October 4, 2007

EA's forthcoming The Simpsons game parodies 30 years of videogaming and gaming IPs, but there are games companies that have refused to see the funny side of things.

"I was always under the impression that when you do parody, it's a sign of respect... If we make fun of Grand Theft Auto, we're not going to hurt the sales of Grand Theft Auto... But yeah, we've definitely had some reactions - we've had to pull stuff from the game", The Simpsons lead designer Greg Rizzer revealed to us in an interview earlier this week.

"But that's cool to me", Rizzer continued. "It's cool to still know, I feel, that the industry's been waiting for a game like this to come along. It's been too long since we really had one, and of course [there's] The Simpsons [is] the perfect vehicle to poke fun at the games industry."

At this year's Games Convention in Leipzig, someone took offence at a poster for 'Grand Theft Scratchy', one of the levels in the game, and asked that it be taken down.

"I don't know who specifically at Rockstar", Rizzer said. "I'm guessing probably more than anyone it was a lawyer. The people who work on that product, I doubt they were like, 'Stop that!'".

Although Rizzer admits it's been a challenge parodying videogame properties, on the flip-side of the coin there are companies that have fully embraced it.

"I don't know if you've seen Sitar Hero? We did Apu playing this 60-button controller and songs like Pour Some Curry On Me - we made this wonderful parody poster and the guys from Harmonix loved it and we sent them 20 copies of the poster. They just loved it so much."