For religious reasons, apparently. And it's not the Christians this time!
The highly anticipated video game Little Big Planet for the PlayStation 3 has been delayed from its original release date of October 21st to a new release date of October 27th as the company quickly moves to correct an offensive misuse of excerpts from the Holy Qur'an. Copies of the game that have already been shipped to retailers are being recalled. The concern centres on a selection of music included on the game's soundtrack that it has recently been discovered, contains excerpts from the Holy Qur'an. The inclusion of such passages is considered to be offense to Muslims. They were used as part of the audio mix for the songs and were only discovered to exist quite recently.
Patrick Seybold, Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media for Sony Computer Entertainment America posted this explanation on his PlayStation Blog:"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 apologize for any offense that this may have caused. We will begin shipping LittleBigPlanet to retail in North America the week of October 27th. Sorry for the delay, and rest assured, we are doing everything we can to get LittleBigPlanet to you as soon as possible."
Little Big Planet is a video game that will only be available for the PlayStation 3. It is aimed at players of all ages and centres on a cute, adorable world where players join together as loveable little plush dolls to travel through obstacles courses and design their own worlds online.
Another article that details the offending passages:
Those of you who were as excited as I was about this Friday's release of Little Big Planet will be saddened to hear that the game's launch date has been pushed back to 'the first week in November' because the soundtrack has to be changed.
On Friday, a post on the Official PlayStation Community forum requested that the publisher take a closer listen to one of the audio tracks in the game. The poster explained,
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...
The words are:
1- In the 18th second: "كل Ù†Ùس 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 Ùان" ("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.
His concern is that some members of the playing public may find the mixing of music and words offensive.
Sony announced that it has recalled all copies of the game, and will begin re-shipping them to North American retailers on 27 October.
According to CNET,
British game developer Media Molecule, creator of Little Big Planet, said it was as "shocked and dismayed by (the delay) as anyone--shellshocked and gutted. We can't wait for you all to get playing and creating!"
The song in question is called Tapha Niang by Grammy award-winning Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestraand is a two-year old piece of music available to purchase online. You can also hear it on his MySpace site.
Will Stephen Fry's voice overs be removed for the homophobic and for those afraid of the English?
Seriously though, why would song makers actually use whole verses from a religous text in its native language? For poops and giggles I suppose.
I doubt many would have even cared, lol. Sure took them long to notice.
I don't have a PS3 so I havn't kept up with LBP, but I could understand the disapointment of those who are waiting for it. Trying to imagine my Fable 2 getting kicked back 1-3 weeks would kill me. Especially for something so little.
Yea a friend of mine here was so pumped for LBP, but I told him about the delay a few days ago...he was pretty bummed. Odd that this is worthy of a recall/delay...but better safe than sorry, huh?
Hahaha, like I said, I don't really see why that was worthy of a recall/delay.
Then you obviously don't recall this little incident.
Sony doesn't want to get on the bad sides of any more religions.
No...I don't remember that. 😛 But ok...I see now. Smart move Sony, smart move.
Haha, a person I was talking to at EB Games was joking about this. "Obviously, hot coffee".
This is essentially what happened with Ocarina of Time - the sound developers probably got a sound sample of some chanting and didn't know what it was. Musicians/sound developers often get samples of stuff like choirs, chanting, short rap verses and clips, etc. for free use, so they might not necessarily know the source or expect the samples to have any meaning.
Yeah, what was it, the Bolero of Fire, that sparked debate?
The Fire Temple itself, actually. The dungeon's music was a minimalistic percussion piece that had the chanting fade in and out. The version in later copies replaced the chanting with this weird wooshy Metroid-esque sound. My copy was one of the early ones that still has the chanting (think it has red blood at the end, too).
Will Stephen Fry's voice overs be removed for the homophobic and for those afraid of the English?
Seriously though, why would song makers actually use whole verses from a religous text in its native language? For poops and giggles I suppose.
I asked someone at MUN who had this booth set up about Islam what he thought of this, and he said that while he doesn't know about this specific example, (he made a comparison instead to some shoe company in Alberta that uses Islamic symbols on the soles of shoes) that this "would only be done to irritate muslims"; to me it sounded irrational to be that dogmatic about the motives of other people, though I didn't say that at the time, but when I suggested it might have been unintentional he made a point I kinda agree with; if they're going to be using certain music in a commercial game they should look into what they're getting it from and what using it might do. I wouldn't be too surprised if this was deliberately left it in until the controversy started for the sake of free advertising; I hadn't even heard of this game until I had heard of this problem.
