Little Big Planet delayed over Koran phrases

thelordofcheese

Y2J_MUFC wrote: »

Indeed you are correct sir....it was Manchester Cathedral that was featured in it that caused a storm!

I think it's a protestant cathedral, Sony didn't remove that though. Different religion, different Sony response. Hmmm...... interesting....

Not at all, different scenario, different changes, no monitary incentive to change it.

I'm going to make this nice and simple.

Changing resistance would have meant pulling an entire level from a game (the complaint of which was only raised after the launch and the game had sold X number of copies). This would have meant changing the game radically, and cost a hell of a lot of money as well as being a logistical nightmare.
From sonys point of view they have no reason to comply with this. They had sold their units and a little bit of controversy isn't going to hurt a game who's Raison d'être is shooting shit in the face.

Changing LBP by removing one track of music neither afftects the game nor does it cost sony alot of time and money. It's just a case of removing a file, rebuilding the image and pressing it again. In comparison to the resistance example it's next to nothing.
Likewise LBP is not the kind of game that should court controversy. It's set up as their big unit shifter this christmas and it's pitched (and indeed is) an innocent game that anyone could enjoy.

This isn't about religion, it's about money. I know it's cool to blame those pesky muslims and their crazy beliefs, but seriously, it's dumb.

Y2J_MUFC

Otacon wrote: »

There are some key differences between the two cases:

1. Resistance: FOM had actually been released before the Church of England had made its statement.

Shouldn't make a difference though should it? I mean, the games were all ready to go. For all intents and purposes the game development was finished..they had to recall all the copies they'd dispatched.

Otacon wrote: »

2. The offending article was an entire location in the game, so changing it or removing it would have cost more as the level would have had to be re-done.

If something is difficult its not worth doing? Not sure I agree with that.

Otacon wrote: »

3. LBP hasn't been released yet (not meant to be anyway!) and the disputed article is a song that was easily removed, allowing the game to only be delayed by a few weeks.

Still had to recall all the copies, still going to cost an awful lot.

The way I see it, both games had issues because of religious grounds, one was recalled, one wasn't, why aren't they consistent? It's reasonable to look at the uproar, riots & violence over the Danish cartoons and think hmmm, these folks in that part of the world get mighty upset....

Maximilian

thelordofcheese wrote: »

This isn't about religion, it's about money. I know it's cool to blame those pesky muslims and their crazy beliefs, but seriously, it's dumb.

Sure I suppose everything ultimately boils down to money. This isn't just about money though. The cause of the game being pulled is religion. Sony obviously ran numbers and decided it was worthwhile to pull the game because of the religious issue.

Otacon

Y2J_MUFC wrote: »

Shouldn't make a difference though should it? I mean, the games were all ready to go. For all intents and purposes the game development was finished..they had to recall all the copies they'd dispatched.

Yes the LBP game development was finished, but the new, 'cleaner' version was ready in less than 12 hours. As I said, Resistance was out and had sold over a million copies before the Church of England stepped in so recalling was out of the question.

Y2J_MUFC wrote: »

If something is difficult its not worth doing? Not sure I agree with that.

I am not saying that. I agree with thelordofcheese here, in a way, in that, if changing LBP was going to cost Sony a lot, they would not have done it. Resistance was too far gone. Some of the plot would have had to be changed, new voice acting, redesigning the levels...

Y2J_MUFC wrote: »

Still had to recall all the copies, still going to cost an awful lot.

Minimal compared to the lawsuits and bad publicity this would have garnered, for what is arguably Sony's flagship title this Christmas. As I said, if it was going to cost too much, they would have left it.

Y2J_MUFC wrote: »

The way I see it, both games had issues because of religious grounds, one was recalled, one wasn't, why aren't they consistent? It's reasonable to look at the uproar, riots & violence over the Danish cartoons and think hmmm, these folks in that part of the world get mighty upset....

