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July 25, 2005 House
challenges game maker Washington—The
U.S. House of Representatives kicked off this week by taking a shot at
misleading marketing of the video game “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.”
This evening, “Ratings are meant to
help parents protect their kids,” said Congressman Pitts.
“We should all be concerned when game makers try to circumvent
these ratings to get sexually-explicit or violent material into the hands of
kids. We passed this resolution
because a bad actor – Rockstar Games – appears to have deceived the
Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The
company provided a free download to activate sexually explicit aspects of
Grand Theft Auto that are not visible when buying it off the shelf. In
doing so, the company deceived the ratings board to give it access to the
most profitable video game demographic: kids. “The stakes are too high
to stand by and watch this kind of thing happen.
Kids are too vulnerable to the content in these games.
Ratings were developed to protect kids and to help parents sort out
what is best for their kids. That’s
why the Federal Trade Commission should do its job and ensure the integrity
of these ratings,” said Congressman Pitts. When
Rockstar Games brought “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” before the
Electronic Software Ratings Board, the game was very violent and suggestive,
but did not contain sexually explicit material.
Following release, it was commonly known that users could download a
“patch” enabling them to activate scenes and features of the game
present in the original programming but not accessible to the ratings board
during premarket screening of the game.
In response to this skirting of the ratings process, H.Res. 376
states that:
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