Gay Programmer Fired for Adding 'Studs' to Computer Game

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ A gay programmer who worked on a computer game featuring plenty of female ``bimbo'' characters snuck in a few male ``studs'' without his boss's knowledge. He was fired for his initiative.

Jacques Sevrin, 33, worked at Maxis Inc., which also produces the popular SimCity 2000 game. He slipped the unauthorized images into the new action game SimCopter, in which players fly rescue mission through a complex 3-D city peopled with tiny characters.

``The artist that was working on it made them these standard female computer-game bimbos, really skimpy shorts, big breasts _ what you'd expect,'' Sevrin said.

The male figures were all ``really dumpy, little squat middle-aged types,'' he said, so he threw in some hunks in swim suits.

The game was released on Nov. 20 and 50,000 copies were shipped before the company discovered the additions. Sevrin was fired the next day for ``adding the unauthorized content,'' said company spokesman Patrick Buechner.

The popular SimCity games aren't about sex or violence, but about creating, Buechner said.

Sevrin disagreed, saying images of scantily clad women are considered just part of the background and therefore not objectionable, but hunky men are.

``There's nothing overtly sexual or obscene about them,'' Sevrin said of his additions. ``These boys in swim trunks just walk around _ very rarely, I might add _ except on certain days of the year.''

Those dates include Friday the 13th and Sevrin's birthday, Sept. 30, as well as Aug. 22, his ex-boyfriend's birthday.

``On those days, all kinds of things happen. There will be boys kissing, there will be a greater number of bimbos, there will be Elvis impersonators. It's really hilarious,'' he said.

Maxis was not amused.

Buechner said the company was working on a ``patch'' that would remove Sevrin's hunks from the game's background. He said Maxis hoped to have the patch available on the company's Web site by next week.

``People can also call our customer support and we'll mail them a disk with the patch on it,'' Buechner said from Maxis' offices in Walnut Creek.

Hidden jokes are so common in computer programs that they have a name _ Easter eggs. Computer game players prize them and tell each other how to find them on Internet discussion groups.

But Sevrin's additions went completely by even hard-core devotees of the game, such as 12-grader Matt Barbato, who maintains a SimCopter fan page, said WiredNews, an online news service that first reported Sevrin's firing.

© 2013  The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.