GP EDITORIAL: Congress Grilled the Wrong People

Capitol Hill is very much interested in video games these days.

Wednesday's hearing before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection was both lengthy and contentious. Subcommittee Chair Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and colleagues were not kind to game industry witnesses, especially ESRB President Patricia Vance.

GP does not quarrel with the ability of Congress to hold hearings on the video game issue.

We just think they grilled the wrong people.

With 99% of political attention in relation to video games directed at the Grand Theft Auto series in general and the Hot Coffee scandal in particular, Congress should have skipped intermediaries like Doug Lowenstein and Patricia Vance and posed their questions directly to the people who run Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games.

GamePolitics would very much like to see Take-Two CEO Paul Eibeler and Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser explain to Congress exactly how Hot Coffee happened.

The internal mechanics of how the scandal came about have never been detailed, save for in the most general terms. The Federal Trade Commission's incredibly sparse report of its nearly year-long investigation tells us nothing that wasn't already revealed by GamePolitics and other news outlets last summer.

For starters we'd like to know:

-who conceived the Hot Coffee idea?
-who created the animations?
-who eventually decided to nix it from the final version?
-why it wasn't removed from the disc entirely?
-did insiders realize the active and highly-skilled GTA mod community would find the sex animations?
-why did Rockstar and Take-Two lie about Hot Coffee when it was revealed?
-why did they try to blame the mess on their biggest fans, the GTA mod community?

The video game industry has suffered tremendously because of Hot Coffee. Much of the legislation discussed every day on GamePolitics would either not have been proposed, or would not have passed were it not for the enormous public and political mistrust generated by Hot Coffee.

In California, for example, Leland Yee's video game bill was, by his own admission, dead in the water in June of 2005. Hot Coffee burst onto the scene in July. By October, Yee's bill had been passed and signed into law. It now awaits a ruling from a federal judge on its constitutionality.

The game development community has also taken note of Hot Coffee's fallout. Noted game designer Warren Spector broke ranks last November, saying that Rockstar had put the entire industry at risk.

So it's time for some answers. The FTC investigation certainly didn't provide them. Congress has subpoena power. They should use it.

Paul Eibeler and Dan Houser should be called to Capitol Hill and compelled to explain Hot Coffee - to Congress, to the public and to their video game industry colleagues.

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