Hot Coffee's Effects On The GTA Mod Scene

simoniker writes "Over a year after the infamous 'Hot Coffee' incident, author and game designer Brenda Brathwaite explores the tragic aftermath on the GTA mod community — including interviews with 'Hot Coffee' creator PatrickW, the ESRB's Patricia Vance, and more." From the article: "The second version of San Andreas was made 'much more mod-resistant' according to Patrick, and among members of the community, there is doubt that future versions will be moddable at all. 'This has already made good people leave the scene,' Patrick adds. Among those that remain, there exists a certain amount of caution. 'Some innocent modding stuff isn't getting released,' says Patrick, 'because modders are afraid it might cause another controversy.'"

From someone who made some popular Morrowind mods

[palladiate]

Despite the above posts that seem to be completely clueless about the modding communities, yes, this and the Oblivion kerfluffle have indeed killed an awful lot of interest in modding. 6 weeks after Morrowind's release, we had skins that replicated the toplessness you found in Arena and Daggerfall. Was it a big deal? Nope. Just about everyone who had the game then remembered playing the first two.

Now? If you patch Oblivion, you can't modify models or skins without SERIOUS work because of, well, mostly because of Jack Thompson and his problems with sexuality, nudity, and a spot of violence.

It isn't so much a fear of asshats like him on the boards and in chat, or the difficulty of hacking the new patches, but a fear of killing the game that we like. Is it too racy? Is it too violent? Do we mention Jack Thompson without his permission?

Not all of us are up for a legal battle, or the notoriety of destroying a very awesome game and community. And although I loved playing game developer in Morrowind, I'll just have to stick to modding X3 or something that has ZERO possibility of offending someone...