Capcom has reached out to a Resident Evil YouTuber who creates NSFW mods for its games, as well as others like Stellar Blade, telling him that he must remove the videos featuring its games (and even some from other studios) lest it take further action.
YouTuber GrizzoUK posted a lengthy video about the situation, which includes an image of an email sent to him by Capcom’s legal department. The email says that the creation of “adult-oriented” mods based on its characters goes against the company’s Terms of Service, and it has “respectfully” requested that the flagged videos be removed. GrizzoUK responded asking why several other modders haven’t been asked to remove similar content. As he lays out the situation, he also finds time to include potshots at trans people and those who have AIDS, so watch at your own discretion.
The channel was briefly terminated and then reinstated by YouTube, which GrizzoUK says tanked views on the platform.
Capcom’s Terms of Service don’t explicitly state “don’t make NSFW content of our characters,” but it does generally cover things that “may infringe the intellectual property rights of Capcom,” including attempts to “modify” its software.
Any act which may infringe the intellectual property rights of Capcom such as to copy (except for the purpose of installing the Program), modify, alter, translate reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, extract or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Program or any part thereof, except and only to the extent that this activity is expressly permitted by the law of the user’s country of residence.
Capcom has gone on record as not wanting mods for its games that might result in “reputational damage” to the company and its IP, though it primarily highlighted ones that could affect how the game runs or corrupt save data.
“There are a number of mods that are offensive to public order and morals,” Capcom programmer Taro Yahagi said in 2023. “When these are disseminated, the image of the product is tarnished and branding is affected. Also, these offensive mods may be mistaken for legitimate implementations and can cause reputational damage.”
We’ve reached out to Capcom for comment on the situation and will update this story if we hear back.
