All Modding Gone?

While going to gta-sanandreas.net today to check and see if there were any news, it turns out that there was. And this isn't good news either in my case, in any Grand Theft Auto fans case, The Sims' case, Sim City 4's case, Half-Life's case, and any other games that have a large modding community. What's going on you may be wondering. In case you're too lazy to visit gta-sanandreas.net, I'll quote what they had to say on it.

"After recent statments from the ESRB stating they wish to see modding for all games stopped, some of us decided it would be a good idea to defend ourselves from the whole "modders are evil" myth they are perpetuating. Namely that we somehow made something so shocking and offensive with Hot Coffee that it undermines their whole rating system, even though they've rated at least a half dozen titles as M which are just as (if not more) explicit than anything in San Andreas; modded or otherwise."

Yes, the ESRB are back attacking video games again because of the "Hot Coffee" mod for San Andreas and the whole controversey now starting over The Sims 2 and how there's a cheat in the game to view nude sims, even though no reproductive organs are shown; only breasts. If you want a history lesson, the ESRB was started in the early 90's as a compromise over the nation's court about the violent games that were showing up such as Mortal Kombat. If the ESRB wasn't formed, the court would take action aganist the gaming industry.

Now, I believe the only reason the ESRB is doing this is because they don't want anymore trouble. They're blaming modding for the hissey fits that Hilary Clinton and Jack Thompson so they just want to stop it. Now stopping all modders is like stopping everybody in the world from drinking or smoking weed, it's just not possible. No matter what, there will always be some program that can hack into a game for fans of the game to mod it. Modding is what makes the replay value of a PC game high because even if you finish 100% of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, you can download or make your own mod for a new island, mission, etc. Wouldn't this elimanate Multi Theft Auto or the future San Andreas Online? Wouldn't this call everybody who makes an object for a Sims game a bad name because that's sort of modding. To politicans, fooling around with the files in the game is probably modding. However to them, it's hacking and 100% illegeal.

Now, Rockstar did put the Hot Coffee Mod into their game codes on purpose. Remember that Rockstar stated they were going to support the modding community? By leaving this code in there, they may be just helping the community giving them some inspiration. They also left some codes for the skateboard in the game. You can't ride it, however I believe you can use it as a melee weapon. So if the ESRB happens to stop all modding by some miracle (in their case), does that mean that Rockstar is supporting an illegal cause? What about the Sim City series? The programmers put programs in there so the players can create their own buildings and import them into the game. That's somewhat modding, isn't it?

Stop it ESRB. Now. You have no chance. Do not listen to Hilary Clinton and Jackass Thompson. That is all.