Fans of the GTA series must have already been familiar with GTA: San Andreas. Without a doubt, GTA: San Andreas is the best title of the series Rockstar has ever released. The total sales reached 27.5 million copies, making it the best-selling video game on Playstation 2. However, behind the phenomenal success, there were lots of winding roads Rockstar had gone through.

Rockstar’s Ambition for GTA: San Andreas

It started with the success of GTA: Vice City, which was hailed as a revolutionary game. GTA: Vice City featured gameplay that proceeded any player’s expectations at the time.

Due to what GTA: Vice City has accomplished, Rockstar was looking for a way to make another breakthrough innovation with the GTA Series and continue its legacy. They started up by developing a new title of GTA, GTA: San Andreas. Rockstar had a big ambition for GTA: San Andreas to surpass the success of its predecessor, GTA: Vice City.

GTA: San Andreas was a complex game since Rockstar really put the effort to make a video game that feels similar to the real world. Therefore, Rockstar added a lot of new features to GTA: San Andreas, such as spending time at the gym, dating, customizing cars, buying houses, driving planes, various professions, and many more.

But Rockstar didn’t stop there. They wanted to add something that’s completely new, which no game studio had ever done at the time.

Rockstar had a plan to add controversial scenes, adult love scenes. These scenes are later known as Hot Coffee. The reason why Rockstar had the plan to add these scenes in GTA: San Andreas is because they wanted to prove to the public that video games can actually offer more than other forms of arts like novels or movies.

What’s GTA: San Andreas’ Hot Coffee?

As you may already be aware, when dropping off CJ’s girlfriend (any of them) back to her place after a successful date and stronger relationship, the girlfriend will invite him inside for a coffee.

Well, in the normal version, Rockstar only shows the outside look of the house. While in the Hot Coffee version, they show what is happening inside the house.

However, after having some discussion, Rockstar eventually decided to cancel this plan, even though the scenes had already been made. This decision was taken due to ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board), as the organization that assigns age and content rating of the game, would give it AO (Adults Only) rating if Rockstar was to keep the Hot Coffee scenes in GTA: San Andreas.

As a consequence, Rockstar and Take-Two would have to take a lot of losses if GTA: San Andreas was rated AO. Considering around 80% of video game stores in the US wouldn’t sell GTA: San Andreas, including major retail stores, such as Walmart, Bestbuy, and GameStop.

If this would’ve happened, then the sales of GTA: San Andreas must have been far from what Rockstar had expected. Thus, Rockstar decided to take the Hot Coffee scenes out of the game so that GTA: San Andreas could get an M (Mature) rating and could cover more demographics.

The Hot Coffee Controversy

Back in March 2005, Rockstar officially released GTA: San Andreas and they manage to sell a total of 12 million copies, which already broke the record of the best-selling game on Playstation 2. Yet unfortunately, they couldn’t celebrate their success as there were many problems that put both Rockstar and Take-Two in a difficult situation.

The problem started in June 2005, where a Dutch programmer/modder, Patrick Wildenborg, found strange codes that he couldn’t find in the gameplay of GTA: San Andreas. After further investigation, it turned out that those codes refer to the Hot Coffee scenes, complete with the animations. Shortly after that, Patrick Wildenborg shared his finding on the internet and it immediately became a huge controversy. After all, this adult content should never be in an M rated game.

Rockstar accused the modder of the Hot Coffee scenes in GTA: San Andreas. Yet in fact, based on the evidence during the trial, Rockstar later admitted that they had a plan to add these scenes in GTA: San Andreas.

The controversy had turned out to be a huge issue, it transformed into a political issue in various countries, especially in the US and Australia. Hillary Clinton, who was a Senator back then, proposed a new regulation for the sales of video games in the US.

In addition to that, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was assigned to carry out the investigation of this case. In Australia, the government immediately banned the sale of GTA: San Andreas.

Not just Rockstar and Take-Two who suffered a huge loss, but the reputation and credibility of ESRB got dragged too by this controversy. Eventually, ESRB decided to change the rating of GTA: San Andreas from M (Mature) to AO (Adult Only). Which means that every copy of the M rated GTA: San Andreas had to be withdrawn. This had cost Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive a massive loss as they had to restart the production of the copies from the normal version to a new one that didn't contain any Hot Coffee scene.

Rockstar & Take-Two Interactive’s Massive Loss

In accordance with the legal settlement, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar were required to replace all hard copies of GTA: San Andreas bought by the consumers with GTA: San Andreas 2.0 which are free from any Hot Coffee content. They also had to pay compensation of $35 per person to consumers who have already bought GTA: San Andreas.

As reported by the New York Times, there were 2,676 people who claimed GTA: San Andreas 2.0. So, in total, Take-Two Interactive was required to pay compensation of $96,000 (IDR 1.2 billion). On top of that, Take-Two also had to pay $870,000 (IDR 11.3 billion) to ESRB and the National PTA.

Aside from all of that, there were other legal charges that Take-Two Interactive had to bear. From production to legal settlements, in total, Rockstar and Take-Two have spent $163 million (IDR 2.1 trillion) due to the Hot Coffee content. And this number was astronomical for a company that had only been founded six years before that.

Well, at least there’s still a lesson that we can learn from this case. Even though Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive had to face a tremendous case as big as this one, they moved on and keep on making new titles for the fans. Because if only they had given up, then we wouldn’t be able to see amazing games such as GTA IV, GTA V, GTA Online, the RDR series.

So, what do you think about the controversy that almost dragged Rockstar into bankruptcy? Make sure to watch the following Dunia Games’ video on the controversial GTA: San Andreas Hot Coffee content, hosted by Dimedigger.

Check out this article on GTA San Andreas cheats and use them in your GTA game now!