As for the fire temple music, I've heard of that before, and just recently I looked up the original and altered versions though I don't think those are the only ones; I've heard one version (might've been from the grey cartridge, might have been from a rom) that seems to be a mix between the two, except without the higher-pitched part starting at 1 minute 37 seconds into the original one. The original sounds less cartoony and more intense, and I think that suits the style of the level better. I also find it ironic that the fire temple has what seem to be references to totem poles in it but I haven't heard of aboriginal groups complaining about that.
In any case, having music altered or games delayed are far from the worst things to come out of political correctness OR the idea that people should respect faith, (both seem to be involved in things relating to Islam) and if you don't like the former you should confront the latter. It's like when some people criticize 4kids for editing things too much; (while others criticize it for editing too little... bit of a catch-22 there) isn't their real problem not so much with 4kids as with the social standards leading to such edits?
LBP wouldn't have need this for free advertising, it was generally well hyped up enough for people to be buying it anyway.
People's problems with 4kids is because of the way that specific company edits its programs, its not so much because of social standards as there are other companies which can localise their tv shows without having to do some of the sheer ridiculous edits that 4kids does. Of course social standards (e.g. soccer moms or w/e) are a factor of it but I don't think its the main contributing factor.
LBP wouldn't have need this for free advertising, it was generally well hyped up enough for people to be buying it anyway.
They still might have gotten a bit more of an audience with it though... as I said earlier I hadn't heard of this until now, which probably has a bit to do with me not really following gaming news anyway nor being much of a Sony fan, but if I do get a chance to rent a PS3, this game will be one of the options I have in mind to rent with it (the idea of being able to make my own levels sounds kinda appealing) and I'm not sure if it would've been otherwise. I'm not saying it necessarily had to be publicity through controversy, but that it might have been.
People's problems with 4kids is because of the way that specific company edits its programs, its not so much because of social standards as there are other companies which can localise their tv shows without having to do some of the sheer ridiculous edits that 4kids does. Of course social standards (e.g. soccer moms or w/e) are a factor of it but I don't think its the main contributing factor.
The point I was making with the 4kids comparison, though, wasn't really about 4kids itself as much as a more general point; with censorship of entertainment what's really to be confronted isn't so much the censorship itself as things leading to it. When talking about "bad influences" people seem to focus more on how much entertainment affects people, but I think an under-explored point is whether or not it's a bad thing that it does; it's like when people complain that certain entertainment promotes "distorted values"; as if censoring something worse for cursing (something that arguably shouldn't be as taboo as it is in real life) than for violence is non-distorted values?
*snore*
Has anyone played this game yet?
Hahaha Torn, come on man, you know it looks cool. But no, I have not played this yet. One of my friends was set on getting this game, but then switched to Dead Space[since they're such similiar games you know, ], but ultimately decided on Gears 2[duh] so I doubt i'll ever play this. I gotta say though, I shared your same emotion towards this game until I saw Ken and Ryu. Other game references ftw!
Hahaha Torn, come on man, you know it looks cool. But no, I have not played this yet. One of my friends was set on getting this game, but then switched to Dead Space[since they're such similiar games you know, ], but ultimately decided on Gears 2[duh] so I doubt i'll ever play this. I gotta say though, I shared your same emotion towards this game until I saw Ken and Ryu. Other game references ftw!
While I'm not Tornadot, I can't help but get the impression that he isn't so much saying the game doesn't look cool, but that after a while of playing the game people get bored with it or something... I'm not sure, but I've heard a similar thing on another board, where people are saying that the story mode is too short, or that feel of the "cuteness" only lasts a while, etc... and that even though they liked it a lot at first it didn't take long for them to lose interest.
That kinda thing sounds to me like a good reason for "try before you by" to extend past the first rental...
Not really. I'm just bored about the arguments over the one song. Most people who play it are convinced its GOY material. I don't know about THAT but the game is bloody fun. Story Mode has about 24 levels and while they aren't long, unlocking it all is not easy. And the level editor...lolz, we're still testing the limits of it.
And no Sackboy can't run through loops...I tried since I wanted to make a Sonic level.
And no Sackboy can't run through loops...I tried since I wanted to make a Sonic level.
People used vehicles. They can go through loops. BUT:
IF IT HAS A HINT OF COPYRIGHT, YOUR LEVEL WILL BE DELETED, BOTH ONLINE AND OFFLINE.
EVEN IF IT MENTIONS THE PS3, YOUR LEVEL WILL BE DELETED.
