Fourteen-year-old Kolton Mahoney certainly was surprised when he tried to play his brand-new Madden NFL 07 videogame on his Xbox 360. Instead of seeing quarterbacks going out for passes, Kolton saw scoring of a whole different kind.
“This is definitely not Madden,” Kolton recalled. Instead, when the videogame was inserted in the Xbox 360, an explicit X-rated image popped up on the television screen. The mystery, however, deepened.
The game came factory-sealed from the Modesto, Calif., Circuit City, said Linda Mahoney, Kolton’s mother.
Moreover, Electronic Arts, the maker of the Madden videogame, provided a press release stating that 5 million copies of the Madden game had been released.
Stephanie Nightlinger, a spokeswoman for Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City, said she knew of no other complaints, but the company would investigate.
The Mahoneys also contacted Utah’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The task force stated it would work with local police and California authorities to determine how the videogame was altered. “The hard part will be finding out who did it,” said Task force Lt. Rhett McQuiston. “We’ll give it a shot. I would go through the roof if this happened to my kid.”
The adult model or models on the altered videogame were not identified.
