Watching Simpsons

Comedian Al Franken once wrote a book called “Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them.” The cover of the book featured Vice President Cheney, President Bush, Ann Coulter, and very splotchy looking Bill O’Reilly. Fox News’ legal department took grave offense, and they responded to Franken with a lawsuit, which was subsequently laughed out of court. Satire, you see, is a protected part of free speech. But, that doesn’t change one fundamental dynamic. People either laugh at the satire, or they get really, really mad. In this regard, the new Simpson’s Game has made some people in the gaming industry livid. The purpose of the game, while giving a player of their Springfield fix, is to poke fun at other successful games, like Everquest,Guitar Hero, and Medal of Honor.

According to Computerandvideogames.com, somebody at Rockstar Games took offense at an ad meant to hype one of the levels in the new game:

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.

To be fair to Rockstar, the article doesn’t mention who exactly got angry. But then again, sometimes satire is taken as flattery:

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.”

The man who’s quoted here is Greg Rizza, who worked as lead designer on The Simpson’s game. To him, parody and satire is not meant as something hurtful. The CVG article goes on to quote:

“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”…

Of course, all this has done, just like the Fox News Vs. Al Franken scrap, has given EA Sports and The Simpsons game a bit of free publicity. Nothing commands lots of attention like controversy does. But then again, it also shows how the medium of computer games has had it easy all of these years. There are not many other games out there poking fun at other games. The movie industry, for example, is a little different, as farce has become an institution from Mel Brooks to the Wayans family and their “Scary Movie” spoof.