Sony issued an apology for the Resistance issue. I think the Church of England (and everyone esle) can understand Sony could not have recalled the game after the release and a simple patch was not possible.

I still believe there was no need to recall the LBP copies. A patch was created straight away by Media Molecule so that would have worked. Anyone who was solely going to play this offline would not have been able to publish any new levels online, containing the music. Everyone would (or should) have been happy.

Otacon

Maximilian wrote: »

The cause of the game being pulled is religion.

I disagree, the cause was Sony overreacting to a complaint they recieved that was based on a religious belief.

thelordofcheese

Maximilian wrote: »

Sure I suppose everything ultimately boils down to money. This isn't just about money though. The cause of the game being pulled is religion. Sony obviously ran numbers and decided it was worthwhile to pull the game because of the religious issue.

The nature of the complaint is totally irrelivant. It can be religious, cultural, political, it doesn't matter. If the figures say that a recall is the best course of action, that's what sony will do.

This issue went from a "well that sucks" to "curse them muslms" too bloody quickly. It's been an excuse for people to take a beating stick to religions and islam in paticular.
Some of the comments on this thread and the one on the playstation one make me wonder just how different some 'gamers' are from the sterotype of the easilly offended and incomprhensible angry muslim they are blaming for the small delay of LBP on.

Maximilian

Otacon wrote: »

I disagree, the cause was Sony overreacting to a complaint they recieved that was based on a religious belief.

I never said I agreed with their reasoning. Yeah I think it's been blown way out of proportion.

thelordofcheese wrote: »

The nature of the complaint is totally irrelivant. It can be religious, cultural, political, it doesn't matter. If the figures say that a recall is the best course of action, that's what sony will do.

This issue went from a "well that sucks" to "curse them muslms" too bloody quickly. It's been an excuse for people to take a beating stick to religions and islam in paticular.
Some of the comments on this thread and the one on the playstation one make me wonder just how different some 'gamers' are from the sterotype of the easilly offended and incomprhensible angry muslim they are blaming for the small delay of LBP on.

I think you are missing the point or I haven't expressed myself well. The root cause here is a religious issue. The justification for the recall from Sony's point of view is that it works for them from a financial p.o.v. The problem is religion, the solution is effectively throwing money at the problem.

My point was that there is nothing wrong with discussing the underlying religious issue. You seem to think this is utterly irrelevant to the discussion and Sony's decision, which is curious or I have I taken you up wrong.

Y2J_MUFC

thelordofcheese wrote: »

I know it's cool to blame those pesky muslims and their crazy beliefs, but seriously, it's dumb.

Yes, I'm sure we all feel very "cool" in blaming "pesky" muslims.

So people of this opinion are "dumb" and "can't read"

Pardon me, I seem to have stumbled into a playground.

thelordofcheese

Maximilian wrote: »

I think you are missing the point or I haven't expressed myself well. The root cause here is a religious issue. The justification for the recall from Sony's point of view is that it works for them from a financial p.o.v. The problem is religion, the solution is effectively throwing money at the problem.

My point was that there is nothing wrong with discussing the underlying religious issue. You seem to think this is utterly irrelevant to the discussion and Sony's decision, which is curious or I have I taken you up wrong.

People get offended, people have the right to complain (this also includes people bitching about the delay). It's sonys handling of the issue that's upsetting people, but they're choosing to have a go at the person who complained.

I mean the original letter is very respectful and suggests a day zero patch. It never called for a delay or anything, and it cited times before where these kind of small cosmetic changes had been made before (in Ocarina of Time of all games. Who knew?) yet we have people running to sterotypes of terrorism and violence. It's lazy, dishonest and it does little to counter the image of the game as the angry, reactionary nerd.

I guess i'm wishing very hard that people would leave the cheap "We're too PC/damn those muslims" style comments for somewhere more suited to that kind of tabloidy nonsense. I'd like to think that we'd be capable of discussing it without resorting to that, but most of the first page of comments just made me facepalm.

fitz0

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Not at all, different scenario, different changes, no monitary incentive to change it.

