Grand Theft Auto IV players in virtual paedo website sting

Davey Winder
Monday, 23 June 2008 19:44

Your IT - Entertainment

"This website for child beauty pageants has been shut down. Your IP address has been cataloged and an investigator will be contacting you soon."

Plus the bold statement of "We see it all, we know it all." Oh, and that five star wanted rating of course.

The Sun reports that one fan accessed the site while playing the game as his daughter is called Lacey and the web address was given as littlelacysurprisepageant.com. Outside of the game this just takes you to the official Rockstar GTA IV site, in case you wondered. Inside it's a different matter, and Lacey's dad says "This crosses the line. It’s disgusting. It could lead people to indulge in things like that. It is totally sick. I won’t play it again.”

Rockstar have yet to comment on the matter, but I doubt they will be too fussed. After all, it is publicity like this that has helped propel GTA IV to break all entertainment sales records by selling more than 3.6 million units on the first day of release and earn USD 500 million (AUD 526 million) in the first week.

To put that in some perspective, it is more than Halo 3 achieved and more than the biggest blockbusting Hollywood movie can hope for. Indeed, GTA IV was blamed for dampening consumer enthusiasm for the Iron Man movie which opened the same weekend.