Slashdot Mirror
Rockstar/EA Tit for Tat in GTA/Simpsons Feud
Last week we discussed how GTA parody elements were pulled from The Simpsons Game after some of Rockstar's lawyers got into the act. Apparently, the folks at EA who made the game are a bit peeved about the aggressive lawyering on Rockstar's part and the wussy lawyering on EA's: "The game begins with Bart wanting to play a game called Grand Theft Scratchy. Of course this is a parody of Grand Theft Auto. And Marge immediately takes it away from him. She tries to clean up the town and stop the game from being distributed in Springfield because Marge is against video game violence. She uses horrific violence to stop video game violence... in a video game... That's called irony. The people who make Grand Theft Auto - they spazzed out like little babies."
ER... Sandbox games like this have been done to death - not only in GTA but in Saints Row, and a bunch of other less notable ones. If EA was using the GTA name purely to cash in on GTA's fame, then sure, Rockstar should object, but this smells like a clear parody to me. For one thing, the marketing around the game isn't centred about "look! we're just like GTA!", and neither does the GTA-parodying part make up a huge chunk of the work.