Surprisingly Few People Collect on GTA Hot Coffee Settlement
by Brad Hilderbrand

A couple years back, there was an apparent public outrage over the infamous Hot Coffee mod which could be found in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The scene, which was the result of some code that had been cut from the final version of the game but not deleted entirely, allowed players to perform sexual acts with an NPC in one specific instance. The incident sparked a firestorm of debate, as well as a class action lawsuit in which Take-Two agreed to pay between $5 and $35 to anyone who had purchased the game and been offended.

Now, well-after the fact, both the plaintiffs in the case and Take-Two itself are somewhat shocked that, in spite of millions of individuals having the right to a payout, only 2,676 people have come forward to claim their money. Seth Lesser, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs said that he is "disappointed" by the outcome, and doesn’t understand why so many people don’t care.

Theodore Frank, director of the Legal Center for the Public Interest at the American Enterprise Institute, believes that the lack of claimants proves that the case was meritless from the beginning. He submits that this lack of response proves that the plaintiffs claims were overblown, and as a consequence the suit may be deemed meritless and the lawyers who tried the case will not be able to collect their $1.3 million in legal fees they are demanding from Take-Two. Speaking to the New York Times, Frank says:

"There are two possibilities. Possibility one is they have a meritorious lawsuit and they’re selling out the class for attorneys’ fees. The other possibility is that, and frankly I think this is the more likely possibility, they brought a meritless lawsuit that had no business being brought to court at all."

So it might just turn out that all that moral outrage and mass hysteria was just a ruse brought up to try and cash in on a game franchise. Sounds like the American public might just be a little more tolerant toward sexual content (particularly sexual content you had to mod to access) than we previously thought. Good job, nation founded by Puritans, you’ve come a long way!