I'm going to make this nice and simple.

Changing resistance would have meant pulling an entire level from a game (the complaint of which was only raised after the launch and the game had sold X number of copies). This would have meant changing the game radically, and cost a hell of a lot of money as well as being a logistical nightmare.
From sonys point of view they have no reason to comply with this. They had sold their units and a little bit of controversy isn't going to hurt a game who's Raison d'être is shooting shit in the face.

Changing LBP by removing one track of music neither afftects the game nor does it cost sony alot of time and money. It's just a case of removing a file, rebuilding the image and pressing it again. In comparison to the resistance example it's next to nothing.
Likewise LBP is not the kind of game that should court controversy. It's set up as their big unit shifter this christmas and it's pitched (and indeed is) an innocent game that anyone could enjoy.

This isn't about religion, it's about money. I know it's cool to blame those pesky muslims and their crazy beliefs, but seriously, it's dumb.

So shooting up a church is less offensive than listening to two lines from a book? ... explain you reasoning. If its to not cause offense then cost shouldnt really matter should it?

thelordofcheese

fitz0 wrote: »

So shooting up a church is less offensive than listening to two lines from a book? ... explain you reasoning. If its to not cause offense then cost shouldnt really matter should it?

oh for cryin' out loud....

I never said anything about the level of offense being greater or lesser, i was explaining why the two scenarios aren't comparable and why i believe sony acted how it acted in both occasions.

Y2J_MUFC

I know what your saying Otacon, but at the same time its a reasonable comparison. Both would cost money, both cases they could minimise the damage. Fair enough they can't recall the sold copies, but thats reasonable. They could still have patched the sold ones online and changed the future versions given some time, but they didn't.

Whatever way its dressed up, two cases, two regilions, two outcomes.....

I think its naive to think that Sony didn't stop to think and say "Woooooooah, hold on, look what happened with those Danish cartoons" and to honestly say that, that had no impact on their decision whatsoever, or that this didn't cross their mind.... thats very hard to believe.

Otacon wrote: »

I still believe there was no need to recall the LBP copies. A patch was created straight away by Media Molecule so that would have worked. Anyone who was solely going to play this offline would not have been able to publish any new levels online, containing the music. Everyone would (or should) have been happy.

Agreed.

Maximilian

thelordofcheese wrote: »

People get offended, people have the right to complain (this also includes people bitching about the delay). It's sonys handling of the issue that's upsetting people, but they're choosing to have a go at the person who complained.

I mean the original letter is very respectful and suggests a day zero patch. It never called for a delay or anything, and it cited times before where these kind of small cosmetic changes had been made before (in Ocarina of Time of all games. Who knew?) yet we have people running to sterotypes of terrorism and violence. It's lazy, dishonest and it does little to counter the image of the game as the angry, reactionary nerd.

I guess i'm wishing very hard that people would leave the cheap "We're too PC/damn those muslims" style comments for somewhere more suited to that kind of tabloidy nonsense. I'd like to think that we'd be capable of discussing it without resorting to that, but most of the first page of comments just made me facepalm.

Regardless it became a muslim issue. You had the BBC I think it was interviewing muslim leaders about it. One lot going "who gives a crap" and another lot going "the word of God should not be used for profit" etc. Who knows what would have happened had the game been released unaltered.

I think Sony took the view that it was better to act before it blew up into anything more. Cost-wise it was cheaper to do now than later. Regardless of gamers' attitudes to it, I think the rest of the world would have regarded Sony's actions as largely responsible, so I'd say all in all it's a PR victory for them.

This is still an example of people going over the top and out of their way to avoid offending muslims though. A lot of people find that kind of thing outrageous.

Maximilian

In other news apparently Fallout 3 has been canceled in India due to "Cultural Sensitivities". No doubt they should have said money reasons. :pac:

thelordofcheese

Maximilian wrote: »

Regardless it became a muslim issue. You had the BBC I think it was interviewing muslim leaders about it. One lot going "who gives a crap" and another lot going "the word of God should not be used for profit" etc. Who knows what would have happened had the game been released unaltered.

