2002-09-05 05:10:53+00 by Shawn 10 comments
Code Junkies is reporting that Temco has successfully sued a small Japanese company for selling a Playstation 2 CD that allowed players to download nude models for some of the female characters in Dead Or Alive 2. I wonder if Maxis will be on the warpath next?
[ related topics: Intellectual Property Erotic Games Sexual Culture Nudity Copyright/Trademark ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment made: 2002-09-05 16:56:56+00 by: TC
Nope this came up over dinner with a friend and Maxis and even EA understand that mods and fan sites help drive the product. They even encourage them.
#Comment made: 2002-09-05 18:07:30+00 by: Daze
For those interested, DOA nude screenshots here and here.
#Comment made: 2002-09-05 18:28:26+00 by: petronius
I once stumbled on a Japanese book that showed how to create your own manga characters, with sections on how to do hairstyles, feet, ears, etc. By far the biggest section was how to draw panties peeking out from under a short school uniform skirt. Verry creepy.
#Comment made: 2002-09-05 19:10:07+00 by: Shawn
Good to hear, todd. I always thought it was great that games makers could rely on fans providing features that the company couldn't for fear of possible social backlash. I can't wait 'til my copy of Neverwinter Nights arrives so I can see what kinds of "adult" adventures I can make with it ;-)
#Comment made: 2002-09-06 16:53:06+00 by: other_todd
BioWare, the power behind Neverwinter Nights and the Baldur's Gate games (though you might not be able to tell, what with all the distributor and producer logos on each game), has forums specifically for people who are making mods and custom scenarios and need to share or discuss engine internals. A forum for each game, in fact. They understand that their long-quest-adventure games have basically zero replayability until and unless someone else writes new adventures for the engine.
#Comment made: 2002-09-07 17:07:58+00 by: canis
Yeah, when we released our last PC game(1) we also released a "modding guide" and provided quite a bit of direct assistance to the more productive modders via the forums and so on. Modding doesn't actually get you much in the way of sales these days unless you're multiplayer. But with modern game development being fairly data-driven(2) it's usually quite easy to add, so you might as well.
And yes, one of the first mods was nude skins for the female characters. But not the male characters. Funny dat.
(1) Console mfgs generally don't let you or provide any way to make mods available for their consoles... ah the joys of a closed platform, heh. This is semisorta changing with XBox and PS2 both having "online" support to some extent, but... don't hold your breath...
(2) In theory. It depends on how many of the senior developers at your company are from "the old school" and still believe in using assembler and gotos, and still have trouble with this whole "functions" concept... (sigh).
#Comment made: 2002-09-07 17:50:06+00 by: Shawn
And yes, one of the first mods was nude skins for the female characters. But not the male characters. Funny dat.
I remember hearing a story from somebody once about a gay game developer (can't remember what game - might've been Duke Nukem or might have been something similar) / artist who got pissed off that at his company for something. So he designed the designed the intro/splash screen with the main character presented as quite virile and sexy. Management was not amused. He was fired (although I'm not sure that was the core reason - the story seemed to imply he was going to be fired anyway) and they changed his design before release.
#Comment made: 2002-09-08 16:09:30+00 by: canis
Actually, Maxis had that occur, about 6 years ago (urgh... is it that long ago already? *shiver*), with SimCopter. The game had a disproportionately large number of scantily-clad females bouncing their way down the streets, and one employee took it upon himself to arrange for them to be replaced with gay couples on certain dates of the year. In the end, RTMark 'claimed responsibility', as they say. A quick googling turns up this Wired News report on it...#Comment made: 2002-09-09 00:03:03+00 by: Shawn
SimCopter? I don't remember that one. It sounds, and looks, hideous.
#Comment made: 2002-09-09 00:38:10+00 by: Diane Reese
SimCopter was one of the only, perhaps the only, Maxis title that my kids didn't like. They packaged it back up and sold it on eBay after it gathered dust for about a year.