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Itagaki Criticizes Dead Or Alive Hackers

Posted by simoniker on from the begone-darth-maul dept.

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."

4 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. lol - stop whining, whiny by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Itagaki: 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.

    If I recall correctly DOOM wasn't made with mods in mind. Stuff like "make the mobs into pac-man" were hacks similar to the DOA-Volleyball stuff. Some time and effort went into .WAD hacking and soon iD cottoned on and went with it.

    The guy is really out of touch with gamers. We were peeking and poking and hexediting games back in the 8bit days and no doubt even Spacewars had some people fiddling with the binary to make themselves invulnerable or something.

    I love the nude hacks for DOA, more stupidity added on to a stupid game.

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
    1. Re:lol - stop whining, whiny by bigbigbison · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Doom was made with mods in mind. In the first press release they hyped modability as one of the features. Wolfenstien, however, was not made with mods in mind.

      --
      http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
  2. Indeed. by JMZero · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So this guy, who makes his living selling games, is telling us that having fun is not a good enough reason for doing something. Everything you do should be a grand, creative, non-derivative work (unless you're deriving from a work that was meant to be derived from - which is transcendentally different).

    We should all have better things to do, apparently, than mod or play one of his games.

    --
    Let's not stir that bag of worms...
  3. Not in my backyard by Torgo's+Pizza · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Developers need to realize that gamers are going to mod their games if they can. Frankly this guy should be honored that they are doing this with his game. Having an attitude of "Yeah, they can do it as long as they don't do it with *my* game" alienates himself from his fanbase.

    Would Half-Life be nearly as popular without Counterstrike? My friend Zoid started CTF in Quake. You can't shake a stick at a FPS game without seeing some version of it already included as a standard feature. There have been plenty of hacks and mods added to videogames that all have either extended the life of the game, enhanced the gameplay or added more entertainment to playing. (Note: I'm not including wallhacks, cheats or aimbots here.) Some mods take a life of their own and even extend over to other games.

    As long as the hackers don't violate any intellectual property, copyright laws or try to sell their mods for profit, developers shouldn't complain. Many times these mods are better than what developers can put out. To suggest that these people go out and make their own game... what? And make more competition for your game in the marketplace. Be happy that these mods are being done to your game and thereby increasing that fat bonus check.