Sony was in no position to fund a racy PS2 pitch.
The Kama Sutra is a work of inestimable literary and cultural value. Since being written over 2000 years ago, it has shed light on living a virtuous life, acquiring material wealth, and observing practical spirituality for hundreds of generations of Hindus before spreading around the world. However, you’re probably not interested in all that, because it also describes 64 distinct sex acts in graphic detail. During the era of the EyeToy, a marginally useful camera PS2 add-on, Sony had to say no to a very creative pitch to transform this ancient text into what would undoubtedly have been one of the sexiest games ever made (and you thought Dante’s Inferno was a weird adaptation!).
“Seriously, this was a genuine pitch,” says Sony Computer Entertainment executive producer Pete Smith of the proposed EyeToy Kama Sutra. “So, the guy is going to me, ‘it’s like, so there’s an outline on the screen with the EyeToy …’ I’m like, I get it, yeah.” Smith turned down the pitch because, aside from questions of taste, there would be no practical way to perform QA or market the finished product. Still, the product has been on Smith’s mind ever since, and perhaps, in hindsight, not as impossible as he initially thought. “In one sense I think, god, I wish it would have been done. We could have maybe got some celebrity endorsements and stuff like that.”
Even though Smith turned down the eager developer, he was happy to hear a pitch with genuine excitement behind it. “What I just find strange is, sometimes you get these pitches and you think, this is just bonkers. But the developers absolutely believe in it, which is great. I’d much rather that than they come along halfhearted.” While EyeToy Kama Sutra never saw the light of day, Smith still tries to see the positive side of turning down creative pitches. “[You] have to be willing sometimes to admit defeat, because otherwise it’s not a risk … But if you’re going to fail, fail fast and cheap.”
For the rest of us, the Kama Sutra is available in the public domain online and at just about every bookstore and library in the Western world. Reading the book is not as interactive as playing a game, but we’ve heard that it has a pretty compelling cooperative mode.
Source: Eurogamer
Published: Jul 12, 2012 01:50 am