The Gamechangers



"You're a game designer, Harry!"

- Forbes

A one-off docudrama produced by the BBC, The Gamechangers dramatises events surrounding the production of the Grand Theft Auto games and Rockstar Games's struggles with conservative moral crusader and now disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson, who doggedly tried to take down Rockstar after catching word about copycat killings allegedly inspired by the games and a once-dormant Hot Coffee Minigame. The telefilm stars Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame as Sam Houser and the late Bill Paxton as Jack Thompson.


 * Anachronism Stew:
 * The map of Liberty City at Rockstar's offices was a crude rendition of the one found in Grand Theft Auto IV, which was released in 2008; the events of the film and its real-world counterpart took place around 2002-2005.
 * When Thompson tried out Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for himself to gauge the level of obscenity the game has, he was seen playing the game on a PS2 Slim. That part of the film takes place in 2002; the slimline revision wouldn't be released until 2004, just in time for San Andreas whom Thompson would set his sights on by the latter half of the film.
 * Sam Houser and Jack Thompson's computers are shown running Microsoft Office 2007.
 * DVDs for Yogi Bear and The Spy Next Door are shown in a scene that takes place in 2004. Both films released in 2010.
 * Artistic License:
 * The film shows scenes where Rockstar programmers are doing major work on the games in New York City; principal work on the GTA series actually takes place in Rockstar North's offices in Edinburgh, Scotland.
 * While Patrick Wildenborg (known by the GTA community through his alias "PatrickW") did invest in a PS2 in order to play San Andreas and later sift through the game files, they were unable to make mods for the original console releases and waited for the PC port to be released first for them to actually reactivate Hot Coffee. Wildenborg wasn't solely responsible for the mod either as he did get some aid from other members of the community, though he was indeed contacted by Rockstar over his mod.
 * Ax Crazy: Devin Moore, whose arrest for a traffic violation led him to shoot and kill police officers after being booked on suspicions of stealing a car. Jack Thompson blames this violent act on Moore's alleged obsession with Vice City, quoted as saying "Life is like a video game, you've got to die sometime."
 * Crusading Lawyer: Jack Thompson. And he is very, very outspoken about it.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: A church mate at the parish Thompson frequents named Sally comes by and gives the attorney some rather spicy words of encouragement:
 * "Go get 'em, Jack. They're fucking with our kids. Fuck those people. Fuck 'em."
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Considering Devin's background as a troubled youth according to his lawyer, which ultimately led to what was branded as a GTA copycat killing.
 * Doing It for the Art: Sam Houser rants about how America's double standards towards sex and violence made it difficult for him and his company to further push the boundaries of interactive entertainment, grumbling that he didn't care if the distribution channels for San Andreas would be severely limited as long as the game is done in his vision (video game console manufacturers have a policy where they would not license an AO-rated game to their systems, thereby limiting them to niche PC releases and in sex shops in the case of adult games).
 * Dummied Out: With San Andreas nearing release and well behind schedule, Rockstar hastily disabled the Hot Coffee sequences only for modders to quickly dig them out and mod them back in.
 * Hot Coffee Minigame: One of the main plot points in the drama after the Devin Moore case.
 * Hypocrite: Sally. For a supposedly devout conservative Christian she sure is quite the sailor mouth. And Thompson doesn't seem to be shocked at it either.
 * Instant Humiliation - Just Add YouTube: Sam was none too pleased when he saw for himself the supposedly tucked away Hot Coffee minigame, the footage of which was uploaded on YouTube.
 * Large Ham: Jack Thompson. This ultimately got the better of him when Blank Rome, the legal team Rockstar hired for the case, no-sold and countered him for his brazen on-and off-court behaviour.
 * Murder Simulator: GTA, or at least according to Thompson.
 * Rule 34: San Andreas exists, and modders discovered porn tucked deep down in the game.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: As noble as Thompson's intention may seem i.e. shield children from the horrors of decadent media, his methods have been derided by his peers and has made him a bigoted clown in the eyes of gamers.