Take-Two, Sony, and Microsoft sued over The Guy Game

When The Guy Game was announced last year, many industry watchers wondered if any major publisher would want to be associated with the low-budget trivia title. Aside from its inclusion of various binge-drinking games, the title also featured footage of topless, Girls Gone Wild-esque young women as a reward for correctly answering trivia questions.

However, people were less surprised by the fact that the game was picked up by Take-Two Interactive than by the fact that the racy game dodged an Adults-Only rating. That's because the owner of Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar Games has never shied away from controversy, the most recent of which saw the media link its snuff-stealth game Manhunt to a murder in the UK.

That said, its unlikely Take-Two executives are thrilled to be the subject of another furor, this time back in the US, courtesy of The Guy Game. The Cox News Service reported this morning that a young woman has filed suit against the company for including footage of her topless, taken during the annual spring break revels on Texas' South Padre Island, without her legal consent.

Why? Because the woman in question was only 17 at the time, and therefore legally incapable of giving her consent to be in The Guy Game, let alone half naked. Furthermore, the assertion that the female plaintiff, identified only as "Jane Doe" in the suit, was a minor calls into question the legality of selling or distributing The Guy Game at all. As part of her suit, according to Cox, the plaintiff asked the Travis County Court in Austin, Texas, that all copies of The Guy Game with her likeness be removed from store shelves. Reportedly, the judge hearing the case concurred, granting a temporary order prohibiting sale of the game. The suit reportedly also said Ms. Doe's image could be seen on the official The Guy Game Web site, which was up and running normally as of press time.

Besides naming Gathering, the Take-Two subsidiary that publishes the game, the Cox dispatch says Ms. Doe's suit also targets Microsoft and Sony as defendants, since The Guy Game has been available for the Xbox and PlayStation 2. (A PC version was scheduled to ship yesterday.) Also named in the suit was Top Heavy Studios, the game's developer. Attempts to solicit comment from all four defendants were unsuccessful as of press time.