Anglican churches can safely be ignored

But Muslims are another matter

"Sony's decision this month to delay one of the most anticipated games in the history of PlayStation, LittleBigPlanet, to avoid offending Muslims, is the latest sign that videogame-makers are playing prudence when it comes to religion. LittleBigPlanet, which has received rave reviews, is finally being released next week after a fortnight-long delay because of concerns that a track in the background music might be found offensive.

In 2003, Microsoft cancelled the European release of its combat game Kakuto Chojin for its first Xbox for the same reasons - a music track containing quotes from the Koran. The game was also withdrawn from shelves in Japan and the United States and has since remained unavailable.

More recently, Japanese games editor Capcom modified the sound-track to adventure game Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure ahead of its 2008 release for Nintendo's Wii. This followed a complaint from the US Council on American-Islamic Relations over the use of a background sound featuring Islamic prayer "Allahu akbar" ("God is great") as tribal islanders in the game prayed around a totem.

And last year, the Anglican church kicked up a fuss over a building in a Sony game that it said looked like the Anglican cathedral in Manchester, northern England, even prompting then prime minister Tony Blair to kick in and comment. The church featured as the scene of a violent shootout in Resistance: Fall of Man. Sony apologised but refused to cave in to the church's demand to remove the game from store shelves.

Source

Looks like you have to bomb and behead people to get taken seriously. A strange set of values we have these days.


Posted by John Ray.