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LittleBigPlanet delayed over Qur'an "expressions" (shipping Oct. 27th US; Nov 3rd EU)

C

Choke on the Magic

Banned
Psychotext said:
There are a bunch of smart people on GAF... unfortunately none of them are here, but I'll ask anyway. ;)

Assuming they shipped out 3m copies to stores around the world for this (might be high, might be low, I don't know). What sort of money would this cost them to fix? I guess you're looking at redoing every disc, and repacking it. Getting stock back from the stores, shipping the new stock out. Changing advertising etc.
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You don't have to be smart to know that they're going to take a loss doing it.
 
H

hamdammage

Member
Myself and many other people are deeply offended by the sex and violence in GTA4. Please recall immediately. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

That's not the point. GTA IV is rated M for mature, you would expect all that sex and violence and can't complain about it because it's right there on the box.

LBP is rated E for everyone. If you say your game is rated E for everyone, and contains references to killing and death, then people can complain. That's the whole point of having a ratings system there in the first place. If the same tracks were in an M rated game, no one would care.
 
D

DMeisterJ

Banned
Total Recall

total-recall.img_assist_custom.jpg
 
C

Count Dookkake

Member
vjoe said:
Just to let you guys know, in the message that originally written by the guys at true-gaming boards and sent to SCEE, they didn't ask for the game to be delayed or pulled back from stores, all they wanted was the problem to be fixed by a future patch, but Sony themselves delayed the release of the game.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess they learned that you don't always get what you ask for.
 
A

Agent Icebeezy

Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
My local GS has LBP in the cabinets. This is crazy as hell if they recall these. The advertising plans are going to be wrecked to hell.
 
O

Opiate

Member
charlequin said:
Again, there's a difference between GTA (purposely offending people in order to make an artistic statement) and the various games that have been changed due to inadvertently including material that could be offensive to Muslims.

If Sony were releasing a game that dealt with topics of religion and world politics, and included aspects that could offend Muslims due to their depiction, I would expect Sony would back the product as created. The reason they acted to remove the material here is that it's not actually the game's intent to deal with religion at all, so it's not worth potentially causing a flap over something that's quite easily fixed.

About the only thing that's really blameworthy here is that Sony felt the need to actually delay the game, rather than just patch it and alter future pressings -- that's probably a bit of an overreaction.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if "quite easily" would be the phrase I'd use here, Charlequin. First, recalling all discs worldwide, repressing new discs, and then reshipping those new discs will undoubtedly cost at least a million dollars, if not two to three times that. In addition, it delays the game further in to the holidays and throws it up against far more competition.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have done this, I'm just pointing out that the negative consequences are probably a bit more significant than "quite easily fixed."
 
B

bigdaddygamebot

Member
subrock said:
again, the words are not the issue, its the fact that they are put to music
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Fine. I get that.

But what if the words were in english and said the same thing in the background while playing LBP?

Dead Space? Fine.

LittleBigPlanet? Uh...no.

Bit of a buzzkill, yes?
 
C

charlequin

Banned
As a side note, given that it's a small part of the song, I'd be surprised if they pulled it entirely rather than just using an edited version of the song without the lyrics in question.
 
C

Choke on the Magic

Banned
hamdammage said:
That's not the point. GTA IV is rated M for mature, you would expect all that sex and violence and can't complain about it because it's right there on the box.

LBP is rated E for everyone. If you say your game is rated E for everyone, and contains references to killing and death, then people can complain. That's the whole point of having a ratings system there in the first place. If the same tracks were in an M rated game, no one would care.
Click to expand...


Online interactions not rated. :p
 
S

somuchwater

Member
charlequin said:
Again, there's a difference between GTA (purposely offending people in order to make an artistic statement) and the various games that have been changed due to inadvertently including material that could be offensive to Muslims.

If Sony were releasing a game that dealt with topics of religion and world politics, and included aspects that could offend Muslims due to their depiction, I would expect Sony would back the product as created. The reason they acted to remove the material here is that it's not actually the game's intent to deal with religion at all, so it's not worth potentially causing a flap over something that's quite easily fixed.

About the only thing that's really blameworthy here is that Sony felt the need to actually delay the game, rather than just patch it and alter future pressings -- that's probably a bit of an overreaction.
Click to expand...

Excellent point, especially considering that both MM and Sony's mantra with LBP was that everyone should be able to enjoy it.
 
C

Chris_C

Member
dionysus said:
I doubt it. It's LBP, the game is the opposite of offensive. This is probably political correctness gone overboard.

Edit. Yep, absurdity.
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If I were a kid who understood Arabic it would probably freak me the hell out to hear

Every soul shall have the taste of death
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and

All that is on earth will perish
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Probably the equivalent of a hearing a couple of verses of Revelations in a game like that.
Contrasted with the cutesy LBP aesthetic, that's the stuff of nightmares right there.

EDIT:

AVclub said:
Wouldn't the followers of the Muslim faith want the words of their holy document to reach as many people as possible? Keeping them in LBP would certainly be the way to do that.
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Don't be an ass.
 
