

The one part of the game that got the most attention was the mission "By the Book" where, as the protagonist Trevor Phillips, players were tasked with torturing a man. The most recent entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, GTA 5 was subject to its fair share of controversy as well. This led many retailers to pull the game from their shelves due to rules against selling AO rated games, and Rockstar eventually patched out the assets for the mini-game so San Andreas could regain its Mature (M) rating. Although the mini-game was only accessible through hacking the game, the fact that it was left in the source code at all was enough for the ESRB to change the game's rating to Adult Only (AO). News of the mod made it all the way to the United States Congress, where some legislators wanted the game banned and publisher Take-Two held accountable. The mini-game was clearly not meant to be in the final version of San Andreas, and the exact content could have been much worse considering the playable character CJ and his girlfriend were fully clothed, but once it was discovered, the game fell under heavy scrutiny. This mod allowed players to access a sexually explicit mini-game that was hidden in the game's source code. One of the most well-known moments of controversy for the series is the infamous Hot Coffee Mod for Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas. RELATED: Grand Theft Auto 6 Ought to Embrace GTA Online's RP Servers From censorships to outright bans, the controversies around Grand Theft Auto have become a pivotal aspect of the series. Regardless of this, the series has been scrutinized perhaps more than any other on the market. They provide a certain level of lifelike simulation that is hard to come by in other games, but this doesn't mean that they are the only "violent" games that have ever been made. The Grand Theft Auto games are violent, almost every person that knows about video games can recognize that. With great success, however, has come tremendous controversy surrounding the content of the games. The franchise has revolutionized the definition of an open-world game multiple times over ever since Grand Theft Auto 3 came out twenty years ago, and it's been built up as a titan of the industry.

The history of the Grand Theft Auto series is one that is marked by incredible innovation and mountains of controversy.
