Happy Easter everyone, today I am writing a short article about what Easter Eggs mean to gamers. Traditionally on this day regular, decorated eggs are placed in hiding for children to enjoy trying to find. In video gaming it is something completely different. Easter eggs refer to a hidden material inside a video game that developers include, usually for their own amusement.
The idea of the Easter egg dates back to the Atari 2600's Adventure from 1979. Adventure's programmer Warren Robinett added his own name to a screen in the game as a statement that developers don't receive attention for their work. Since then there have been a number of inside jokes, political statements, and other oddities of gaming included with a variety of different titles. While I will cover many of these in the future, I will start by highlighting the most infamous of Easter eggs for this fine Easter evening.
The Grand Theft Auto series didn't give a shortage of those that hate video gaming a reason to be quiet. The surprising violent, sexual, and adult themed references often don't sit well with parents who feel that only children play games and a market for adult themed games is out of line. That didn't stop Rockstar Games into including a crazy easter egg that was never supposed to see the light of day.
1994's GTA San Andreas was the game that included the infamous "Hot Coffee" Easter egg. The game's playable character, Carl Johnson had the potential to have six girlfriends around San Andreas. There was a small minigame revolved around dating. The whole sequence was tame compared to what happened if you drove a prostitute to a secluded location.
This all changed when the PC version came out. Since PC games allow for anyone to see into the source code of the game, anyone can release mods for these games by making changes to this code and releasing it. A mod known as the "Hot Coffee Mod" was released. This mod changed the potential of the ends of these dates. If the date goes well Carl will be invited in for hot coffee. What follows was a full on sex scene minigame.
Rockstar initially claimed that the entire sequence had been added by the modders. The modders came back by claiming that only one bit of information needed to be changed to achieve the hot coffee sequence. It was also revealed that the rouge code was included with the console versions of the game as well. This meant the game was released to the public still containing the code. Since the code was disabled and not removed the video game rating board still requires that all coding included in a final version be submitted for review. Since the inclusion of a full on sex scene coded into the game would change the game's rating to an Adults Only rating from the the Mature rating it received, it was immediately pulled from shelves by many retailers fearing backlash from consumers.
Lots of bad legal things ensued. It also put increased pressure on developers to quit pushing the envelope of good taste with their content. It was a setback for the game industry, and probably a mistake that won't ever happen again.
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