games, just like it did for rap and such artists as Eminem and the old school 2 Live Crew. What would you want to get your hands on, a censored or noncensored version of album? Would you rather listen to a radio edit or the uncut version of a song? In reality, most kids are going to go for the games that have that black and white M+ or AO sticker in the corner. Granted, there needs to be some sort of buffer between entertainment and horrific violence and perhaps this will have a long term affect of the industry at large and future gamers.

However, in dealing with the short term, according to Entertainment Software Association (ESA) president, Douglas Lowenstein, in an article on GameSpot , says:

"The legislation proposed by Senator Clinton is unconstitutional on its face as it amounts to government enacted restrictions on creative and artistic expression protected by the First Amendment...while we understand Senator Clinton's motivation, in the end her solution will never pass constitutional muster and thus will do nothing to help parents raise their kids."

After looking at all this, Hillary may be doing more harm than good in terms of publicity due to the increased buzz and attention. Simply put, the hype of this story is making GTA even more attractive to those she is trying to protect, taking into account the very nature of the game, crime, violence, and sex. Having it be the center of new legislation just makes it even cooler to young kids. After all, it's human nature and we always want what we're not supposed to have. Will Clinton's involvement make a difference, or will it just be business as usual for Rockstar? We'll have to see how this pans out in the long term, just like another hot political and violent game currently being played overseas.