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'Hot Coffee' Compensation Announced

By Chris Bennett, Tudor Carsten, Michael R. Coburn, Sarah Dale-Harris, Pablo Guzman, Danielle (Dani) Lemon, Chris Metcalfe and David Spratley

Take-Two Interactive ahas nnounced details of its compensation plan for gamers who purchased copies of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas before July 20, 2005 - the version which contains the sexually-explicit 'Hot Coffee' mod. The discovery of the hidden data by modders led to a firestorm of criticism for Take-Two and Rockstar Games, and culminated in a class action in the US.

Take-Two is offering to refund customers on a sliding scale depending on how much evidence of purchase they can provide, with a basic payment of up to USD $5 if a person has no details or original game disc. A file claim form is available from the settlement web site. Anybody claiming must swear under penalty of perjury that they were "offended and upset" by the possibility of the modified content, that they wouldn't have purchased the game if they'd known beforehand about the possible modification, and that on finding out about the Hot Coffee content they would have returned the game for a refund if they thought it was possible.

The offer is currently restricted to US citizens, and there is no indication that Take-Two is planning to extend the refund scheme to other territories.

Coverage at GameSpot.

Summary by Mike Mjanes.

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Full post as published by Video Game Law Blog on January 30, 2008 (boomark / email).