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LittleBigPlanet Delayed on Koran Concerns
Sony has decided to delay the worldwide release of the highly-anticipated PS3 title LittleBigPlanet after a user realized an in-game song recited words from the Qur'an.
"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," read a statement from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.
"We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused."
The game was slated to hit North America on October 21, and other territories soon after.
The song in question is Tapha Niang by Malian kora player Toumani Diabate, an artist described as a "devout Muslim" in Internet reports. A sample can be heard here (.wav).
Lyrics that Sony is paying close attention to are "kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt," meaning "Every soul shall have the taste of death"; and "kollo man alaiha fan," meaning "All that is on earth will perish," according to poster Solid_08 on SCEE's PlayStation message boards. (The thread has since been removed.)
The poster commented purportedly on behalf of other Muslim gamers, saying "...We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Koran deeply offending..."
Reports are claiming that Sony is actually recalling copies of LittleBigPlanet from retailers that already have their shipments. We've contacted SCEA to confirm the game's status in North America.
[Update] Patrick Seybold with SCEA stated in a post on the official PlayStation blog that the game will ship to retail in North America on October 27.
For fear of jumping an already speeding bandwagon. It's a damn shame that Sony have showed a complete Lack of balls in pulling this game so close to release day? I wouldn't mind so much but we only realised when our copy didn't turn up last week when it was supposed to. it was only when we went back to check our pre-order details thinking we had done something wrong. Many Thanks play.com for that great customer service and the email that never came - telling us about the delay.. It was only from blogs like this and various other that we got all the information.
Why are muslims taken this so damn seriously. It's not like Sony has gone out of there way to diliberatly offensive to them. Besides which, the statements make absolute sense to me, a non believer. "Every soul shall have the taste of death" yes absolutly I agree whole heartidly with that. "All that is on earth will perish" - hmm can't really argue with this one either... Doesn't take a song writter, a games developer or a prophet to realise that everyones WILL die.
I actually find it more offensive that the minority rule !!
I think people shouldn't get upset over something like this. The game doesn't look like it's out to mock anyone. Besides the composer is described as "a devout Muslim." Have they any idea how much cash this is gonna cost: ICO's shipment, transportation, legalities. This is really a waste of resources.
As a Muslim myself I don't see anything offensive in the lyrics purportedly present in the game, nor the mixing of music with verses from the Qu'ran so long as the context of those verses are appropriate and do not undermine nor devalue their significance (and that goes for all religions and beliefs) - after all, in Islam, is not calling for prayer conducted in a manner of song? I suppose that's up for debate...
Sony may have caused themselves more harm than good but I have to commend them as a company for recalling such a strategically important product at the last minute in what I perceive to be a truly gallant act of corporate social responsibility.
This is political correctness gone mad. quite litrally. It's depressing when something like this can happen, when it's just a song. If you don't like it, turn it off!
This is sad.
Everybody is so caught up over not offending anybody else that a simple song can cost a company thousands.
If they really felt that bad about it, they could have released a patch to either block certain songs from being played, or they could have just left it in with a disclaimer in the manual. Kind of like how a lot of games do with the manji symbol, which a lot of people still get upset about because of it's resemblence to a swastika.
A formal apology probably would have sufficed enough.
They really didn't need to backtrack that far just to save their butts.
Although I'm not familiar with that artist in the least bit, that sample music link, seems to be a very nice a peaceful song, cheerful and the artist has no ill intentions as far as I could tell.
Maybe its just because I'm a tad less traditional than some Muslims, I just don't see the huge deal.
And yes before you ask, I did have a huge problem with the cartoons from Denmark, but this is a different matter altogether.
The complaint was that the mixing of Qu'ran lines with music was offensive in itself. Is that true? I've tried a quick internet search but couldn't find anything about other songs with Qu'ran versus in them. AFAIK all other religions mix their holy words with music to make them more appealing. Do Muslim chants/hymns not refer to their holy book whatsoever? Is there not a single Qu'ran verse ever played over the specialist broadcast services, and was the song, 2 years old, frowned upon by the Islamic community, and teenagers had to sneak copies home to listen to?
All I've heard so far points to this one letter being a impetus point of overreaction. I haven't read anything from any Imam, or higher up representative.
I hate to sound like a troll and I both agree with and commend SCEA's decision, but one question lingers in the back of my mind . . .
For those who managed to snag an early copy, how much do you think it'll go for on eBay?
That's a shame because, in a way, both of those phrases are true.
@ ShamanNY - Your suspicions seem unjustified to me. LBP is already out there, as some US companies released stock yesterday, but we haven't heard of any diabolical faults. There could be network problems not yet found because the servers aren't online, but being dishonest about it seems incredibly implausible to me. Blaming a religious PR blunder would be the worst possible thing to do, antagonising certain quarters against each other and still getting the wrap for being rubbish - how are Sony better off with this rather than saying a technical fault has caused a recall? You'd also either have to take the letter as a hoax created by Sony to hide behind, or as a convenient coincidence that Sony, with their buggy game and wanting a recall, were happy to use as an excuse.
i'll take 2 convenient coincidences to go please!
I know i may have been way out of proportion, but it just didnt make sense to me, I spoke to some Muslim friends of mine (ok ok 1) and he thought Sony overreacted too but still commended them for the quick and swift action. I asked would you have found a patch to be satisfactory? his answer.
YES!
You cant deny that next week is a busy week... you know what those 2 convenient coincidences i also want em supersized!
Unfortunately some of this smells to me like a cover-up, oh sure the song said those things but they could have patched... dont tell me they were trying to serve the offline minority, not with the one game that is 1/4 offline 3/4 online.
Im not enough of a conspiracy theorist to guess at what the true reason may be... but maybe there were other problems or features that the game didnt ship with that they were gonna patch for... heck now we have this so might as well delay.
And that's a hard thing to do, no just because of the money lost on the tangible stuff like printing/copying packaging, but the marketing and timing.
Or maybe thats it maybe that week is a tough one, i mean we do have Rockband2, Bioshock, Eternal Sonata, Far Cry2, Legendary, Spiderman (Fable 2 on that other system) competing on the same week for our money... [edit] i guess with an official 27 date theres only Fallout and GH:WT
UPDATE from PS.BLOG: Game will ship the week of Oct 27th!
Same thing happened with Ocarina of Time, but nowhere near to this magnitude!
But was Ocarina actually recalled? I only remember the controversy...
I did say "nowhere near to this magnitude" above!
But was Ocarina actually recalled? I only remember the controversy...
That's not much of a review process if it's ongoing less than a week before the release.
And this issue seems like it maybe should have been caught when the song was being considered. It's like people who get tattoos of East Asian characters because they look cool, but they never find out the meaning and ends up being a character that represents something insulting/demeaning. But this is a very extreme and public case of that.
Hopefully they can get the replacement copies out in short order for all those people anticipating the game.
On the one hand Muslims consider mixing music and words offending - and well, if that's their religious belief, then I can understand that. But then, this Toumani Diabate considers himself a devout muslim yet does what his religion finds offensive. I don't see the logic in that.
Regardless, it sucks for everyone who was looking forward to this game. But I'm quite sure they can resolve this in a few weeks. If not, this is not going to help sales.
Although, I do understand (after only being seriously PO'd for an hour), this will cost Sony some serious cash to recall, repackage, and reship game discs. Not only the discs but the console bundles they have as well. While a patch would be ideal, most don't play online. I simply wish they could just return them for a newly pressed copy instead of delaying a largely anticipated title 4 days BEFORE launch date.