GTA Trilogy Contains The Infamous 'Hot Coffee' Code That Cost Take-Two $20 Million

Slightly unrelated to the article, but the more I read about this trilogy the more I believe y'all need to apologize to Pokémon BDSP and ILCA.

Removing arbitrary code from a game requires a lot of additional testing as it can have ramifications in other elements of the game, it's not surprising

You know what they say. "Legends never die"

@wanghosom no.

@wanghosom One is a remaster trilogy released as one entity and the other is a single remake released as two separate entities. Relation between these two things seems tangential at best.

@wanghosom : For what? Criticisms levelled at both sets of games are well deserved. In fact, it shows that Nintendo themselves are hardly the lesser of evils.

Where’s jack thompson at /s

@wanghosom Uh why? Your really going to have to give me a good reason to tell my why in the world I should say sorry.

The ironic thing about the "Hot Coffee" minigame is that it would be perfectly fine with a PEGI 18 or Australian R18+ classification, but it would only require a ban in the U.S. due to restrictions on the AO rating there. In fact, the Australian guidelines state that there are "virtually no restrictions" on nudity at the R18+ category.

If anything, Europe and Australia shouldn't be bound by the same restrictions by proxy just because of the U.S. (despite how obscenely permissive their M rating is).

@Doofenshmirtz well...

Considering this GTA Trilogy is just an enhance upscale filter edition of the mobile versions of them games, it's no surprise it end up looking and performing the way it did. Porting and polishing garbage to console will not turn them into hits. It'll just look and run like even worst garbage.

@wanghosom no

@Slowdive I've found Rockstar PC refunds are a nightmare. Steam says talk to Rockstar, Rockstar says talk to Steam, both say they can't do it

Alternatively there’s naked people all over the internet….

@wanghosom no

@Slowdive : Depends on the license agreement (which I would guess most skip without reading).

@Slowdive Sounds illegal to me. Most companies pulling a fast one like this would be held accountable

@sleepinglion Steam will not give a refund because the game cannot be purchased on Steam. On PC, refunds are all on Rockstar this time.

@MortalKombat2007 Ideally, yes. My purchase was on Steam. Steam told me they can't do a refund and to speak with Rockstar. Rockstar said they cannot do a refund and to speak with Steam. It might be a matter of which employee I get that day

@Silly_G Haven't played them yet, but to give credit to ILCA (BDSP's development studio) - they did a fine job of what seems to be an ask to faithfully recreate the old games with modern graphics and net code. With LoA coming, Gamefreak chose to outsource older titles to a third party and hit for the purest possible nostalgia while trying something new with the prequel to Sinoh themselves, which I believe was an intentional move to make LoA look more novel in comparison (BDSP's official website even features LoA prominently just 4 days from BDSP's release). Chibi is definitely NOT my favorite style, but I have to admit ILCA did it well and that on paper Chibi makes sense if you want to keep game-boy like restrictions on 4-directional movement. It's not what I wanted, but I'm not going to fault ILCA (the outsourced devs) or even Nintendo (publisher - marketing and music) for Gamefreak's call to make BDSP as 1 to 1 of an experience as they seem to have done. I hope they loosen the leash a bit next time and let the third party reimagine rather than remake, as well as pick a different art style. ICLA has at least proven their lighting and shadows are better than Gamefreak's internal studios IMO, and I'd like to see what else they can do.

if GFSEX = yes
string 'giggidy giggidy goo'
else
soloSex = 1

@flightsaber : While I'm not a fan of the chibi aesthetic, my comment was directed to the fact that there is a grossly unfinished build on the cartridge that will require a 3GB+ day one patch, which is unprecedented for the Pokémon franchise, and frankly inexcusable given how unambitious these games have been.

Time for the ESRB to freak out over an inaccessible and incomplete minigame again.

I was wondering if they would leave the hot coffee code in there and I'm surprised they did! 🤔🤔 Pc modders will def bring it back no doubt

@Slowdive really this is all shambles but it's expected from scummy rockstar 🙄🙄

I don't understand, if the code is disabled and is been modified so it can never be re-enabled, why is this Hot Coffee code such a big deal??
Technically is not even meant to be found in the first place so this shouldn't be bothering anyone.

