The Class Action lawsuit with Rockstar has been settled and if you were one of the many "victims" over the Hot Coffee incident, then you are entitled to some retribution. Rockstar will owe people either $35 or an updated copy of the game (which retails for $20 new).
Now for people to receive the $35 or the updated copy, you have to prove that you bought a copy of the game before July 20th 2005, you were offended by the ability to do the modification of the game, that you wouldn't have bought the game had you known about the mod in the first place and that you would have returned the game if possible upon learning about the mod. Take-Two is ready to spend at least $1.025 million on settlement benefits. More details of the full settlement will come later in the month but once the settlement receives final approval from the United States District Court, Take-Two and Rockstar won't have to ever admit to any wrongdoing.
What's interesting to note is that Take-Two believes that they could have won the trial had they continued to fight instead of settling:
"If the case had continued, we believe the court would have agreed that Take-Two was not liable for consumers acting independently to modify their games with third-party hardware and software to access normally inaccessible content," said Ben Feder, Chief Executive Officer of Take-Two. "Nonetheless, we believe it is in the best interest of the Company to avoid protracted and costly litigation to prove our case and to finally put this matter behind us."
Do you think they could have won? Actually, does anyone even care about Hot Coffee anymore? In any case, we're getting $35 out of all this which is totally going towards my purchase of GTA IV ... whenever that comes out.
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Contest:
4:38 PM on 11.08.2007
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I got the game when it first came out.
"Actually, does anyone even care about Hot Coffee anymore? In any case, we're getting $35 out of all this which is totally going towards my purchase of GTA IV ... whenever that comes out".
Doubt it applies in Britain, and even if it does, I've traded it in already.
And the consumers are just getting screwed in the long run, since the lawsuit money is going to pay for a yacht for some lawyer instead of being used to develop games.
First of all you aren't offended. If you are then you are a pussy, but I don't know if you can be a dick and a pussy at the same time so just pick one.
Secondly you are just fucking the company even more. Take-Two has been sued enough and lost a ton of money from people that hate video games. Now the people that actaully play games are going to screw them too.
And finally, who wants censorship in their video games? This isn't directly realated to the $35 but censorship is just bullshit in general. There is a rating system to videogames and it works for the most part but if something is rated 'M' then put whatever the fuck you want in the game because ITS A GAME. Its not real so who cares? (rhetorical question, don't answer)
Good luck.
You've got to stand for something,
Or you'll fall for anything,
You've got to be your own man
Not a puppy on a string.
Never comprimise what's right
and uphold your family name.
You've got to stand for something, etc...
(Aaron Tippin)
so anyway, I'm with the group that believes that you should not ask for it unless you are actually offended. We as gamers are tired of being stigmatized, and talked about as though we were all mentally deranged-prepubescents.
Really people expect that particular demographic to act in one of two ways,
A. try to get everything they can, whether or not they have any right to, or
B. try to protect them and bring up further censorship issues while having more precedant behind them. Personally I hate what this game is, but I will protect Rockstar's right to be absolutely awful.