Just look at that face. How can anyone stay mad at this guy?

Probably the biggest story in the gaming world this week had to do with the surprising, last minute delay of Sony’s upcoming platformer “LittleBigPlanet”. Now the gaming community isn’t exactly renowned for being patient so it was hardly surprising to see internet forums across the globe brought to their knees by a flood of posts by indignant, angry gaming geeks. I was, however, surprised at how quickly things started to turn ugly.

For anyone who missed out on the story so far, allow me to fill you in. LittleBigPlanet has already shipped to retailers and was scheduled to hit shelves very shortly. Before the game actually came out, Sony and Media Molecule (developers of LBP) received notice from someone who had a review copy of the game that one of the songs on the soundtrack had a couple of lines that were lifted directly from the Qu’ran and could, potentially, be offensive to some Muslims. Sony, not wishing to offend anyone, especially in the wake of the great Resistance church battle controversy, decided to recall the game and remove the song. This resulted in a slight delay in the game’s release.

The initial outcry from fans of the game seemed to be something to the effect of, “How could they miss something like this?”. Of course, that all became clear when we learned more about the song in question. Apparently it’s entirely in Somalian and it’s sung by a popular Muslim artist. It makes sense then that neither Sony nor Media Molecule would have known that the song could be considered offensive to some.

You do not want to piss these guys off.

Seemingly discouraged that they hadn’t yet found anyone to blame, the geek community moved on. “How is it, with the full track list posted online months ago and all kinds of review copies floating around, not to mention the massive pubic beta, nobody noticed this before?”, they said. Well let’s think about this logically for a second. How many people in the world know what LittleBigPlanet is, speak fluent Somalian, saw the track list that was posted online or participated in the beta, are Muslim, know the song that’s causing the controversy, remember all the lyrics to said song, happen to remember every last line from the Qu’ran and actually give a damn about notifying Sony that some people might be offended by this? I’m guessing almost none.

So what’s an angry community of gamers who’ve just been told they’ll have to wait another week to play one of the biggest games of the year and have yet to find a scapegoat to do? Blame the Muslims of course.

It’s no secret that some of the chit chat happening over services like Xbox Live or PSN can be very bigoted and even downright racist at times, but I’ve always maintained a certain amount of faith in the gaming community, a community I’m proud to say I’m a part of, that outside the heat of online battle we’re mostly a decent bunch of people. I was definitely proven wrong this week. It seems like every backwards, misinformed, blatantly racist gamer in the world came out of the woodworks just to let us know how mad they are at Muslims for delaying their precious video game.

Taken outside of a comic convention shortly after the delay was announced.

Had any of these people taken a second to think about the situation subjectively I’d like to think they would have realised that blaming the entire Muslim faith for the delay of a video game is completely ludicrous. If anyone is to be blamed here it’s Sony’s quality control department, but the offending lines are so easy to miss that it’s hard to really pin the blame on anyone. Maybe this is just one of those things.

To put it in terms most of our readers can relate to, allow me to illustrate a little scenario for you. Imagine if a developer based in a country where Christians were a minority and Christianity on the whole is a bit of a mystery developed a game that used upside down crosses in it’s imagery without realizing that these images might be offensive to some Christians. Assuming the company realised the error of their ways before the game was released and decided to delay by a week or so while they corrected the issue, would it be at all fair to blame all the Christians for the delay? I’d like to think not.

Having already incurred this guy’s wrath, Sony has decided to play it safe with LBP.

Now before anyone comes in here saying how it’s okay to quote the Bible in music, please remember that the Bible is not the Qu’ran. I’ve been told that any use of imagery or text directly out of the Qu’ran that isn’t used in the right setting or manner can be offensive to some. Who are we to tell people what should and shouldn’t be offensive to them? One person’s views aren’t always going to be directly in line with everyone else’s, but in this case, Sony decided to play it safe and remove any content that could possibly offend anyone rather than wait and just hope nobody notices. Good for them I say. LBP is a game that looks like it can be enjoyed by anyone regardless of gender, age, or faith. It’s nice to see they’re keeping it that way, even if we have to wait another week to play it.

I’d like to think that the gaming community is made up of a bunch of level headed individuals who take the time to learn the facts and really consider the matter at hand before grabbing a torch or pitchfork and joining the mob in condemning millions upon millions of people of a different faith. I’d like to think that deep down we’re all above that BS we like to spew when we’re gaming online, but I really saw an ugly side to the community this week and it may just take some sort of Christmas miracle to restore my faith in gamers. Or maybe a Halloween miracle. Do they have those yet?

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Note: Any views I may express in these lengthy rants of mine don’t necessarily reflect the views of the entire CG staff. Only one of us can be right all the time.