Let me take you back to the 1990s, for some of you this was before you were born; a decade of Pogs, Gogos, and the Tamagotchi, a magical time. This was a decade of anarchy, violence, and swearing, that all looks a bit quaint now, looking back at Mortal Kombat and such. I’ve previously written about the argument of games Vs. guns in America and the world, which is deadlier and been around for longer? Spoiler, it was them there guns what did the most damage; just about as much as that syntax. I would also assume I spoke about one man in that latter article: Jack Thompson.

You see, Thompson spent most of his time in the 90s railing against 2 Live Crew, the group led by Luther Campbell that in 1989 would be the first to get the “Parental Advisory” now on most music. Thompson tried to ban the sale of the album “As Nasty As They Wanna Be,” as well as N.W.A’s “Straight Outta Compton.” Around this time he would sue Janet Reno, soon to be U.S attorney general, for putting her hand on his shoulder. She did so, cracking a joke damaging his virility after he went to one of her rallies to be elected state attorney demanding she sign a document saying that she was gay, bi, or straight.

Soon after this, he would go on to attempt to sue publishers and dissuade developers from putting sex, drugs, violence, and anything that makes a game fun. History from about 2004 is easy to understand as he teamed up with Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, to lobby the ESRB to ban the sale of M rated games to minors. This all came following the “Hot Coffee” mini-game modded back into the 2005 PC release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This led to a lawsuit that made Take-Two set aside a pot of 2.75 million dollars, 1 million of which was for lawyers, to settle the ordeal. In the end, 2,676 people got between 5 to 35 dollars.

The developer would go unharmed by this, as Rockstar went on to release several more installments in that series. Furthermore, they’ve gone on to release, Bully (Canis Canem Edit) and two Red Dead sequels in Redemption and Redemption 2. Now it seems that the modders are doing the rounds again, something that’s been a problem for Rockstar and Take-two in the past. Back in 2018, the publisher and its owner would attempt to sue over a mod, one which would allow players to cheat money into the online portion of Grand Theft Auto V. Some said this would kill modding for the game, though it was the paid online portion that was the problem.

This time it involves a redux of the “Hot Coffee” mod, however, this time around it was for the recent release of Red Dead Redemption 2. The mod was created by someone going by the name “Unlosing,” who has been in contact with both Eurogamer and PCGamesN. According to the former, Unlosing was contacted on the 15th by a Take-Two and Rockstar rep from Frankfurt Kurnit, with the rep requesting that the mod be taken down.

After a bit of back and forth via emails between the rep and Unlosing, the rep said the mod violates the EULA, “prohibits acts like decompiling, preparing derivative works based on, or otherwise modifying the software.” This includes a violation of the code of conduct, which “includes a prohibition on users creating, uploading, or posting material that is vulgar, obscene, sexually[-]oriented, or inconsistent with community standards.” This argument was countered by Unlosing suggesting that the mod doesn’t add anything that’s not in the game, but uses models and content within the game already, much like other Read Dead 2 and GTA mods.

According to Eurogamer and the emails they have seen, the sexual content “is causing particular concern,” for the publisher. Unlosing has said to Eurogamer, “I don’t think I’m going to take the mod down any time soon.” Though one has to assume Rockstar and Take-Two would have just as much issue with the nude mods that cropped up back in November. As far as we know, the “Hot Coffee” mod for Red Dead 2 doesn’t contain nudity, though other mods do allow for players to play as nude characters.

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