Itagaki Criticizes Dead Or Alive Hackers

Thanks to GameSpy for their interview with Tecmo's Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of the Dead Or Alive series and the forthcoming Ninja Gaiden for Xbox. Itagaki is asked about the more creative, non-nude unofficial character model hacking currently being done for Dead Or Alive, and says "First of all I think that those hackers should spend their time on something more productive. I'm not talking about a rights issue or an OS issue or whatever, but if they have time to hack into something that other people have made, why don't they make something of their own?" When it's suggested that many games want to be modded by their fans, he adds: "Of course the creators of DOOM and Half-Life - that was their intention. That's how they want the users to enjoy playing their game, and I have no problem with that."

Comments

Then don't release for a system that allows for it

[analog_line]

If he really didn't want people changing it, he probably shouldn't have released it for a system that didn't have a hard drive, or made sure your game didn't use that hard drive in a way that allowed people to replace your crap.

Re:Then don't release for a system that allows for

[danila]

If someone does not want their IP being fiddled around with, he can (I don't know how to put it politely) stick this IP up his ass. :) When he released it to the public, ideologically (not legally) it becomes some sort of public domain and people can be expected to build on that. Yes, there is copyright, which is (ideologically) a short-term monopoly on commercial exploitation (a non-perfect solution to the real problem of large-scale commercial piracy), but it doesn't give the author (ideologically, again) other forms of control over his ideas and creations.