LittleBigPlanet has been delayed by about a week over concerns that it may offend Muslims. The game, which was supposed to ship today, was found to have a song that contains phrases from the Koran. As such, Sony has pushed back the game’s release to October 29.
The offending phrases were found by a Muslim gamer who was playing the beta. The singer of the song, “Tapha Niang,” is Toumani Diabaté. The video here shows the level in question, complete with offensive song. We show it here not to shock or titillate, but because we know you’re smart enough to go to YouTube within three songs of finding out the name of the song.
Sorta reminds me of when Nintendo had to recall The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time because the chanting in the Fire Temple sounded like a Muslim prayer chant.
Let’s try to be civil about this: if it offends someone, fine. Take the week to tweak the code and then we avoid any further headaches.
And now I’m downloading a bunch of Diabaté’s albums. Not bad at all.
Is there any thing they don’t find offensive? why don’t they get over themselves the set of complete idiots sony should have stood strong. If they find a song offensive that’s just tuff and they need to grow up.
why are muslims so easily offended? they need to get some back bone and stop being cowards all the time.
Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. are not given “special” status by publishers — refusing to distribute anything that might “offend” them. So, why should Islam be treated any differently? Muslims don’t have to buy the product if they don’t want to hear versus from the Koran quoted.
Hm. I have my doubts about this. Do you think the Muslim who complained (and AFAIK, there was only one) was really offended? It’s a bit suspicious that his forum post claiming to be offended also posted a link to the music, which seems a bit odd if finds it that offensive.
Sounds like a big publicity stunt to me, designed to get people talking about the product and make it more desirable because of its temporary non-availability. It’s worked, too.
On the plus side, this story triggered an Adsense for Muslima.com “The International Muslim Matrimonial Site!” She has smoking-hot eyebrows.
On the plus side, this story triggered an Adsense for Muslima.com “The International Muslim Matrimonial Site!”. And the girl in the ad has smoking-hot eyebrows.
I guess I’ll be the one to point out the elephant in the room: the reason this publisher pulled the game is because it fears radical members of Muslim cults bombing its offices — I say cults because true Islam denounces such violence as a sin. In the war on terror, Sony has surrendered to the enemy making itself an agent of violent Islamic cults.
Wow. Let’s clear some things up there:
1. Muslims are no more easily offended than their Christian, Jewish, etc. counterparts. The Religious Right in the States are a prime example of this. Last I checked they were offended by everything as well.
2. The publisher of the game is NOT afraid of getting bombed. That’s retarded. They’re afraid of being labeled as non-sensitive to Muslim issues. This could potentially eliminate a significant market for them. If the head of marketing at the company comes to me as a developer and says: “Hey, we can sell more units if we remove this one song” I’ll say, “Hold on a sec and I’ll do it right now, because that sounds like the practical do.”
3. Of COURSE people find music offensive. Do people not remember the congressional hearings regarding gangster rap back in the 90s?
You can try and vilify the Muslims for this all you want, but this is recurring theme, regardless of religious context. The sad fact is that people are stupid and easily offended.
Should Sony hire a religious affairs advisor to help with questions like this? Discuss it at FaithWorld — http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/10/21/does-sony-need-a-religious-affairs-adviser/
Maybe Sony should join the Religion of the Month Club (”in case Bantu Witchcraft was the one true way, you don’t want to be left out!”).