BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE BIG PLANET

[Rob F]

“Do you have any copies of Little Big Planet (LBP)?” I inquired.

“Yeah, we have 50, but we had to bump up the price because they’ve been recalled,” said the smug indie game merchant. 

“I’ll see ya in a half hour,” I replied. 

I quickly closed shop on Friday the 17th and hauled ass down to my friendly neighborhood indie game shop to pick up a copy of LBP.  I have little interest in Sony’s “killer app”, but for a short period I thought I could buy a couple copies of the original print run and flip them on EBay for double the price.  I’ve seen prices as high as $260 for an original copy and they don’t seem to be moving at all.  I’d like to thank Joe Santulli of Digital Press for talking me down off the ledge (I didn’t purchase any copies)! 

Copies of LBP were recalled worldwide due to the discovery of two passages from the Qur'an in a song by the recording artist Toumani Diabaté (who apparently is of the Muslim faith).  Sony is removing these passages for fear of offending someone or some group.  At first I thought this was a joke; who the hell could be offended by this?  Was I supposed to be offended as a Christian?  In the context of the song was he calling for the death of Christians or something?  I figured a group akin to the Religious Right was bitching, but I couldn’t be more off. 

Website 1UP.com published the most useful report on this ridiculous controversy, digging up a forum thread which seems to have been deleted from one of Sony’s Playstation websites titled “very urgent about little big planet.”  In it, forum member “solid_08” had this to say to Sony:

While playing your latest game, "LittleBigPlanet" in the first level of the third world in the game (titled "Swinging Safari", I have noticed something strange in the lyrics of the music track of the level. When I listened carefully, I was surprised to hear some very familiar Arabic words from the Quran. You can listen to part of the track here:

mt14.quickshareit.com/share/p...lip22503c0.wav


The words are:

1- In the 18th second: "ßá äÝÓ ÐÇÆÞÉ ÇáãæÊ" ("kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: 'Every soul shall have the taste of death').

2- Almost immediately after, in the 27th second: "ßá ãä ÚáíåÇ ÝÇä" ("kollo man alaiha fan", literally: 'All that is on earth will perish').


I asked many of my friends online and offline and they heard the exact same thing that I heard easily when I played that part of the track. Certain Arabic hardcore gaming forums are already discussing this, so we decided to take action by emailing you before this spreads to mainstream attention.

We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online patch, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it.

We would also like to mention that this isn't the first time something like this happened in videogames. Nintendo's 1998 hit "Zelda: Ocarina of Time" contained a musical track with islamic phrases, but it was removed in later shipments of the game after Nintendo was contacted by Muslim organizations. Last year, Capcom's "Zack & Wiki" and Activision's "Call of Duty 4" also contained objectionable material offensive to Muslims that was spotted before the release of the final games, and both companies thankfully removed the content.

We hope you act immediately to avoid any confusion and unnecessary controversy, and we thank you for making such an amazing game.

Regards,

yasser

Another forum member pressed Yasser for clarification:

presumably the song is by a muslim artist who has allowed the track to be used in game?  Therefore it wouldn't be a misuse of the intention?  I'm not trying to be difficult, but I don't understand why hearing words from the holy text is offensive.  Is it bad luck to hear them spoken aloud?

And Yasser responded:

thanking you for your reply
 
I hope that you read my message clearly , this message created by many muslims gamer  ,We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending ,we do not have any  problem  if we read our holy book front of all , our relegions tell us we must allow our holy book to reach all people in the world. and if you want a Translated copy of our holy book ill send you one .    this is our culture to respect our holy book by not  reading  it beside songs and music ,   we hope to find a good respect an understanding for our culture and relegion .
 
thank you .

Yasser correctly pointed out that other publishers have also edited their titles in order to avoid offending Muslims, and that's what’s truly offensive.  I’m not for censorship of any type, and more than that, of all the shit going on in the world they object to  this?  The next step for this group should be to protest Toumani Diabaté, it’s his music after all.  Then once they attempt to censor his work and any others like him, maybe they can take up real issues.  Perhaps condemn their fellow Muslims when they chop someone’s head off on camera or blow themselves up in a crowded market in the name of Allah.  This is such nonsense and there’s plenty of guilt to go around.  How is this medium supposed to grow when publishers so easily give in to the lunatic fringe?  This is infinitely frustrating and all the publishers, not just Sony, should be ashamed.  The only thing left to do is pray that this never happens again, and pray that I don’t wind up on YouTube with my head chopped off.   

Rob
Rob@j2games.com

[PsychoChris]

Dammit! I smell BLOOOOOOD!!!

I really have to sound off on this. The main point being, who cares??
Oh, so a bunch of muslims, who wouldn't play the game anyways are going to be offended? And the developers knowing that messing with muslim anything is going to be trouble, ah la the newspaper artists who were beheaded for depicting Mohammed in a cartoon. They could have a fact-checker-editor-PR guy breeze thru and green light this BEFORE they shipped it out?

It's little sock people riding around on a fudging skateboard! How would that bring about Gehannah?! oh whatever they call it. And worse yet, why do developers even put anything Muslim in their media at all. Since they would KNOW this stuff is happening on a regular basis!

