The PAL version of Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360 supposedly leaked earlier today, and has shown up on torrent sites across the internet as a 6471 MB (6.32 GB if you don’t like big numbers) file released by iCON. The NFO file warns not to connect to Xbox Live until the game is released to the masses (three full times in ALL CAPS, so you better heed the warning), and even encourages people to buy the game anyway since “R* deserves it.”

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As the release of Grand Theft Auto IV nears, we’re seeing even more controversy involving the series and its violence. Both politicians and the media seem to blame the series for being one of the causes of violence in America, but this time, the complaint is coming from inside of a prison.

Inmate Jonathan Lee Riches filed a request for a restraining order on April 9, against Take-Two and Rockstar. The order was filed because the game apparently “put [him] in prison.” Riches was incarcerated for wire fraud.

In his claim (which can be seen above), Riches stated:

“Defendants contributed to Plaintiff committing identity theft. Defendant’s games show sex, drugs and violence which offends me. Defendants put me in prison. I face imminent danger from violent inmates who played Grand Theft Auto who will knock me out and take my gold Jesus cross.”

GameSpot seems to have also found out that Riches is suing Activision and Atari as well for making games that are a threat to his safety in prison.

It seems that the Australian government is finally considering having the equivalent of the US’s R rating for movies or the UK’s 18+ rating instituted to allow dozens upon dozens of ‘adult’ titles to be shipped to the blood famished country.

It looks to be a hard sell to members of the Australian Family Association who believe that the violence in video games is potentially more harmful than that in other forms of media due to its interactivity. The Association says that there is NO reason to allow an R rating for video games in Australia.

“We’re concerned about the level of violence and so on in R-rated material,” said Angela Conway an AFA spokeswoman. “But in terms of the games, it seems that there’s a lot more scope to actually change people’s brain structure and their attitudes with games.”

Currently, Australia’s highest rating is MA (mature audiences) and is for ages 15+, anything that doesn’t meet the criteria for MA is immediately deemed inappropriate and does not get granted its classification. Games can not be released in Australia without the age classification.

This seems like a step in the right direction for the extremely conservative country to take in order to help them play catch up with the other westernised democratic countries that have less strict guidelines for releasing games. Maybe we’ll see some Aussies playing Bonestorm one of these days. One can always hope.

[Quotes via ABC News]

Yesterday afternoon 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot multiple people at Northern Illinois University, killing five, injuring many more, and finally committing suicide. It is a national tragedy, and just like with Virginia Tech Jack Thompson has decided to exploit it in his crusade against violent video games. With no indication whatsoever that gaming was involved or the shooter even played games, Jack Thompson appeared on Fox News as “someone who has studied campus shootings” to share his unfounded opinions on what was behind it. Based only his belief that violent games make people far more likely to do this kind of thing and “the attire” of the shooter, he thinks video games were connected. He says “you can rehearse these type of massacres on simulators which are called video games,” making it seem as if video games are nothing more than massacre simulators. He even manages to get a plug in for his book.

Until there is reasonable evidence that gaming was directly involved, and I doubt there will be, it’s nothing more than video game fear mongering and baseless assumptions.

A while back when the lawsuit against Rockstar for the now notorious Hot Coffee Mod was settled it was reported that people would be able to get money for all the trouble it caused them. Now you can go to the retribution site and ease all that pain seeing a digital couple copulating caused you. More likely you’ll be easing all that pain that not seeing a digital couple copulating caused you, seeing as Hot Coffee wasn’t even that easy to get to in the first place and if you played GTA: San Andreas on a console you couldn’t see it at all. In short, as long as you have a first editon copy of the game bought before July, 20, 2005, you can get upwards of $35, even if you didn’t really see anything offensive or weren’t offended in the first place. I might just do it becasue I’m offended by the fact that shooting random people and stealing their cars isn’t offensive but a tame sex scene in a blatantly mature game is.

Hit the jump to find out what you need to get your hard earned money.

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It seems that the massive outages and problems that we’ve been facing as a gaming community on Xbox Live have finally landed the massive corporation into a bit of legal trouble.

According to an article from CNET News, three Texas residents have filed a lawsuit on their behalf and others who have had issues with Xbox Live in the excess of 5 million dollars.

From the arcticle:

In the suit, the plaintiffs allege that Microsoft should have known strong holiday sales would tax its servers. “Microsoft knew the increase in subscriptions would increase game-play on its servers, yet failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers.”

It sounds like they might actually have a case against Microsoft. What makes me wonder is why there hasn’t been a class-action lawsuit brought up for everyone who’s upset about this inconvenience.

In an attempt to appease the Xbox Live members and to save face from their latest fiasco Microsoft has told the community that it would allow Xbox subscribers a free game to download.  Though what that game is and when we can download it remains a mystery.

View the full complaint here.

