Simpsons Parodies Upset Game Companies

By now, you’ve probably seen some of the trailers for The Simpsons Game, which parodies some well-known game franchises with such levels as “Neverquest” and “Medal of Homer.” But apparently not everyone out there can take a joke. At this year’s Leipzig Games Convention, someone from Rockstar asked that a poster featuring the “Grand Theft Scratchy” level be taken down. Lead designer, Greg Rizzer, explains:

“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.”

He also offers the assumption that it was most likely one of Rockstar’s lawyers who made the request, and not the game’s designers. On the flip side of things though, Harmonix was more than happy to see their Guitar Hero franchise poked fun at:

“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.”

I hope they don’t have to remove too much from The Simpsons Game. Right now, the game parodies are the main thing that makes me want to check this game out.

Via CVG