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With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well

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With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well

It's hard to imagine now, but a little over 20 years ago the gaming world was absolutely scandalized by Hot Coffee, a mod to activate abandoned code in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that enabled CJ to have interactive sex with his girlfriend.

The game was re-rated as "Adults Only" by the ESRB in 2005, forcing it off retail shelves—this was a time when retail shelf space mattered—and it was banned outright in Australia. Even the US Federal Trade Commission got involved, complaining that Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive "did not tell consumers that the game discs contained potentially viewable nude female characters and a potentially playable sex mini-game."

22 years later, with Grand Theft Auto 6 on the verge of console release, it all seems rather quaint. From the ESRB's newly posted rating, here's what we've got to look forward to in GTA 6:

All of which adds up to an M rating—that is, "generally suitable for ages 17 and up." PEGI, the European game rating agency, came down a little harder, rating it 18+ in a since-deleted listing that also noted the presence of "detailed decapitation" and "frequent and prominent" drug use.

How did we get from there to here? Well, we grew up—literally. The Entertainment Software Association said in 2025 that the average gamer in the US is 36 years old and has been playing for 18 years: That's police, politicians, and parents who all came up playing games (including GTA) and view them as no more remarkable than a spicy episode of Miami Vice.


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