I think Sony took the view that it was better to act before it blew up into anything more. Cost-wise it was cheaper to do now than later. Regardless of gamers' attitudes to it, I think the rest of the world would have regarded Sony's actions as largely responsible, so I'd say all in all it's a PR victory for them.

This is still an example of people going over the top and out of their way to avoid offending muslims though. A lot of people find that kind of thing outrageous.

The thing is that it's not just muslim beliefs that get this kind of treatement, a few pages back i posted a link to the guardian about various faux pas that microsoft had made over the years. Things like refering to Tiawan as a seperate country is offensive and illegal in china.

The problem with going "ohh this is too far" is it creates a very vague line of how far to go when respecting other peoples cultural sensibilities and beliefs.
For example, lets assume that a game with the same level of hype and interest (because i know damn well that if this wasn't LBP this discussion would never have started) labeled ireland as part of the UK. Now, i wouldn't care too much much, but i'm sure some people would be deeply offended.
What should sony do then, day zero patch? Recall? Tell us to grow the fuck up?

Likewise, where is the other end of the scale, where the level of offense that is so great that we should actually complain and expect a recall?

I really don't think this is a case of going too far to appease muslims, content in films, games, hell even product names get vetted and checked so they don't cause offense. it's standard practice. Films have test auidences, most recently i think Wall-E had some scenes changed just before release because it tested badly with fat people complain about the portrail of fat people in the film.

It's the same here, somoene at sony or media moluclue should have spotted this ages ago and changed it then. They didn't, it took someone else to spot it for them. It looks like some crazy "OH-JESUS-QUICK-BEFORE-THEY-GET-ANGRY" move, but really, sony dropped the ball and they're just scrambling to fix it now.


also:

Maximilian wrote: »

I think Sony took the view that it was better to act before it blew up into anything more

Tell me you did that on purpose

Cunny-Funt

I remember the BF2 mod Desert Conflict (which was based on the BF1942 mod Desert Combat ) its a gulf war 1 based military shooter. For one of the loading music tracks it had that usual middle eastern chanting style singing we always hear mixed into it.

A guy from Iraq (who was a regular poster and a big fan of the game btw) posted on the forums informing that the chanting used was actually the Muslim prayer at dawn or something along those lines. Anyway from what I recall he wasnt complaining but said that it might offend other Muslims for some reason.

But they didn't change the track.

Cause that would be retarded.

thelordofcheese

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

I remember the BF2 mod Desert Conflict (which was based on the BF1942 mod Desert Combat ) its a gulf war 1 based military shooter. For one of the loading music tracks it had that usual middle eastern chanting style singing we always hear mixed into it.

A guy from Iraq (who was a regular poster and a big fan of the game btw) posted on the forums informing that the chanting used was actually the Muslim prayer at dawn or something along those lines. Anyway from what I recall he wasnt complaining but said that it might offend other Muslims for some reason.

But they didn't change the track.

Cause that would be retarded.

Well it's not a commercial product and would not expected to be held up to the same kind of production values and quality control of a full game.
So i don't really see the comparison you're trying to make here.

the_syco

Reminds me of a phrase: "We're peaceful! Take it back or we'll kill you"

In June 2007, Sony apologised to the Church of England after setting scenes in a violent video game inside Manchester Cathedral. On that occasion the game was not withdrawn.

Probably cos the CoE are actually peaceful people.

Havermeyer

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I think this reflects worse on Sony than it does the Muslim population.

It was a huge overreaction to a non-story. Hasn't the game already been released in some Middle Eastern countries without any backlash?

I wonder how they are going to deal with the inevitable racist, pornographic and bigoted levels etc. that will spring up once the game is released.

All publicity is good publicity.

Maximilian

thelordofcheese wrote: »

Tell me you did that on purpose

lol