(Gamespot) – Over four years after the “Hot Coffee” scandal rocked the game industry, Take-Two Interactive has settled the matter once and for all. Today, the Rockstar Games parent announced that it has reached an out-of-court agreement with the members of a class action suit stemming from the hidden sex minigames in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

“Oh, no. I’m not falling for that ‘Wanna come up for some coffee?’ line again.”

The class action is different from another settled in late 2007, when purchasers of the sex-minigame-tainted version of San Andreas were offered a partial refund or a cleaned-up edition of the game. The suit settled today also addressed accusations of stock-option backdating, over which Take-Two paid the Securities and Exchange Commission $3 million in April without admitting any wrongdoing.

“We are pleased to have reached this settlement and put this historical matter behind us,” Take-Two CEO Ben Feder told analysts during a post-earnings release conference call.

In exchange for the plaintiffs dropping the suit, the New York City-based publisher will put $20,115,000 into a fund to dole out payments. Of that, $15,200,000 will be paid by Take-Two’s insurers and $4,915,000 by the company itself. The publisher said it had saved up its part of the settlement during “several quarters” before April 30, 2009. Ironically, it was during that month that Take-Two settled another class action suit filed by shareholders after the company refused to be bought by Electronic Arts at a hefty premium in 2008.

Today’s settlement ends a chain of events that began over four years ago. In summer 2005, hackers unlocked hidden sex minigames in the PC and console editions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. As a result, the game was rerated AO for Adults Only, forcing Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive to edit and rerelease the game at an estimated cost of over $50 million. By the end of that July, the Federal Trade Commission had launched a now-concluded investigation.

Second and final Xbox 360-exclusive expansion will arrive two days before end of Take-Two’s fiscal year!

(Gamespot) – Two months ago, rumors of an Irish gangster-themed second expansion to Grand Theft Auto IV went up in flames with the announcement of The Ballad of Gay Tony. The game will prominently feature Anthony “Gay Tony” Prince, associate of the Ancelotti crime family in GTAIV. More specifically, it will follow his assistant, Luis Lopez, who popped up in the “Museum Piece” mission featured in both the original game and the first expansion, February’s The Lost and Damned.

Now, the second and final expansion, which concerns criminal intrigue in Liberty City’s high-end nightlife, has been definitively dated for October 29. It will be offered a la carte on Xbox Live for the price $19.99/MSP1,600 or at stores as part of the disc-based title Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City. Retailing for $39.99, the latter bundles the Ballad of Gay Tony with the Lost and Damned and, interestingly, does not require the original GTAIV to play, as the downloadable expansions do.

(Gamestop) – Unlike past years, this year’s E3 Sony Press Conference saw the platform holder’s cup runneth over. Besides the PSP Go, native PSP video store, and new motion-sensing technology, the company showed off a series of high-profile exclusives, including MAG, God of War III, Uncharted 2, The Last Guardian, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Ironically, the event dedicated only a few moments to a title which has the potential to be one of the biggest PS3 exclusives ever, Agent. The game is the mystery title announced in 2007 by Rockstar North, developer of the Grand Theft Auto series. Ben Feder, president of Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive, believes the game could achieve the same level of success, given its development is being overseen by Rockstar North founders Sam and Dan Houser.

“We think this has the potential to be yet another great Rockstar North franchise title….It’s the Houser Brothers and Rockstar North. It’s the A team working on an AAA title. I think the subject matter, the characters, the story, the environment, the background–all the elements are there. It’s such a rich environment to play in.”

Speaking with GameSpot on the Electronic Entertainment Expo show floor, Feder explained the decision to develop the game solely for Sony’s console. “The trade-offs a publisher will typically make is, if you’re platform-agnostic, you get a larger installed base,” he said. “You’re platform exclusive when you get the right kind of support from first parties.”

[Read the full article over here at Gamestop.com]

(GameSpot) – Conspiracy theorists maintain that 3D Realms’ closure last week was all part of some grand scheme to unveil a finished Duke Nukem Forever at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. If that is the case, it would appear Duke Nukem Forever’s publisher has been caught up in the ruse, as Take-Two has filed suit against 3D Realms over the PC shooter.

According to the suit, 3D Realms–incorporated as Apogee Software Ltd.–failed to deliver on its contract to produce the game, instead shutting the project and the studio down on May 6. The suit also states that Take-Two paid 3D Realms $12 million in 2000 for publishing rights to the shooter, with a second, unspecified contract agreed upon in 2007. Development on Duke Nukem Forever began in 1997, the suit states.

“Apogee continually delayed the completion date for the Duke Nukem Forever,” Take-Two said in the complaint, according to a Bloomberg report. “Apogee repeatedly assured Take-Two and the video-gaming community that it was diligently working toward competing development of the PC version of the Duke Nukem Forever.”

Take-Two is also seeking to prevent 3D Realms from revealing any source code and assets related to the project. Many of those assets have already been leaked onto the Internet, however, as a number of former 3D Realms employees uploaded concept art and demo reels to their personal blogs and online portfolios following the studio’s closure. That content has since been removed from its original sources, but not before seeing mass proliferation across a variety of Web sites and message boards.