…Wait, what?
Wow, we’ve all heard the stories of how “bad” Grand Theft Auto games are for our society, but The British Board of Film Classification may have shot themselves close on the list to the head of crazy.
Last week the BBFC lost control of U.K. video game ratings to industry-favored rival PEGI, and for all gamers in the U.K. this must have been a wonderful bit of news.
As it turns out, the BBFC once investigated whether Grand Theft Auto IV contained a genuine recipe for manufacturing crystal meth.
The Times reports that the discovery prompted “crisis talks” with developer Rockstar. In testimony last year before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons, BBFC head David Cooke discussed his organization’s review of GTA IV:
“We did examine [GTA IV] extremely thoroughly and we are the only regulator I know of who looked, for instance, at the particular issue where… there was a concern about whether you were being given instructional information about how to make the drug crystal meth.
We actually took independent advice on the point and eventually were able to satisfy ourselves that some of the crucial ingredients and techniques were missing so it was not a genuine cause for concern.”
REALLY? The recipe for Crystal Meth. Inside GTA IV? For all the problems that Rockstar had to deal with for the Hot Coffee snafu, I’d have to imagine their quality group would’ve seen a freakin’ recipe for Crystal Meth in the game…and…having played it, I don’t remember the mission where you go and get ingredients for Crystal Meth and cook them up just right. Good job BBFC, perhaps this is just one example of why you’re no longer in control of ratings in the U.K.
Story courtesy of: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/06/22/bbfc-says-it-investigated-crystal-meth-recipe-gta-iv
About the Author
