5 Incredibly Controversial Moments From Grand Theft Auto Games

Ah, the mod that almost sunk the GTA series. First of all, before Grand Theft Auto V, many considered San Andreas to be the best entry in the franchise. From its portrayal of “hood” life, which was huge at the time, to its many new features (working out, getting girlfriends), the game just seemed to fire off on so many cylinders, and so many of them hit right on the head. But one thing the developers did that almost drove the nail into their coffin was including a sex mini-game that you could play if your dates went well enough.

As you know, in San Andreas, you could take girls on dates, and if those dates went well, they would invite you in for “coffee.” For those of us older than twelve, we knew what that really mean, but it seems the programmers had initially included you going into the house and railing the girl, and even though they took it out of the final code for the game, some genius from the mod community found it buried in there, and opened it up.

As if the sex scene itself wasn’t enough to rile up some conservatives, the kicker was, you could use buttons to change positions, and that was enough to send the world into an absolute frenzy. Suddenly, the game that was known in the press as the hooker killing simulation, had suddenly become the “sex simulation.” Parents all over the world didn’t know enough to know that the sex game was not actually in the final version and that gamers had to go out of their way to download a mod to open it up (and it was super awkward and not fun or remotely sexy), but the world was still going absolutely insane over it.

So insane, in fact, that Rockstar had to recall the game, even though the sex scene wasn’t in the actual thing. Let me explain this to you again, really slowly. Even though the scene wasn’t in the game, they were forced to take the thing out anyways. That is like your girlfriend slapping you because she THINKS you are THINKING about, MAYBE, one day, having sex with someone else. It is insane, and psychotic, and honestly, even if the recall was an absolute bitch and cost them a ton of money, it brought them more press than any commercial or ad in EGM ever could have, and that is the moment when Rockstar was like: “Controversy, huh? Yeah, we got this.”