Some people hear this phrase and think of a McDonald's lawsuit. Other more hip-to-slang individuals will get the alternate meaning. Those who watched or read the news fairly often will recall a lawsuit in 2005 involving Grand Theft Auto: San Adreas. It’s been 4 years since GTA: SA was released, and this June 9th marks the 3-years anniversary of the Hot Coffee mod, which allowed PC owners of the game the ability to play a mini-game that was meant to be hidden from public eye forever.

Over the years “coffee” has evolved into a slang term for to sex. Many a successful date end with the line “Want to come up for a cup of coffee?” In actuality the woman (or man, we’re PC) is inviting you into their personal lair where all manner of naughty things can proceed. In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the main character CJ could date up to six women. The Wikipedia article does an excellent job of explaining this:

“During the course of the main plot of the game, the player (as main character Carl "CJ" Johnson) may date up to six girlfriends, carrying out various "date missions" in order to improve his relationship with a particular girl. Once Carl has become particularly close to a girlfriend, she may end a successful date by inviting him into her house for "coffee," from which Carl may choose to accept or decline. Improving relationships with girlfriends through successful dates and other related activities will eventually reward CJ with new items (vehicles and special wardrobes), along with pre-existing game play benefits (e.g. dating a nurse grants the player free visits to the hospital, without losing their weapons, after dying)”

Ask any game developer and they’ll tell you, a ton of material never makes it through to final releases of games. Whether it is time constraints, lack of funding, artistic or creative decisions about a games direction, a lot ends up on the cutting room floor. Sometimes these decisions are made early on in development before code is even written for it. Other times the decisions come down to the very final days of testing only to get the axe. If the code is already written, what happens at this point? How far integrated into the game is this component? Some scripts are easy to comment out in the coding world and others have so many pointers, functions and variables tied to them the edit process is a bit more extensive. The “Hot Coffee” mini game never made it to the final fold version of the game, and it went on sale April 29, 2004.

Shortly after the games release, software developers, coders and hackers all began to delve into the source code for San Andreas and found tons of hidden things that the coding “links” were broken to, but code still remained intact. Some of this was unused textures, sound clips and animation scripts. From what I remember there were even a few car models that never saw the light of day, such as a DeLorean and Jet Ski. A PC modification was written to allow access to the Hot Coffee mini game and when news of it hit the internet it spread like wildfire. San Andreas was originally released as ESRB-rated M (for Mature, ages 17 and up). There was much public, political and government outcry regarding the material presented in this game. Multiple class-action suits were filed by individuals who had felt the game was released under misleading or false advertising.

The basic outcome was that the ESRB was re-evaluated in its ability to effectively rate video games for the general public. For a short time San Andreas games were pulled from stores, re-rated AO (Adult Only 18+) and restocked to certain merchants, as AO games are not even stocked by some big stores. Original copies of games were marked as AO as well in some cases instead of receiving new boxes. Senator Hillary Clinton helped spearhead the Family Entertainment Protection Act towards the end of 2005. This Act made selling games to minors a federal offense, although it never made it through to law.

Since the Hot Coffee scandal the ESRB has slightly modified their rating system and process now involving a more in-depth questionnaire and tester play through during its official review process. In the past 2 years alone the gaming community has seen rise to more video games which contain controversial material of a violent or sexual nature such as Bio Shock, Gears of War, Indigo Prophecy and Leisure Suit Larry Magna Cum Laude. If anything Hot Coffee helped parents to become more aware of the content they were mindlessly saying yes to or purchasing for their children. It has always been my belief that it is a parent’s responsibility to censor and decide what their children should be allowed to watch, play and participate in based on their own common sense. Game developers and publishers should only be responsible for properly labeling and categorizing their games in a manner that the general-public can base these decisions as easily as possible.

It reminds me of an interesting quote from Sam House, Rockstar Games-founder I read in a 1UP.com interview:

“Our games are consciously made for adults -- it's why we started the company.... [From 17 years old] and up, I think we have a right to play what we want to play. And that's that. And as long as it's not touching on themes that are socially inappropriate -- and some films do it, and I think games should be allowed to do it, but let's be respectful -- as long as you're not doing that, what's the f***ing problem? Adults should be able to play what they want. America, the country I'm now a citizen of and love, is built on that premise....”

The entire article is worth reading as it’s a deep insight into how GTA IV was created and the complex process and reasoning the creators, writers and developers go through to bring us a rewarding gaming experience.

How do you think the Hot Coffee scandal and the aftermath affected the gaming industry? I think if anything it's pushed Rockstar to work on their character relationships more for the upcoming GTA IV, and from what I hear I think it's going to be a great feature of the game. Hit your thoughts up in the comments, and I’ll see you all in 4 days for some hooker-running-overing on the mean streets of Liberty City.