Publisher insisted on Killer is Dead’s gigolo missions, Suda 51 says

Developer Suda 51 has said that the inclusion of the controversial ‘gigolo missions’ in his 2013 title Killer is Dead was demanded by publisher Kadokawa Shoten.

The missions saw players trying to convince women to have sex with them by handing over gifts.

Those missions were actually supposed to be part of [2011 title] Shadows of the Damned,” Suda told Eurogamer. The original concept was you were supposed to give flowers. It was more of a non-erotic mission.

Then I got a request from the Japanese publisher saying, ‘We’re going to sell this game in Japan. We need more scandalous stuff.’ I wanted the mode to be a little bit cleaner, but it came from the top down that I had to add that in there. They’re an erotic publisher. I wanted a more elegant ‘gigolo mode’. I wanted to tone it down a little bit, but I’m pretty satisfied with what I came up with.”

The most distasteful aspect of the content was the perception that women can be tempted into bed simply through the giving of gifts. Suda claimed to also be uncomfortable with this, arguing that he increased the difficulty to lessen such interpretations.

This is a conversation I had with the Japanese publisher,” he added. Basically, if we’d made it too easy it would make it like you’re buying stuff and getting girls, so I made it so you’re not able to get the girl all the time. Also, when you mess up, the girl slaps you.

So I didn’t make it as easy as I could have. There’s a degree of difficulty in this, which kind of shows in the game that women are strong. So they don’t look like an object that’s easy. People who just saw the visuals might think that women are treated like objects, but if people play it, I don’t believe that that would be the same feedback.”

Convinced?