Angry at game-makers

I am angry for two reasons this evening:

1. Seeming ignorance of real-world issues. I was reading about Max Payne 3 a week ago and I came across a comment that really stirred me up. Rockstar's VP of Development talks about going down to Sao Paulo, the new location for Max, and getting tons of real-world documentation for the game. They scanned people living in the favelas, they did 3d scans of locals to be authentic!

'Oh, I'm sorry, you're a Brazilian in America, you're a little too thick to model our game characters after. We want thin sickly people, so we're actually going to grab some locals just to make sure they look right. And to get their tattered clothes.' And continuing on, Barrera, the VP, says, "The favelas are like little mazes. We looked at the structures and how they are built and said, 'Oh this would be fun.'

There is something about the article, which you can check out in GameInformer #195, that just doesn't sit right with me. I know you want to go grab reference, I know you are there to get the mood and documentation to help create a game in that setting. But, whether or not it was just the reporting or the reported, these are opportunities to actually bring to light real-world issues in a more constructive manner. Go out on a limb, bring awareness of Sao Paulo's troubles to a teen male audience and see if you can get the issue to resonate... I doubt it will, but I'd love to see Max Payne 3 do just that.

2. Plagiarism is repulsive. I'll keep this short since it's quite late, but I spotted on TIGSource a sidebar noting that the new iPhone game Blopo is actually a complete ripoff of the game Tumbledrop.

Tumbledrop is a cute, well-put-together flash physics puzzle game made in Unity and freely available at: http://www.tumbledrop.com/

Blopo (originally named Blogo), is a not very cute, not very clean or flashy version of Tumbledrop, and you can see it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7wcLLRW0A8

Ripoff? So incredibly obviously a ripoff. I just think it's sad that people who can make games don't come up with their own ideas. COME ON! Be creative! Make your own damn work. I can't deal with this anymore, I'm going to sleep.