Grand Theft Auto Remastered Trilogy is still unavailable to play or buy on PC
Grand Theft Auto III – The Definitive edition was launched on PC last Thursday, but was quickly taken down by Rockstar’s official launcher. The service is now back, but you can’t still buy or play Grand Theft Auto III or Vice City or San Andreas. This may be due to an unintended addition of code that was not intended for public consumption.
Rockstar claims they are working to ” delete files unintentionally contained in these versions”, but they didn’t specify the files they were referring to. VGC reported that Grand Theft Auto has PC collections including developer notes and music files with expired licences. Most notably, the code also contains links to Hot Coffee, a sex mini-game in San Andreas that led to a Federal Trade Commission investigation into Rockstar, class-action lawsuits, and a moment that reignited the games-have-too-much-sex panic.
Vadim M. is a GTA authority and has documented its history for many years. highlighted instances using the Hot Coffee code via Twitter. Although the San Andreas remake doesn’t contain all of the necessary assets, its bones are still intact. Vadim speculated that it might not be possible to add those missing pieces back in, since the game’s executable file seems to prohibit it.
The Hot Coffee scandal began in 2005. Modders discovered files inaccessible for the Hot Coffee sequence created by Rockstar North. At first, the studio blamed hackers for modifying the source code. The FTC discovered that Rockstar Interactive and its parent company Take-Two Interactive had misrepresented the sexual content in San Andreas to ESRB. They were given notice and no fines.
The new trilogy also contains some interesting tidbits. Vice City’s Prawn Island was previously named Porn Island. Well Stacked Pizza references refer to it as Pizza Hut. Developer notes are also shown in another screenshot. They state that “This shit does not work the way they wrote below, so we’ll just display the text and place a blip at or near the beginning of their mission.”
Although it is interesting to see early development, the launch was a complete disaster. Players are responding to Rockstar’s initial tweet about the file mishap with requests for refunds. The anger is now reflected in Metacritic rating of PC. Grand Theft Auto – The Complete Edition has an amazing 0.6 rating.
Take-Two’s use DMCA takedowns is perhaps the most shocking. Kotaku documented Take-Two’s continued actions against GTA modders, and the removal their work across multiple series–making sure that they destroy any goodwill with those who spent years working on their games. It’s impossible to re-visit the original three. Rockstar has removed Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City versions from all digital stores. Your definitive edition might be a PS2 disk.
