Rebirth: Dominate The World, Starting From The School Network

Mid-May.

Lu Yi came to America New York with his troops.

The next afternoon.

Lu Yi meets Take-Two founder Ryan Blunt.

The game company Take-Two may not be well-known to most players.

But one of its subsidiaries, Rockstar-Games, is different.

This game production company, known as "Rockstar" by players, has become well-known in the industry.

Among Rockstar's works, the "Grand Theft Auto" (GTA) series is the most famous.

Lu Yi has no doubt that when he is interviewing Ryan Blunt in New York, there may be many people playing the game "Grand Theft Auto" in an Internet cafe in China.

Last year was not very friendly to Take-Two.

It can even be said to be a very bad year.

The company's stock price plummeted 24%.

And all of this has a huge reason for the acquisition of Rockstar.

In 1998, Take-Two acquired BMG, and Rockstar was born.

The following year, "GTA2" was released.

Not only was it unsuccessful, but the content of the game was too violent, and it was criticized by media organizations, triggering widespread condemnation.

However, with the release of "GTA3", the reputation has changed.

In 2001, once "GTA3: New York" was released, the market response was very good.

With its commercial success, the development of sequels has naturally not stopped.

Soon in 2002, "GTA3: Vice City" was released.

This time it brought a better physics engine, more vehicles, and the protagonist’s flowered shirt image is still deeply remembered by many players to this day.

This time, Rockstar also achieved great success.

soon.

In 2004, "GTA3: San Andreas" was released.

This time the game map is larger, with more custom content, and naturally it has received rave reviews.

On the day of release, it created a sales miracle in the game industry that year.

But what followed was the 'hot coffee incident' that almost caused Rockstar to collapse.

The previous game, Vice City, received unprecedented acclaim. Rockstar founder Sam Houser naturally has greater expectations for the new game, San Andreas.

One of the main highlights of San Andreas is the restoration of real life.

In order to make the game more restored, Sam Hauser hopes to add some new content, including the love development function.

As the intimacy between the protagonist Carl and his girlfriend reaches a certain level, his girlfriend will invite Carl home for a cup of hot coffee [and then some indescribable things will happen.

However, due to the very strict game rating system abroad, the presence of such content in the game will definitely prevent the game from achieving greater sales.

In order to rate the game as M (17+), Rockstar skipped this process in the game, but it did not completely delete the process, which resulted in this part of the screen still being in the game.

So it sounds like you have the best of both worlds, but in fact you have dug a big hole for yourself.

With the release of the PC version of the game, a player in Gaul discovered this vulnerability.

then.

This player created a mod (hot coffee patch) that displays the skipped screen in front of the player.

Once the mod was released, players were stunned.

In just one month, this mod patch has sold 1 million copies.

After these indescribable contents were announced, game review agencies and some news media soon focused on the incident and began to report it extensively.

A month later, the ESRB agency was preparing to re-grade sa, but Fanxing pushed the matter to the creator of the MOD.

.........Please give me flowers...

It is undeniable.

Hot Coffee was indeed produced by Rockstar and was not deleted, giving others the opportunity to take advantage of it.

Rockstar's approach is tantamount to deception. In order to increase sales, it sells AO-level games as M-level games.

.

At that time, physical discs were still used. AO-level games generally could not be sold in conspicuous places, but M-level games could.

This also led to ratings agencies feeling that they had been deceived.

Moreover, Rockstar insisted afterwards that the incident had nothing to do with itself and was all the fault of the mod author.

0

certainly.

In the end, the lie was exposed and the social fishing boat reached its peak.

The ESRB still changed the classification to AO, which forced all products to be removed from the shelves for recycling, remade, and then put on the shelves.

certainly.

The impact of this incident goes far beyond that.

At that time, the Federal Trade Commission investigated the incident and initiated a lawsuit against Rockstar, believing that Rockstar's deception of the ESRB was tantamount to commercial fraud, and the general public also jointly sued Take-Two, Star's parent company.

in the following years.

Rockstar has to face constant compensation on one side, and huge pressure from fishing boats on the other.

So much so that the once-famous Rockstar almost went bankrupt.

Although he was not found guilty in the end, the parent company Take-Two still paid 20 million yuan in class action fees to settle the incident.

It can be said.

Take-Two is in trouble, and its market value has dropped from 1.67 billion meters to 1.2 billion meters. This is the best market feedback.

Although Rockstar was still producing other works during the scandal-ridden years, it encountered serious protests and boycotts from people from all walks of life, mainly parents.

As the parent company of Rockstar, Take-Two naturally cannot be alone. .