Some background first: MissBimbo is, to quote the website "a virtual dress-up game for fashion girls". It's been around since 2007, and is a spin-off of a french website. It got some media attention when it first opened, because some of the content was deemed inappropraite for young girls - in order to pass level 12, your bimbo has to get a facelift as well as a boob job. If you google "Miss Bimbo, a lot of articles come up on the first page about it. For the record, even though it seems to be aimed as tween girls, a lot of the active users are older (I don't want to say the majority because I don't have actual data on that, but in my experience it's pretty close).

So, around mid-September, MissBimbo came under new management. Kind of. As far as I can tell, two of the original founding member split off and started their own company and decided to take the website in a new direction. From the September 23rd most post:

Miss Bimbo was always an anti establishment, non politically correct entity.

So we are going to cherish our roots and create a non conformist fun place to hang out for people who think Barbie, Stardoll and Farmville are boring!

Miss Bimbo is seen as anti establishment so we are going to embrace it and stop worrying about political correctness, media opinion and corporate nonsense. Long live the Bimbo

Basically, from the information given in that post and others, this means bumping the registration age up to 13 and a "a gradual shift to a more liberal and adult site and community in terms of themes, language and humour". That's okay, right? The mods promise that there will be new clothes and themes and fun things like that, and everyone's happy.

Until Thursday, when people log in and see this (NSFW - if you don't want to click it is... well, it's a cartoon doll with a giant comical black mess of pubic hair).

( beaver wank thisaway! )

It begins, as many things do, with an idea. Or, more specifically, 300 ideas.

So a guy named Squidi begins an ambitious project: create 300 game ideas. Sadly, the project is cut a bit short at 60, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Among these ideas is the idea of the use of negative space as a game element, which would require the use of black and white to keep it simple. One character would exist in the white space and use the black space as a solid surface, while another would exist in the black space and use WHITE as the solid surface. He explains it so much better here.

Well, somebody decided to take him up on the idea. Here's Yin Yang, a new game from a developer named Nitrome. Squidi grumbles a bit in his journal about the lack of credit given, but doesn't really make a federal case out of it -- until Nitrome claims he came up with the idea on his own.

The Independent Gaming Source sums this up best, and brings some of the wank right to the comments. Note the accusation of libel from the maintainer of the indie game site Jay Is Games. ONOES! Also fun: the "he put it on the net and said he didn't care about credit, he should stop whining!" group versus the "he should get at least a LITTLE credit out of politeness" group versus the "hey, it's completely theoretically possible Nitrome DID come up with the idea on his own!" group. (To the latter, I say: LOOK AT THAT SCREENSHOT.)

Nothing like creative types to bring wank to the table. (Especially if they're game developers.)