Modding

Modding

The 'Hot Coffee' mod was a patch released in June 2005, for 2004's Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. The mod allowed access to a mini game that allows the main character 'CJ' to have sexual intercourse with his ingame girlfriend. The mod was created by Patrick Wildenburg, a 38 year old from the Netherlands. The minigame was originally planned to be included in the full version of San Andreas, however at the last minute the game was hidden behind code to keep it from the public. By removing/hacking this code, it was unlocked by Wildenburg. 

In July 2005, ESRB stated that they would change the game's Mature rating (M) to an Adults Only (AO) game rating. This was due to the hidden content being a part of the original game, rather than just an outside source.

Rockstar gave retailers a choice of either returning their copies of the games, or applying the new Adults only rating sticker. Many retailers had their games recalled, as they where not allowed to sell Adult-Only games, this was at huge cost to Rockstar. However, it did grant Rockstar major publicity for the game, and so maintained popularity for when it was re-released without the 'hot coffee' coding. The EU was less effected by the Mod, by the fact that they had already labelled the game an 18+ and had laws to enforce the ratings of video games. America Released how important this was, and so in December 2005, the 'Family Entertainment Protection Act' was passed which gave federal enforcement on ESRB ratings. Along with the government, the owners of Rockstar, Take-Two interactive were extremely annoyed. The 'Hot Coffee' mod had lost them money and damaged their reputation.