C

Ceb

Member
bigdaddygamebot said:
That's really ignorant, dude.

Did you actually SEE/HEAR what the lyrics say??
Click to expand...

Did you? It's not a threat, more like an established fact - everyone will die eventually.

This concept is familiar to all people except toddlers.
 
D

dork

Banned
the patch is ready, but they still dont want to release it for those who dont have online

religion..always getting in the way
 
L

LiK

Member
dhelfric said:
Well, uh, re-doing the day one patch?
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as stated on their site (before it was flooded) patch is already ready day 0. but Sony also wants to replace all disks.
 
J

jax (old)

Banned
Furret said:
Yes, it is.

In fact I find it deeply offensive that I have to kowtow to the sensitivities of people that still believe in Bronze Age myths and their spin-offs.

If you want to be religious do it at home or in a place of worship.

I don't want to know about it, especially when you try to change things because Zeus/Ra/Odin/Yahweh/Mohammed/Xenu told you it was bad.
Click to expand...

respecting the rights of others to their belief is not a bad thing you know.

you make yourself sound like a douche. deeply offensive? Please.
 
C

charlequin

Banned
Opiate said:
I'm not sure if "quite easily" would be the phrase I'd use here, Charlequin.
Click to expand...

I'm saying that responding to the issue itself could indeed be easy, and Media Molecule's response ("we would like to patch it and change future pressings") seems very reasonable to me. If this tack had been taken, nobody would have actually suffered from the change (though I bet GAF would have still overreacted to the news.)

Actually delaying the game worldwide to junk the already-pressed copies of the game does indeed seem like an overreaction -- the sort of overreaction big conglomerates tend to make, sadly. :/
 
G

ghibli99

Member
Do I have this right?

1. MM has a day 1 patch ready to go, which would not affect street date.
2. Sony decided to recall WW units of the title to address the issue.
3. We have no new street date from Sony.

That seems to be what I'm getting here. I'm guessing things are still in motion and there is no final word, but I hope the patch gets the OK and the street dates aren't affected.
 
T

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
bigdaddygamebot said:
Fine. I get that.

But what if the words were in english and said the same thing in the background while playing LBP?

Dead Space? Fine.

LittleBigPlanet? Uh...no.

Bit of a buzzkill, yes?
Click to expand...

Those lines aren't about what you think it's about.
 
D

dork

Banned
shit

i should buy an early copy and then sue sony..for MILLIONS!

THE WORLD IS MINE!

j/k dont sue me sony i love you
 
P

Psychotext

Member
Choke on the Magic said:
You don't have to be smart to know that they're going to take a loss doing it.
Click to expand...
It wasn't so much that. I'm interested in what the decision cost, and the mathematics of it.

Because whatever it is they obviously weighed it up against not recalling.
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Wow, this is highly disappointing. I don't blame anyone for this, but I do have a very strong distaste for the over-sensitive nature of some people when it comes to religion. I pretty much lost a good friend to a freaking Catholic Cult, of all things (seriously). He became so obsessed with everything relating to his faith that he basically stopped enjoying everything else. I hated to see it happen. When people become overly obsessed with something even the most harmless things can set them off. As such, I can understand why Sony did what they did. I believe this song in its context is completely innocent and it seems clear to me that the developers meant absolutely no offense by it.

Ah well, it's not really a big deal in the end.
 
V

Valkyr Junkie

Member
Hopefully Sony will rethink how silly this is since it isn't an original tune for the game. Surely the loss of millions of dollars in disk production and advertisements alone will make them think twice. Let alone the massive impact this will have on sales for SCE's only hope for this holiday season.
 
F

Furret

Banned
Jax said:
respecting the rights of others to their belief is not a bad thing you know.

you make yourself sound like a douche. deeply offensive? Please.
Click to expand...


I am respecting their rights, they can follow whatever religion they want and do whatever they want to themselves and consenting others.

What I find deeply offensive is when their nonsensical beliefs affect my life.
 
O

Opiate

Member
charlequin said:
I'm saying that responding to the issue itself could indeed be easy, and Media Molecule's response ("we would like to patch it and change future pressings") seems very reasonable to me. If this tack had been taken, nobody would have actually suffered from the change (though I bet GAF would have still overreacted to the news.)

Actually delaying the game worldwide to junk the already-pressed copies of the game does indeed seem like an overreaction -- the sort of overreaction big conglomerates tend to make, sadly. :/
Click to expand...

I thinkt he problem with this is that all patches are optional -- or even completely inaccessible, for the large portion of PS3 users that don't have their systems connected to the internet.

I don't think Sony can take the chance that some users cannot or will not get the patch.
 
R

Rad Agast

Member
Son of Godzilla said:
I don't care about or even like LBP, but this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Christianity and other religions have had to put up with the entertainment industry broadly mocking their beliefs for decades, centuries. My shock isn't so much that two lines from a text can cause outrage, it's the bizarre politically correct spinning that's going to cost who knows how much money.
Click to expand...

There was this movie called Passion of Christ. I heard a lot of Jewish people were against it and were quite vocal on the subject.
 
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