GTA 6 and Hot Coffee: the San Andreas scandal that cost $24.5M

Hot Coffee is a sex minigame left in the code of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, made playable by a mod Patrick Wildenborg posted to GTAGarage.com on June 9, 2005. On July 20, 2005, the ESRB moved the game from Mature 17+ to Adults Only 18+, and major US retailers pulled it straight away. A year later, the FTC put Take-Two’s return costs at $24.5 million.

Date	What happened	Source
June 9, 2005	Patrick Wildenborg posts the mod on GTAGarage.com	Gamasutra
July 20, 2005	San Andreas re-rated Adults Only 18+, manufacturing halted	Take-Two
July 21, 2005	Gamasutra lists Wal-Mart, Target, Toys R Us and GameStop pulling it	Gamasutra
June 8, 2006	FTC settlement, $24.5 million in return costs	FTC
November 8, 2007	Class action settlement, up to $35 per buyer	Engadget
June 25, 2008	2,676 claims filed, under $30,000 paid out	Shacknews

The July 20, 2005 release

That day Take-Two said Rockstar Games had stopped manufacturing the current version, would ship a secured version keeping the M rating, and would supply Adults Only stickers to retailers who wanted to keep selling the old one. It cut its full-year forecast to $1.26 billion to $1.31 billion in net sales. Then CEO Paul Eibeler wrote:

The ESRB’s decision to re-rate a game based on an unauthorized third party modification presents a new challenge for parents, the interactive entertainment industry and anyone who distributes or consumes digital content.

What it cost

The FTC complaint, settled on June 8, 2006, said Take-Two and Rockstar Games sold San Andreas as a Mature game without telling buyers the discs held “disabled, but potentially playable, software code for a sexually explicit mini-game.” The Associated Press reported a 5-0 vote, and the order carries fines of up to $11,000 per future violation. For scale, San Andreas had made about $100 million in its first month on sale, in October 2004.

The class action settlement, announced on November 8, 2007, offered up to $35 for anyone who bought the game before July 20, 2005 and kept proof of purchase. On June 25, 2008, Shacknews reported, citing The New York Times, that only 2,676 people filed, for under $30,000, on top of an $860,000 charitable donation from Take-Two. Wikipedia dates the settlement to January 28, 2008, a date absent from the contemporary coverage: Shacknews puts final court approval in early July 2008.

What Hot Coffee says about GTA 6

The ESRB listing published on October 6, 2026 rates Grand Theft Auto VI Mature 17+ with seven descriptors, Strong Sexual Content and Nudity among them, the same set as GTA 5. The content that cost San Andreas its rating because it went undeclared is declared this time from day one. The full breakdown is in our age rating story.

According to a French translation of his remarks published by jeuxvideo.com on September 3, 2026, Rob Nelson, co-studio head at Rockstar North, said physical intimacy is an important part of a relationship, that it has to be handled well, and that the team iterates until it finds what works. Rockstar has announced no minigame comparable to Hot Coffee; how the couple system works is covered in our Jason and Lucia guide.

Obbe Vermeij, former technical director at Rockstar North, was at the studio in 2005. On August 24, 2026, during the GTA 6 leaks, he wrote: “I was there during Hot Coffee. It was a nightmare for management (RNewYork) but didn’t affect us (RNorth) much. The current leaks are far less consequential than HC was.”