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Videogame mods are a blursed creation. They’re the door to many a quality-of-life tweak or straight-up fix to get some of the shoddier PC ports in shape, but they’re also the home to all kinds of bizarre running gags (Thomas the Tank Engine in everything) and a sprinkling of fetish fulfillment (gestures wildly at the many NSFW Skyrim mods).
We’ve seen developers worried about mods before: both Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi and Final Fantasy 16 director-producer Naoki Yoshida politely asked modders not to run amok with their creations on PC. There was also friction a few years ago when Judgement star and giant Japanese celebrity Takuya Kimura’s agency seemed reluctant to see the games heading to PC, seemingly down to concerns around how his likeness could be used.
Still, I can’t think of any time a developer has straight-up cited crass mods as a reason to not port a game over at all. Until now, that is.
TeamKill Media—the developer behind Code Violet, touted as a spiritual successor to Dino Crisis—posted on X to say that it wouldn’t be bringing the game to PC as it didn’t want any dirty modder hands tainting its creation. “For those asking us about a PC version of Code Violet… the reason we are not bringing it to PC is we do not want anyone modding vulgar versions of the main characters as well as other characters in the game,” the post read.
“We hold our voice actresses and actors with high regard, as well as our artistic vision for the game and story and reject any form of destroying that with sexual mods. Making a joke out of our art and possibly tarnishing the reputation of our voice actresses and actors is not worth the extra money we can make.”
Now TeamKill has followed up to try and defend its stance somewhat, adding in a follow-up post: “We are not against PC gamers or the PC platform. We are not against modders and some of the fun mods they make. But we are 100% against p*rnographic mods… period.”
Like, part of me certainly understands where the team is coming from. It’s nice to declare your respect for the people working to bring your game to life and ultimately developers have a right to protect that vision. But it also feels weirdly short-sighted to proclaim that PC is the sole home of degenerates doing degenerate things to videogames. Blaming a small subsector of modding culture on your entire reason for not porting a game over feels a bit strange to me, and even its half-hearted attempt to walk things back a little still feels finger-pointy.
It seems I’m not the only way who feels that way, since it seems TeamKill is largely getting cooked in the comments for its stance. Indie developer Ian Fisch replied: “If someone buys my game, it’s theirs to do what they want with,” while content creator GmanLives wrote “This is a petty brilliant markering strategy to turn people off your game entirely.”
Unsurprisingly, there are a handful seeming to agree with TeamKill though, and those replies seem to be the only ones the developer is actively recognising right now. I’ll be interested to see if it actually changes its mind down the line. After all, Judgement eventually came out on PC and landed pretty damn well, mods and all.
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Kurt Indovina
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