Muzzle your Muslim! Since this guy that did the songs, Toumani Diabaté, is Muslim, wouldn't he know this rule? So he should be held responsible for the recall and charged for it. Shouldn't he? If I put an toxic ingredient knowingly into some product, that's sabotage isn't it?

So, how would most of the people playing this game, (I'll make up some number because I don't care to research it) 80% be able to understand, Hell, even pay attention too, the lyrics anyways? Worse case: some kids downloads the song because he heard it on the game. Then plays it in his iPod a little too loudly next to some psycho-muslims. They then cut his head off because Allah's cool with that.

I don't get it Rob, this one totally went over my head. It just doesn't make sense to me? Did everyone drop the ball? And do the Society of secret psychaotic Muslims listen to the soundtrack of every game before it's release or something?

Why does someone else's Faith have to ruin my potential for fun? (not that I'd play this game anyways.) This is just another case of "I don't like this, And now neither can you!"

I just don't get it.

mmmmm Blood.

[Rob F]

Dammit! I smell BLOOOOOOD!!!

Luckily, not dripping from my neck. 

[PsychoChris]

I like how in your article one guy asks a simple question, because this whole thing just doesn't make any damn sense.

Then Yesser talks down to him/her like they are retarded or something just cutting and pasting his arugement. That's like trying to debate by just screaming louder and slower until the other person just "gets it."

[jay]

Isn't Obama a terrorist Muslim?  (only kidding Rob, but I thought I'd add a little more drama to this discussion!)

I think this is just another instance of hyper-sensitivity due to the media.  Lets make certain we don't offend ANYONE by making the experience as vanilla as possible.  Sony could have ridden a potential media outcry of free advertising on this one instead of just caving so quickly.

Oh well, I probably wouldn't have noticed the song anyway, so I won't miss it when it's gone.

[nestlekwik]

You should also note that copies of Xbox's Kakuto Chojin was recalled for having a song set to Muslim chanting.  I think someone somewhere down the line would know this would have happened, but, still on that same token, I'm not surprised.  Seemingly out of the probably million people who have played this game through this whole time, only one person picked up on the lyrics.

[GameDoctorKunkel]

  Hey, Islam went nuts based on a CARTOON of the Prophet. They clearly don't like Mixed Media. You would think by now that the game world would be hip to this. It's a pain in the ass for Sony but if there had been something in the game offensive to Jews, Christians, Hindus, Shinto (any religion but Wicca, pretty much) it would also have been deleted.

  I could care less, but it was Sony that shot their own foot.

[Rob F]

You should also note that copies of Xbox's Kakuto Chojin was recalled for having a song set to Muslim chanting.

Well aware of that, thanks.  I only listed LBP and the rest came from quoting Yasser.  The point wasn't to list every title censored or pulled from the market. 

Hey, Islam went nuts based on a CARTOON of the Prophet. They clearly don't like Mixed Media. You would think by now that the game world would be hip to this. It's a pain in the ass for Sony but if there had been something in the game offensive to Jews, Christians, Hindus, Shinto (any religion but Wicca, pretty much) it would also have been deleted.

I hear ya Bill, but this is going too far.  More than that, where were the protests against this song before it was licensed for LBP?  While the lines from the Qur'an seem to deal with some pretty heavy shit, I highly doubt this was meant to be offensive in any way, especially considering it came from a Muslim recording artist.  The industry fights against other ultra sensitive individuals and groups, why not this group of holy gamers? 

I've heard that this was first a call by Sony in Europe, and as I understand it there's cultural strife between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK akin to the black and white divide in the states. 

[PsychoChris]

I've heard that this was first a call by Sony in Europe, and as I understand it there's cultural strife between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK akin to the black and white divide in the states. 

Just what is that suppose to mean, Honkey!?

My, look at this feeding frenzy, I told ya! I smelt Blood.

Still the Muslims should take a hint from the Amish and see they can't change the world to think like them. And just shut themselves off. I never heard of an Amish being offended by Weird Al's "Amish Paradise." This just should show everyone how religious tolerence is just code for censorship. Like how Affirmative Action is code for reverse racism.

Of course, you can freely offend Christians all you want. And the Jews are free game too so long as you have a token Jew on staff to make everything Kosher. The Mormons on the other hand... I don't trust those shifty bastards. (Well, they wouldn't be Bastards legally would they? what do you call it when your parents are married, with five wives, all at once?)

[MixMasterLar]

Hey, I thought this was Americawhere free speech existed. Guess that must of been Japan right?

I wish Sony would have stood up for themselves....then again, I would hate to be bombed.

[Rob F]

what happened to the original headline? 

[jay]

all fixed.  I posted a new topic inside of yours with a followup article about Little Big Planet.  Evidently, I to have the authority to appear on the welcome page, hence the change.  It's back to normal now (although now that I know I can do this I can start f ucking with you!)

[Rob F]

It's back to normal now (although now that I know I can do this I can start f ucking with you!)

Now I'm officially scared. 

[Rob F]

http://www.edge-online.com/features/muslim-group-condemns-lbp-%E2%80%9Ccensorship%E2%80%9D?page=0%2C0

Muslim Group Condemns LBP “Censorship”

[MixMasterLar]

wow. just wow

cant win for losing, eh?