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Topless teen sues over 'The Guy Game'

Judge temporarily stops sales of racy low-budget trivia game featuring minor's image.
Written by Tor Thorsen, Contributor
A young woman has filed suit against Take 2 Interactive for including topless footage of her in "The Guy Game," the Cox News Service reported Wednesday.

The pictures were taken during the annual spring break revelry on Texas' South Padre Island. 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 the sale of the game. The suit reportedly also said Ms. Doe's image could be seen on the game's official Web site, which was up and running normally as of press time.

Microsoft, Sony also targeted
Besides naming Gathering, the Take 2 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 get comments from all four defendants were unsuccessful as of press time.

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 2 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. Most recently, Rockstar saw the media link its snuff-stealth game "Manhunt" to a murder in the United Kingdom.

Tor Thorson reported for GameSpot.
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