GamePolitics has an exclusive interview with the Oblivion modder who made it possible, through a series of hacks, to play the game surrounded by topless NPCs. The ESRB found out and slapped a new M rating on the previously T-rated RPG.

The modder, Maeyanie, disapproves of the re-rating and proclaims the modding community bears responsibility for the boobs, not Bethesda. I'm inclined to agree. The next step is M-rating games for user-created skins.

CM: Do you think companies should be held responsible for content discovered by modders?

Maeyanie: In the case of content in the game waiting to be unlocked by a certain button-sequence or whatever, yes, they put it there. In the case of mods requiring third-party software, downloads from the Internet, and other things, absolutely not. The ability to add content to a game is a great thing, and leads to much greater replayability (if that's a word) and all-around fun. Just because some people like me "abuse" this ability to add "evil" content based on a single culture's narrow definitions of what is and isn't appropriate isn't the fault of the developers.

I wonder if the skin artist got in trouble for this. There's no reason to create an anatomically correct base skin except for simple aesthetics (and a desire for publicity via the inevitable modder "discovery" of nipples), and if I worked in games I'd probably be doing it too. Eliza gauger

Complete interview here [GamePolitics]