@Doofenshmirtz
Ohhh now I'm reminded of MegaMan Legends. Please Capcom, revive Legends 3 and put it on the Switch and it will be the best selling Legends game ;w;

Just some feedback: I had to read the article to understand the language used in the title. It didn't make any sense.

Really beating this dead horse.

I really don't care how (over) highly rated this series is. It is trashy desensitizing 'little kid wants to be a big kind now' series that glorifies some of the worst parts of society. Shock value and overhyped is still trash even though GTA3 was pivotal in sandbox tasks based play.

The coffee thing is cheap scummy and predictable and was no doubt left in for coverage just like it was in the first place back in 2003.

No idea what hot coffee mode is, but how naughty can a mini game be!? What do you have to do in it?

@wanghosom And Skyward Sword.

They should release an "unrated" version of the game that has Hot Coffee fully implemented!

@Silly_G That's fair - effectively baking in piracy/leak protection by locking content behind a date gate is terrible for preservation and physical-only consumers.

@darkswabber He changed his name to Anita Sarkeesian. Though she's not relevant nowadays either thankfully.

@GrailUK IIRC press up and down while two mostly clothed PS2 era humanoids are making awkward grinding animations. Basically you got to see what was going on when in the final version it was just an outside view of the house and some noises.

@SmaggTheSmug Oh. Nothing to do with coffee then! It doesn't sound like something that should cause outrage in an 18 rated game.

@Chibi_Manny It's mainly remembered because it caused controversy back in the day. That was before mainstream games dared to have erotic scenes unless they were entirely pornographic.

@GrailUK It had to do with ESRB and American culture. There you can do everything but sex and get away with an M rating, but as soon as there's sex you get the dreaded AO rating that many stores refuse to carry. As I understand one is 17 and the other either 18 or 21.

@SmaggTheSmug Ahh. Thanks

Useless Information: To get Hot Coffee working on an unmodded game console, all you needed was an Action Replay/Gameshark disk that let you inject cheat variables into the game. When I first heard the controversy, I assumed it had to be a download or something, but it was always on the disk, just disabled.

All the same, this article is talking about a lawsuit that happened back in 2009 and then casually mention the scandal at the end just so they can cram out one more GTA Trilogy Bash article to add to the collection. Real slow day guys.

@sleepinglion Are you talking about the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy - Definitive Edition? You did not buy that from Steam. The collection is a Rockstar Game Launcher exclusive, it was never on Steam.

@MortalKombat2007 Different purchase. I have Red Dead 2 on my PS5 but wanted it on Steam as well. Having already purchased RDR2 Online through Steam, I added the Story Mode through that. But when the launcher went down 12 hours after my purchase, I asked about a refund because tying an offline mode to being online is just dumb. Rockstar said, "Nope, you have to go through Steam." Steam said, "Nope, you have to go through Rockstar."

@sleepinglion
Did you buy RDR through Steam? In most cases, you usually get your refund from the store you bought your game from. Kind of like how you buy a product and get a refund from Wal*Mart, you would go back to Wal*Mart, not the manufacturer.

@MortalKombat2007 I purchased RDR2's standalone online portion through Steam. It boots up in the Rockstar Launcher. Rather than purchase the full game from Steam's store, I unlocked it as DLC by making a purchase from within the RDR2 Online app. Like a gold purchase. Both companies, Steam and Rockstar, are telling me to see the other for a refund. It's kind of weird. My concern was playing the offline story mode but having to have an internet connection to do so. Lots of Steam games allow me to play offline. The Launcher feels like kind of a mess to me. When the Steam Deck comes out, I'll need to hop online just to play the offline Story Mode while traveling. Rockstar should update their Launcher app to fix this problem. But it's Rockstar. So I expect little.

There is always salty people in this world who ruin the fun for the people who enjoy it