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Jan 25 / Ozymandias

When Artists get Lazy

Just thought this was funny. Check out Sony’s PSP Connect site and you (currently) see the following:

Now check out this screenshot from Bizarre Creations website (makers of Project Gotham Racing 3):

Just to be clear, this isn’t Sony trying anything dirty. It’s likely an artist just taking a shortcut, and the company has no idea. Expect it to disappear pretty quickly. But it’s pretty funny that an Xbox 360 launch title is being used to represent Gran Turismo HD. ;)

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  • Mario Campos

    Wow, that is absolutely hilarious. I’m sure you’re right about it not being Sony (their risk vs. reward would not be a good thing on this if it were from corporate) but it is still kind of ironic. I’ve never done massive web design but when I had a personal site there was a place called Graphics Forums that had senior web dev’s pointing out "rip-off" websites that stole their code. It was insane to see how many good websites were ripped off completely with the exact same code/layout/or custom home-made images!

  • Trellium

    Funny!

    Unfortunately, it’s "been there, done that" for me. We were marketing our software (over 20 years ago), paid a ton of money for unique artwork for a magazine advert. We gave them some magazine pictures to give them an idea of the marketplace, and they came up with some super work. We approved, and signed off. Unfortunately, someone replaced the unique artwork with a direct copy of one of the magazine pictures as the background.

    We had lots of calls from lawyers that week. It all worked out fine, it was an honest mistake but its still embarrassing. More so when its a direct competitor.

    Someone is sitting at their desks with a mighty, mighty red face right about now and you can’t help but feel a bit sorry for them.

  • Anonymous

    Very true. I actually feel bad for the artist – might be a honest mistake, might have been a shortcut. But it’s probably career-limiting. :(

  • OOkladek

    I think someone just lost his job…

  • Trellium

    Bah, only if it was intentional … in which case they probably don’t care about their job anyway :)

    Plus, it might have been several people who missed it. Some piccy gets in with the others, not sure the web developer would know the source of the picture itself. Probably a hand off.

    What would be funny though is if they are standing their with their cigarettes hanging out of their mouths because in the background behind the monitor are stacks and stacks of new promotional pamphlets with that same image. Now THAT is something for Mr. Dilbert’s Sunday morning special.

    And, if that person who made this mistake reads this, maybe its a reminder that it could still be so much worse! Its not the end of the world.

    I don’t mind innocent mistakes, those are jsut funny and this is just plain funny. It doesn’t hurt Sony’s image in my eyes, it makes them human. I can accept that; what I can’t accept is their superhuman vision of themselves that they portray in their normal marketing.

  • OOkladek

    Trellium sayd:

    "what I can’t accept is their superhuman vision of themselves that they portray in their normal marketing."

    Nicly put.

    Just a quick question, law speeking, can Bizzare/Microsoft bring sony to court over something like this? and get something nice for it from sony?

  • OOkladek

    It look’s like the site is down now took them an hour to find out about it.

  • User

    The site is still up.

  • Trellium

    I get the site now, but its painfully slow. Being hit by tons of xbox fans I assume, now that the story is on the xbox site as well ;)

    They did change the image though. Hey, isn’t that image from Alien 1???

    Just kidding.

  • RomeoDude

    Gasp!  Could the artist be that unknowing about the product he is working for to take a screen shot from their competitor’s game??  Did Sony actually think their game looked that good????  But honestly, I haven’t really looked too far into screenshots for GT, but I can guess they’d look somewhat similar, both being next gen racing games, but that is one of the unmistakable main screenshots from PGR3.  Nice try Sony, your games don’t look that good…

  • http://extremecondition.blogspot.com PIPP0

    haha! maybe the designer is a PGR fanboy!

  • Aedrin

    Imagine the thousands upon thousands of people going to their site?

    I get some random Spiderman 3 image, with non functioning "More Info", "Download for PSP" links. They might’ve hastily put up something quickly. (Even though it doesn’t work)

  • J.Goodwin

    Gran Tourismo HD only has one track.

    And it’s not a city track, it’s in the mountains.

    So it’s a pretty big oversight.

  • Aedrin

    I think they switched the image back to GTHD, but it’s a different one now.

    Looks like Gran Turismo, but it’s all the same racing game I suppose.

  • in fact

    font style for PLAYSTATION 3 is lazy as well. blatant copy from spider-man!

  • cone56

    "font style for PLAYSTATION 3 is lazy as well. blatant copy from spider-man!"

    its not because sony own spider-man. sony pictures entertainment distrubutes the movie. I think.

  • yeah but

    its so lazy way to design next gen console that will be used for 4-5 yrs

  • TDiddy

    My lord that Vista UI is messy.

  • Kosher Infidel

    TDiddy said:

    My lord that Vista UI is messy.

    HAHAHAHA, I made a crack at MS in a non-related topic!  Yeah, I got mail!  Yeah!