New video game releases of 2/13-2/19
Indie Jeff's Weekly Pick: Gunpoint
Daily Filter: Mass Effect 3, Alan Wake's American Nightmare
Blizzard files opposition to Valve's Dota trademark
Twisted Metal promotion blows up Sweet Tooth's truck
LittleBigPlanet Delayed, Qur'an Cited as Reason
by Blake Ellison, Oct 17, 2008 9:24am PDTUpdate 2: Sony has announced that LittleBigPlanet will now ship the week of October 27 in North America, with more details having surfaced on the song in question.
Update: LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule has revealed via its official site that a day-one patch was just completed and would have removed the offensive material.
However, publisher Sony decided that the "right thing to do for quality and support of people with no on-line was to replace existing disks." The company has yet to issue a new release date for the anticipated PlayStation 3 platforming game.
Original Story: Media Molecule's highly anticipated LittleBigPlanet (PS3) is facing a delay and recall from retailers--just a few days shy of release--after being finished nearly a month ago. CVG obtained this statement from Sony's European branch:
During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet, it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur'an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused.
Eurogamer has confirmed that the delay is worldwide. Further, since copies of the PlayStation 3-only platformer are already sitting in stock rooms all over the world, the game will be recalled from retailers.
A new release date has not been confirmed, though UK retailers--who began listing a delay a few days ago--are speculating the new release will come in the week of November 9.
LittleBigPlanet would not be the first game to face censorship on account of religious issues. In the past, Islamic material has been removed from games including Capcom's Zack & Wiki (Wii) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64).
Comments
god bless atheism :P
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 8 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 23 replies.
Then again, when some adherents of the "Religion of Peace" threaten to kill you over a political cartoon image I suppose you can't be too careful.......
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.
I can see why Sony doesn't want anything to do with having quotes like that in the game. Muslims will be offended that the quotes provide support for the view of Islam as a violent religion, and others may protest that the game might be promoting fundamentalist Islam by including the quotes.
Talked to some guys at GameStop and they don't seem to know when LBP will ship. According to Amazon.com it looks like November 4th. That would seem to make more sense, how could Sony possibly hope to replace the hundreds of thousands of disc's in a week?
I realize it's still going to sell well, but I can't help but think there are more than a few people out there who will end up skipping it at release for one of those other titles that come out first.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Fundamentalist Muslims don't even play videogames, they're not a demographic!
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
There is one thing I can tell you, from my experience:
These people actually rage beyond belief over trivial shit like this.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
Seriously, the game is delayed because a small number of people might be offended by a minor thing in it?
I mean hell, we *KNOW* a larger number of people are offended by a large number of things in releases like GTA4, and that still came out on time.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 24 replies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vva0jRFeqJQ
Fuck you Zebra!
Wait, that didn't happen. I think they burned come records or something.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 10 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
this is apparently from the song? LOL
The words are:
1- In the 18th second: "كل نفس ذائقة الموت" ("kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: 'Every soul shall have the taste of death').
2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: "كل من عليها فان" ("kollo man alaiha fan", literally: 'All that is on earth will perish').
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 29 replies.
Only 5 DIGGs.
:O
On the question of offensive material. Do Germans get removed from WW2 games? I think in Germany they do some censoring but nothing to that extent. I'm sure they've paid their debt to society since WW2. How about all the Russians we kill in Tom Clancy games and others? Soldier of Fortune games going to all these parts of the world killing all these different nations? There have been so many games where you fight in a church, that may offend some people but nothing's been done about that.
Just my thoughts. In all honesty I think 90% of the people would have no clue what the content was about when they run into it.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
I'd say half the muslim people in a moderate muslim country such as mine wouldn't give a rat's ass about it, a quarter would be some what disturbed by it but will turn a blind eye and the last quarter would be throwing plastic bottles around.
I hate the way some American's talk about muslims as if they're all bad and Islam itself is 100% bad or something. I left faith long ago but it's just absurd sometimes.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
I guess it might just be offensive that it's an out-of-place religious reference in a game, rather than the song itself.
Though the idea of the song itself being offensive seems a little absurd to me, regardless of culture. I'd certainly like to hear from the artist himself on the matter.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
I'm being completely serious. I was looking forward to this game 100000000x more than anything else.
FUCK.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 10 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 12 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
The word "big" is head in the Bible!
BAN THE GAME OMFG JACK CHOMPSONNNNNN
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/
Sucks, but could suck worse.
THANK YOU ALLAH!
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.