If you bought the game before July 2005 - and come on, you did - and you still have the receipt, you can send in a copy of the receipt for a sweet $35. Without the receipt, you're stuck with submitting the actual game disk, and whatever various level of proof you can provide (ranging from a credit card statement to just your say-so) determines your payout, from $17 down to a lousy $5.

I picked up San Andreas on launch day, in October 2004... so my first thought was, holy crap, San Andreas was four years ago!? No wonder I'm super jazzed about GTAIV.

We talked about this in the office last week. Tony's assertion is that, no matter how this ends up, some politician somewhere is going to field this as proof that human beings everywhere hate M-rated games, and that games with content intended and produced for adults should not exist. He's right, but I think that ship has already sailed. Just the fact that Hot Coffee caused a class action lawsuit places this on the Crusaders' playbook.

For me, the question is where does the money go if it is not claimed by supposedly aggrieved consumers. The money has already been alloted based on San Andreas' sales, so the pile is there and somebody is getting it. Where does the leftover amount go? The government? Lawyers? I would like to take the $35 and fund it right back into Rockstar by virtue of my purchase of GTAIV... but that's a false claim because I was quite clearly going to buy GTAIV regardless. The only way to be righteously indignant about the money is to sign the claim check right over to Rockstar.

Then there's the perjury issue. The fine print reads:

By submitting this form, you attest under penalty of perjury that: you bought a Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas First Edition Disc on or before July 20, 2005; you were offended and upset by the ability of consumers to modify and alter the disc to display the Hot Coffee content; you would not have bought the disc had you known that consumers could modify and alter it to display the Hot Coffee content; and, upon learning the game could be modified and altered, you would have returned it to the place of purchase for a refund if you thought this was possible.

Let's be lawyery about this. "You were offended and upset by the ability of consumers to modify and alter the disc to display the Hot Coffee content." Easy out... it doesn't say I was offended by Hot Coffee, but that I was offended by the ability of other parties to modify the game. OK. So I dislike modding the original artistic vision of game developers. I've been against Game Shark type crap for years (see my ongoing complaints about cheating in Pokemon and Animal Crossing.) This broad brush nails a ton of PC mod content, but what do I care about that scene.

"You would not have bought the disc had you known that consumers could modify and alter it to display the Hot Coffee content." Hurm, tougher. There's no way I would not have purchased San Andreas. Unless it was reported that buying the game would destroy your PS2. I know that getting Hot Coffee to appear on the PS2 version involved quite a complicated hack, and that your game became unplayable soon after viewing the torrid, steamy, sexual, fully-clothed, low-poly, genital-less, unfinished animation mini-game. So I would certainly never have attempted to expose Hot Coffee because there's no way I'm risking my memory card... but I still would have bought the game. I think a reasonable amount of skepticism ("I did not believe the content could actually be accessed, so I bought it anyway.") could get me out of perjury here.

"Upon learning the game could be modified and altered, you would have returned it to the place of purchase for a refund if you thought this was possible." Again, no. Easily one of the best games on the PS2? Not getting returned.

But then again, a lot can change in a couple years. Maybe I wasn't offended then, but I'm totally offended now, as I get older and whatever-the-fuck-not-really.

The other problem with that clause is that it doesn't mention Hot Coffee. But here's how I snake out of perjury: "if you thought this was possible." I didn't think it was possible to return the game, because video games are almost completely non-refundable at retail.

So yeah, we looked for the receipt. Didn't find it, so I really don't have to commit to either side of the ethical dilemma. Although I'm pretty sure I'd go for the $35.

The vast majority of that money is going to go unclaimed... and I want to know what happens to it.

I hope those PC-hacking pukes that "discovered" the Hot Coffee code are proud of themselves. Has anybody ever done an interview with them? I'd love to hear how and why they did that, and what they think of the ramifications.

By the way, that picture is from the new marketing campaign for GTAIV, wanted posters hanging in Brooklyn.