
Their dad, Wally, was co-owner of a jazz nightclub, and in the early ’80s the brothers developed an obsession with the hip hop scene across the pond in New York. INTRO LEVEL Dan and Sam Houser had dreamed of rock stardom since they were school kids in London. It seems the blokes forgot that in life, as in Grand Theft Auto, there are repercussions for the choices you make. Rockstar and Take-Two executives declined to answer questions for this article, but their rich and troubled story is revealed by official documents and former employees. The irony is thick: The company that defined virtual criminality is now associated with the real thing. Numerous lawsuits have also been filed over the scene.
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Last June, Take-Two announced it had received a grand jury subpoena from Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau seeking, among other things, documents “relating to the knowledge of the Company’s officers and directors regarding the creation, inclusion and programming of hidden scenes (commonly referred to as ‘Hot Coffee’).” Hot Coffee is an explicit sex minigame buried in the source code of Rockstar’s 2004 title Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. A class action suit was settled over the unintentional inclusion of "scenes of a sexual nature" in the previous Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, the all-time best-selling game in the United States.*įor all the financial irregularities and management shuffles, though, a few lines of code written into one of Rockstar’s games would cause even bigger headaches. Since the story appeared, five of the six Take Two board members have been ousted, including chief executive Paul Eibeler, and the company is fighting off a takeover bid from Electronic Arts. We're republishing a story that first appeared in the May 2007 issue of Wired* about the trouble that GTA-developer Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two faced at the time.

The game has also been a lightning rod for controversy, and Take-Two has been under investigation for financial improprieties. It's the most popular and critically acclaimed M-Rated (not for kids under 17) game franchise in history, and the new game is expected to earn a half billion dollars.

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Rockstar Gameography View Slideshow Editor's note: On April 29, game publisher Take-Two Interactive will release Grand Theft Auto IV, the latest entry in a series that has sold 70 million copies.
