Grand Theft Auto V is coming next year and will return the series to the west coast and the fictional city of Los Santos that was first seen in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, co-founder of Rockstar Games, Dan Houser spoke about the studio's past and specifically about the "Hot Coffee" controversy that surrounded San Andreas. He said, "It was draining and upsetting; a tough time in the company."
"Hot Coffee" is normally an obscure mini-game in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It portrays sexual intercourse between the game's protagonist C.J. Johnson and his in-game girlfriend.
The mini-game was disabled in the retail release of the game but was discovered and returned to the game by the modding community. It was also discovered in the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions of the game. Rockstar took action by recall the game, adding a new adult rating, rereleasing the game without the content and issuing a patch that disabled the mini-game even if the modification was installed.
Houser said that many of the fears about video games have not come to pass and that the old debates about violent video games aren't as prevalent.
"The massive social decay that we were supposed to induce hasn't happened," Houser told the Guardian. "So in that regard, a lot of those debates that used to go on, they're not such a big deal now."
Houser said that the outrage came because Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a video game and not a traditional medium of entertainment such as books and film.
"We never felt that we were being attacked for the content; we were being attacked for the medium, which felt a little unfair," he said. "If all of this stuff had been put into a book or a movie, people wouldn't have blinked an eye. And there are far bigger issues to worry about in society than this."
The latest addition to the series, Grand Theft Auto V will be releasing in the Spring of next year for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. But RockStar Games hasn't ruled out ports for the PC or Wii U. Read more here.
