Sex, Lawyers, and Video Games

What would happen if you threw a party and no one came? According to the New York Times, a group of lawyers found out.

A bunch of lawyers had filed a class-action suit on behalf of purchasers of the Grand Theft Auto–San Andreas video game who were offended by the embedded sex scenes. The terms of the settlement were that they would get either $5 or a replacement game with the sex scenes edited out.

Apparently, not many were too concerned. As it turns out, gratuitous sex no longer warrants outrage—or at least it doesn’t justify the 42-cent stamp to send in the claim.

After seeing Amanda Palmer perform at Symphony Hall with the Boston POPs, this doesn’t surprise me. While she is a talented musician and the show was a good deal of fun, it definitely wasn’t standard, G-rated POPs fare. While people who operate on auto-pilot pretty much get what they deserve, I kept thinking of those POPs regulars who had stumbled on the show and didn’t quite know what she was all about, especially during the particularly raunchy (well, they would have been raunchy if they weren’t so funny) semi-simulated sex scenes by the back-up singers, complete with dill pickles—the big kosher deli kind—during her rendition of “Don’t Tell Mama.” Well, in this case Mama (and Papa for that matter) knew, as they were there in the audience and couldn’t have been prouder of their little girl.

All in all, I’d say as a culture we’ve crossed some kind of a line.

Back to the Grand Theft Auto party. So, what does happen with a class-action-less lawsuit? The video game maker will pay out only about $30 thousand in claims and the lawyers will take the bulk of the $1.3 million settlement in fees after tying up the courts for a case no one wanted. That’s the real obscenity. Ca-ching.