October 4, 2007

EA's forthcoming The Simpsons game parodies💜 30 years of videogaming and gaming IPs, but there are games companies that have refus💎ed 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, w💜e're not going to hurt the sales of Grand Theft Auto... Bu♏t 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 Thef🎀t 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 fu♐lly 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 wonderfu♔l parody poster and the guys from Harmonix loved it and we sent them 20 copies of the poster. They just loved it so much."