15 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined Grand Theft Auto

14. Hot Coffee Mod (GTA: San Andreas)

Easily one of the most controversial moments in GTA's history was the discovery of the "Hot Coffee" mini-game in San Andreas. Hackers managed to discover the mini-game, which involves the player controlling CJ as he has sex with one of his girlfriends, by examining the game's code and altering some data: apparently Rockstar could not just erase the mini-game because some of its assets were used in other parts of the game. Instead, they simply hid it and didn't count on enterprising tech wizards discovering it. The release of the Hot Coffee mod, which activates the mini-game, proved highly controversial, and Rockstar got further egg on their face when they claimed that significant changes had been made by the hackers to access the mini-game, though when the hackers were able to patch the console versions to access it as well, this was proven totally wrong. The ESRB eventually changed the game's rating in the U.S. and Canada to "Adults Only", prompting Rockstar to cease manufacturing it and re-release a version with Hot Coffee completely unavailable. Given the poor quality of the mini-game in the first place, it really all wasn't worth Rockstar's hassle, and all they did was attract more negative attention onto themselves, even if it naturally had no impact on the franchise's popularity whatsoever.