A banned 2004 PS2 and Xbox game with a queasy premise could land you in legal trouble if you own a copy.
Video games have been no stranger to controversy over the years, with many titles being subjected to accusations of corrupting youth or leading to violence due to their content.
While for most games this has ultimately proven false, one game released on PS2 and Xbox ended in disaster when new details about its production emerged after its release.
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The game was originally released in 2004, but you will not find it available in any store, and it has also been banned from being streamed on Twitch.
It’s called The Guy Game, and was released by TopHeavy Studios.
The premise was that it was a trivia game where up to to four players can answer questions.
If they answer questions correctly then they can glimpse an image of a topless woman, starting censored and becoming less so as they earn points, until it’s completely uncensored.
Gathering
But while the nudity and objectification was viewed by many as distasteful, and were heavily criticised, it’s not enough to get someone in legal trouble.
When the producers of The Guy Game were sourcing the footage to use for the game they went to a spring break party in South Padre Island, Texas.
There they approached young women attending the party and after checking ID, paid them $20 to answer a trivia question and take their top off if they got it wrong.
After the game’s release, one player had what must have been a hugely uncomfortable experience when he saw that his own sister had featured on it.
The girl, who was not publicly named and referred to as ‘Jane Doe’ in court proceedings, raised a lawsuit against TopHeavy.
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When the case was brought to court, it emerged that the girl had falsified certain details, including her date of birth.
When she had posed, the girl had been just shy of her 18th birthday.
This means that The Guy Game included indecent images of an underage girl, though the court did not resolve the question of whether it constituted child abuse images.
Jane Doe won the case, and an injunction was granted ceasing distribution of the game, and it was pulled from sale.
TopHeavy responded by posting on their website: “The Man has decided that our fun and hilarious presentation of spring break revelry just wasn’t appropriate for the world of gaming.”
