Register Hardware

Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/26/hot_coffee_cash/

Few gamers claim Grand Theft Auto 'hot coffee' cash

By James Sherwood
Published Thursday 26th June 2008 12:16 GMT

$93,660 (£47,201/€59,631) can’t be much to the publisher of Grand Theft Auto. But that’s the paltry maximum amount it could've paid out so far over the infamous ‘hot coffee’ incident in GTA: San Andreas, simply because hardly anyone’s filed a claim.

To refresh your memory, ‘hot coffee’ was the name given to a sequence within GTA: San Andreas that allowed players to perform sexual acts with background characters.

A lawsuit was brought against Take-Two Interactive - publisher of Grand Theft Auto, and the company later agreed to pay between $5 and $35 to anyone who had bought the game and was offended by the scenes - which were not enabled by default, but required a special hack to activate.

But, according to Seth Lesser, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, only 2676 people have come forward to claim their cash, so far. "We can't guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don't care. The merits of the case were clear,” Lesser said.

The irony is that the 11 law firms that brought the action against Take-Two are said to have claimed around $1.3m (£655,000/€828,000) in legal fees.