Dead or Alive 6 at EVO Japan featured NSFW controversy

The Dead or Alive 6 promotion is ramping up, Team Ninja took to the EVO Japan stage to announce details about the upcoming demo and content.

However, they also ended up having their live stream cut due to NSFW content, which interestingly enough was not due to the game itself, but the models onstage taking it on themselves to try and simulate the famous DOA jiggle and questionable actions by the games producer. Yep, that happened.

Controversy aside (which is somewhat expected with the DOA series) there were a number of announcements made prior to the incident that prematurely ended their presentation. Probably the biggest news was regarding the details of the Dead or Alive 6 deluxe demo.

Available exclusively to subscribers of Xbox Live Gold and PS Plus, it will run from 22-24 Feb and will consist of online ranked and lobby matches, as well as Free Training, Tutorial, Command Training, Combo Challenge, and an introduction to Story mode.

Details of the Dead or Alive 6 World Championship were also revealed, with qualifying rounds to be held in Asia, Europe and America. The top players from each region will make their way to Japan to battle for a ten million yen prize pool. It as also announced that there will be collaboration with SNKs King of Fighters IV featuring guest fighters and costumes. These will be part of the season one pass which will be available on March 1st alongside the main game. KOF aside this will also feature a set of wedding costumes for the girls and alternate outfights for the gents. Now, information aside. What happened at EVO Japan?

While the producer was demonstrating  Dead or Alive 6, there were two models on stage with clothes designed to mimic the characters, ie; torn garments and underwear showing. As the show went on, they decided to start simulating the… physics.. of the game via cleavage and butt bouncing… which turned into spanking.

The straw that broke the camels back however, was when the producer paused the game during a move which left the characters in a compromising position, then moved the camera around to get a better look. This lead to EVO Japan pulling the plug and bringing the nightmare to an end..

In a now deleted tweet, tournament organiser Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar stated “The DOA ad that aired on our stream does not reflect the core values of EVO or the FGC. We ended the stream temporarily to protect the integrity of the brand. We sincerely apologize to our fans.”

In some ways the controversy is not that surprising when it comes to Dead or Alive as a series, but it could be argued that it’s unnecessarily low brow . Last time I played a Dead or Alive game (which was a while ago I must admit) it played as a perfectly enjoyable fighter with gameplay somewhere between the technicality of Tekken and the simplicity of Virtua Fighter.

Although I doubt they intended to have their plug pulled, Team Ninja crossed a line here and in my opinion have done more damage to their game than they have good.