Florida- In a letter entitled “Kiss the ESRB good-bye” addressed to ESRB President Patricia Vance and CCed to select media and politicians, Miami Lawyer and activist, Jack Thompson [pictured] is putting forth GTA: Vice City as the next Hot Coffee case.

Claiming embedded content is in Vice City, Thompson is calling for its immediate removal from store shelves. He points to www.gamepolitics.com for a report that there is such sexual content in Vice City as proof (more on the alledged report below).

The letter touches on several issues:

“1. Take-Two knew about the hidden sexual content in Vice City well before the release of San Andreas and that gamers were readily accessing this embedded mod. This means that Take-Two cannot claim ignorance of such content and the consequences thereof re San Andreas.

2. The ESRB must immediately initiate an investigation of the presence of this “explicit sex mod” in GTA: Vice City, as the modders themselves indicate that the sexual content may be even more explicit than in GTA: San Andreas. Thus, Take-Two’s Vice City is probably another “AO” game masquerading as an “M” game, with consequences not only for the current FTC investigation but also for the two class action lawsuits. I am providing a copy of this letter to plaintiffs’ counsel therein. As the class action lawsuits, plaintiffs may now include all buyers of GTA: Vice City as well. The sex mod in Vice City certainly helps prove the fraud as to San Andreas as it was a pattern and practice for Take-Two to do this.

3. All GTA: Vice City games should be immediately pulled from all store shelves pending your investigation of the sex mod in Vice City.

4. This has huge significance for our case in Alabama, Strickland v. Sony, Take-Two, et alia, as it shows deception that will have an impact on our jury’s attitude toward the defendants. Molesting minors for money does not go over well in Alabama.

5. Finally, now that millions of units of GTA: Vice City containing that game’s sex mod are in the hands of kids, the ESRB will receive a body blow that it cannot, and probably should not, survive. Cover this up, Ms. Vance, and I’ll personally make sure that the ESRB does not survive.”

In a series of emails exchanged with Thompson and a few editors covering the issues, Dennis McCauley, editor of gamepolitics.com said “Sorry, but GamePolitics is not reporting any such thing.”

He goes on to say “…I believe Jack has extracted a single sentence from a lengthy series of quotes by a GTA modder in a story we ran yesterday.

The sentence is contained in this paragraph:

“At any rate, the rest of the mod scene was rather surprised when Patrick released it, so I don’t think anyone else even thought it was there. Although not many people (in the scene) are really shocked or surprised that Rockstar was working on it. Vice City had missions involving a porn studio with cutscenes showing people wearing less clothes than Hot Coffee while filming a porn, so to most who have been playing the series for a while, hot coffee seems like a natural progression. Especially considering all the other simulation flavored aspects they added to San Andreas.”

I haven’t seen this cut scene myself, so I can’t comment on it. My impression is that there’s much less to it than Hot Coffee. We are certainly not claiming any new revelations here.”

Having culled the gamepolitics.com site before McCauley gave his response, we came to the same conclusion as to where Thompson was pulling his information. We provided Thompson with what we remembered of the content (that it was suggestive and not graphic in any way, nor was it hidden, but was a part of the main story arc).

Thompson’s response to McCauley and our exchange was:

“The problem for the ESRB, then, is worse. The modders themselves indicate that this “cutscene” rivals what is in the “Hot Coffee mod,” and in fact it does. Thus, the ESRB has put an AO rating on GTA:SA yet has put an M on a game whose content should have been known by them to include what is described. Kiss the ESRB good-bye.”

Our requests for additional supporting materials (e.g. proof) from Thompson were met with attacks upon our reporting methods. The irony is killing us.