Xlrq (pronounced “Jeff“) recently lost his father-in-law in a terrible accident.

As part of his comments about his father-in-law, Paul McDonald, he links this story from Mr. McDonald. It’s definitely worth a read.

My sympathies and prayers go to Xlrq and his family.

Apparently, a grandmother is suing Rockstar Games after she bought GTA:SA for her 14-year-old grandson. Apparently she’s very offended that he might have seen nudity in the game, if he downloaded a mod that violated the EULA.

Let’s ignore the fact that she’s apparently much more upset about nudity that the kid can’t access legally than she is that the game she purchased involves lots and lots of criminal activity, ranging from mass murder to picking up prostitutes. A little bit of simulated sex is just a drop in the bucket when compared to all of the other Mature (thus, the “M” rating) stuff that’s in the game. Sure, it’s like buying La Blue Girl for your grandkid and then complaining that you didn’t know there was going to be cursing in it, but if she thinks a little nudity is worse than a lot of violence and mature themes, that’s her decision to make.

The problem is, though, that the material was, technically, in the game, but it was dead code — it can’t be accessed by winning a certain mission or entering a code, you have to modify the code in violation of the EULA contract. How, exactly, does she plan to present this? “I’m suing Rockstar Games because because they misrepresented the game they sold me. They told me that it only had ‘Realistic Violence, Mature Content, Gore, and Adult Language’, when it actually had animated nudity that would be accessible if my grandson did something completely innocent like, oh, break the law.”

The worst part of the recent GTA isn’t how it’ll affect the industry, really. It’s going to have a chilling effect on the Modding community, though, because most people don’t understand how these things work. I’d imagine, if the industry doesn’t start taking action against mods (which typically violate EULAs, but are ignored by the industry), that we’ll soon see lawsuits against mods that skin various games to allow characters to play nude. Because the industry really can’t monitor every single mod, they will start acting against modders en masse.

I’ll be watching this one nervously.

(Incidentally, in looking for information on this lawsuit, I ran across the Video Game Law Blog, which is now on my blogroll.)