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EA’s upcoming Simpsons game is meant to parody the gaming industry as as a whole, drawing upon 30 years of gaming. However, EA has revealed that not all companies were as good-natured about being parodies as others.
“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”, The Simpsons lead designer Greg Rizzer stated 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 being the perfect vehicle to poke fun at the games industry.”
Some companies did appreciate the satire, though according to Rizzer. “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.”
A demo of The Simpsons Game is scheduled to appear in the PlayStation Store today, but as of this writing, it hasn’t appeared yet.