Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been pulled from store shelves due to some questionable (in some peoples’ minds) content of a very sexual nature. The question is, how big of an issue is this?

From an industry standpoint, it’s a pretty big deal. I would go so far as to say that GTA:SA is probably the most mainstream game to tout the “Adults Only” rating. And the way in which it happened has certainly attracted a lot of attention. But what gets to me is that the only way this could have happened is if Rockstar planned the whole thing. Not that I have a problem with it, but they just seem to be the type of company that wouldn’t inadvertently let this happen. And because of the content they are traditionally known for featuring, at least in the GTA series, I don’t think the “Hot Coffee” thing is much of a leap.

But why would they plan such a thing? Publicity springs to mind, and while it seems to have renewed interest in the game, I think it would be more harmful to have major discount retailers (Target, Wal-Mart, etc) pulling the game since, in rural areas especially, those are the only places it’s available. But maybe the real answer is to see how the public and their resellers cope with an AO game. It’s possibly a gauge to see what retailers will continue to carry the game and find out how much interest there is in it in spite of its rating.

Maybe Rockstar is preparing for the next in the series, the one that will blow people away when it comes to the next-gen console(s) and they want to get people prepared for content that is not so kid-friendly and content kids don’t always see in movies anyway. And maybe this was a plan to make parents aware of the kind of stuff that is in these games so they take responsibility in keeping them out of the hands of their children. If that’s the goal, it seems like this is one of the only ways left to achieve it. It doesn’t seem as though parents have much interest in ratings assigned by the ESRB and this was the only channel left.

Honestly, not I nor many others know what happened here. It would have been simple enough to pull the code from the game, but they didn’t, and it’s hard for me to believe that it was there undetected or forgotten as the game was being finalized. But in the end, I think what matters to gamers is how good the game is, not what it’s rated.