Koei Techmo Sues Porn DVD Producer for Using Dead or Alive Models

Since the world continues to be an awful mess, how about we pull up a story from the ol' fun file and report on something a little more lighthearted, eh? Like how almost-porn developers Koei Tecmo are suing the creators of an actual-porn DVD that uses some of their Dead or Alive models.

So here's the situation: Dead or Alive is a competent fighting game that's been bolstered into the realms of infamy thanks largely to the proportions and shameless outfits employed by the female characters in the game. This lewd reputation has only been enhanced with spin-offs like Xtreme Vollyball and Xtream Venus Vacation, which are thinly veiled excuses to see those iconic characters jiggle around in revealing outfits. Despite this reputation, however, game director Yohei Shimbori has gone on record asking that players enjoy their games in a "good and moral manner", specifically saying that if PC players tried to mod nudity into their game, they might not port future Dead or Alive games to that system.

PC players have obviously ignored those threats.

In any case, they continue to be the stalwart defenders of the purity of their scantily-clad teenage characters, because now they're suing a Japanese DVD maker who, as mentioned before, was caught using modded versions of those characters models in some adult DVDs. The grounds for the lawsuit is actually pretty straightforward -- they're claiming it's a case of copyright infringement, in spite of the modifications the DVD's producer made -- which is a logical enough reason to take someone to court. But it's hard to separate this lawsuit from Koei Tecmo's behavior in the past, and it's not hard to imagine a situation where they might have been willing to ignore this if they weren't moralistically inclined to protect their character's... I guess you could call it "chastity".

Anyway, that's pretty fun.