If this was ANY other religion this issue would be treated with a patch.
Hey Kiddies, have you seen The Exorcist? Remember what she did with that cross? If you're old enough you'll know muslims weren't too thrilled with aspects of the opening sequence of that movie but you still see it's there... point being...
I'm disgusted that now every forum for LBP worldwide is exploding with this topic of conversation marring its release.
For those who keep saying that they stood to lose money... FROM WHO?!? The people who have been chomping at the bit to play this game and would have definately gotten others to play???
And if you look at the specifics of the Sony Recall, it is being done for a VERY specific group:
Muslims who don't have an internet connections playing LBP.... (!?!)
Kinda seems like a rather tiny subset of the GLOBAL gaming community. THERE IS NO POINT TO PLAYING THE GAME IF YOU DON"T HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION YOU HOSERS!!!!!!!!!
So if we remove the notion that they would have somehow LOST money by making a patch and we remove the notion that there was any sort of "subversive" intention behind the lyrics (*I* GET that it was thematic and quite frankly arabic singing can be quite beautiful albeit a bit baleful and we use fire and brimestone from EVERY religion for thematic purposes for MILLENIA) and we remove the notion that they had some sort of responsibilty to do so because it is an "E" rated game....
We're left with the fact that this is the end result of terrorism. Some ******s burned down a newspaper and anyone who thinks that was justified would not be playing video games as I am sure it is somehow against their religion in the end, because that is EXACTLY the image they are trying to shut out.
This issue is no longer about the delay. It has to do with the precident the actions taken now set. This has to do with ONE PERSON submitting an issue getting an ENTIRE company jumping at the slightest ululation.
DO NOT be naive and say that they would have done this in any other case because they would NOT have.
How can I say this with any confidence?
If those exact words had been spoken in Spanish, Japanese, French, Dutch, Finnish, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, English or even frickin' Aboriginal.... there would BE no issue would there? But Nooooo, because it's spoken in Arabic, it could have "only" come from the Koran (don't care sp) .
Do you people have ANY idea what this kind of thing would mean if Buddhists found fault in depictions of themselves in games? Do you?! How many characters would never exist? Dhalsim in Street Fighter could be offensive to Hindus. In how many games have Buddhist monks broken their vows or depicted as evil or aspects of their beliefs used simply as set pieces?
OPEN YOUR DAM EYES TO THE LARGER ISSUE!
Before Sony passed down the decision from "on high", the discussion was open to a remedy but NOW that that decision is being acted upon it changes the focus of the forums. Most other countries would simply BAN the game within their borders like Australia did with Resistence 2 due to usage of real world drugs in the game causing the makers to go back and change them all to fictional drugs... My point being that there were a myriad of choices to make in order to remedy this that would have STILL cast Sony in a positive light for responding to such a SMALL infraction.
However, because of the choice that WAS made: a frackin' GLOBAL RECALL = COMPLETE OVER REACTION it has gone into a much more serious category of discussion of censorship and appeasement (look those words up young ones).
So stop with the posts saying they had no choice and that they [Sony] would have lost money because we KNOW that they would not have and we KNOW that this kind of complaint comes at the drop of a hat and we KNOW there were other options that entreated the LARGER group of concern which would be US! The people who WANTED to play the game NOT look for fault in it.
So hey Christians, see what ya gotta do to stop the next Mortal Kombat or GTA? Burn something down and then constantly use the word "WE" in your correspondence to complain about them, ie "WE" find it offensive". Read the original email and replace "we" with "I" and you'll have the right to be angry and ignored like the rest of the world when Grandma gets upset at the "hussies on the tv programs and the musics"...
Pffft...
Apparently, the discs have already shipped to retailers. I would think it would be easier just to fix it with a launch-day patch.