[Via CNET News]

Apparently Harmonix has had a patch that makes the Guitar Hero controllers compatible with Rock Band on PS3 ready for a while, but Activision won’t let them release it. Now Activision says they’re more than willing to let it be released, they just want to make even more money out of it. Here’s what Maryanne Lataif, a spokeswoman for Activision, told The Boston Globe:

Unfortunately for Rock Band users, Harmonix has been unwilling to discuss an agreement that will allow us to provide that option in a manner that maintains the high standards people have come to expect from Activision

By “unwilling to discuss” she must mean unwilling to pay up and by “high standards” she must mean money mongering, as she makes Activision’s motives perfectly clear with the following statement:

We believe we should be compensated for the use of our technology

I thought people actually purchasing Guitar Hero III in the first place was compensation enough, and once they owned it they should be able to use it however they please - but Activision wants more in addition to the $100 they already got for each game sold. While it seems clear that Activision is only preventing the patch’s release for money, and they even admitted it, they’re still in denial and another spokeswoman, Spencer Saltonstall, says they’re doing it for the consumer:

We are really and truly not looking at this from the financial standpoint, we are looking at this from the consumer standpoint

I’m not sure how delaying a compatibility patch until Harmonix bribes them to allow its release benefits the consumer (or anyone besides Activision themselves) at all, but I guess they just refuse to admit how bad they’re handling this.

[Via Evil Avatar]

You may remember when Halo 3 first came out, some people with way too much time on their hands decided instead of enjoying the game for what it was they would rather count the pixels. When they did, the result was not the promised resolution of 720p but a mere 640p upscaled to 720p - and with some simple arithmetic it is revealed that Bungie “cheated” gamers of a whole 80 pixels of vertical resolution. That’s right, Bungie had the nerve to lower the native resolution by a mostly unnoticeable 80 pixels for the sake of greatly improved lighting.

Now, Class Action Connect is offering a lawsuit against Bungie, so that gamers everywhere can get the money they deserve for having to enjoy the incredible lighting in less-than-HD 640p. Bungie is finally being called out for their grievous affront to humanity, and they could have to pay for Halo 3’s unforgivable lack of 80p. The description from Class Action Connect:

A team of class action attorneys has launched an investigation into complaints that Halo 3 was falsely marketed as a high definition product, but does not actually render native high definition resolutions. These complaints are that, although Halo 3 was advertised as having a 720p resolution (720 pixels), it natively renders at 640p (640 pixels) and is simply scaled up to 720p. Read more about it here. If you purchased the Halo 3 game, you may be entitled to recover money.

Justice prevails once again. However, Halo 3 is not the only game to withhold pixels, or even the worst offender, so it’s time to bring all the other developers who have made games in less than 720p and make them pay too. It is inconceivable that anyone would makes aspects other than the resolution their priority, and even if they made a fun, entertaining, and amazing game they need to be brought to court for every slight aspect that was promised but not delivered. These lawyers need something to do with their time, afterall.

[Via Xbox-Scene]

As some of you may know, Jack Thompson has a couple of lawsuits ahead of him by the Florida Bar in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Now in one of these lawsuits, presided over Judge Adalberto Jordan, has gotten kind of…out of hand.

In a document by Mr. Thompson, Florida Bar member Norm Kent was a bit insulted. Thompson first said this in a court motion:

The Bar’s demonstrable mindset is that the “enemy of my enemy is my friend,” as indicated by The Bar’s enthusiastic, recidivist collaboration with Mr. Kent, over a twenty year period, at Thompson’s expense. Lunacy proceedings have been sought and secured, Bar complaints have recently been maintained for nearly three years.

Norm Kent runs a website called National Gay News. Last week, Jack criticized Norm for “distribution of hardcore porn to anyone of any age.” What made this so horrible: Thompson actually included pictures of said hardcore gay porn. What makes this so much more hilarious: These pictures came from an ADULT section on the website.

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The Entertainment Software Association sent out a press release applauding the sentencing of a man who pleaded guilty to “two felony counts of trafficking in counterfeit products.” This California “game pirate” by the name of Frederick Brown was found to have hundreds of illegal game discs when his home was searched earlier in the year.

Ric Hirsch, senior vice president for intellectual property enforcement at the ESA, said that “Sentences that include jail time send a clear message that we take this stuff way too seriously violating intellectual property rights is a serious crime with significant consequences and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Frederick Brown has been sentenced for a year, the first 90 days of which will be spent in a prison along with those who have committed similarly punishable crimes like rape, murder, and all those prison worthy offenses. However, the “fullest extent” includes more than jail time, as it will not be his only punishment. After finishing that there will be 5 years of probation, with certain computer use restrictions. And no piracy case would be complete without a ridiculous amount of money involved - so he will be fined $100,000 and will have to pay the ESA more than $10,000 in a restitution payment.

It looks like they’re trying to make a big deal to scare away others and set an example…but seriously, is all of this really necessary?