LittleBigPlanet [PS3] - Out Now!

[Scythe]

If LBP was lacking publicity it ain't now...may as well save on the marketing budget eh?

[Family Fry]

Toumani Diabate the musician for the song that was removed said pn BBC.

"It's quite normal to play music and be inspired by the words of the Prophet Mohammed," Diabate explaine. "It's my way to attract and inspire people towards Islam"

BUT

Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra of the Muslim Council of Britain disagreed.

"Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the actual word of god and give it utmost respect," he said. "Therefore if it were to be used with the accompaniment of music or if it were to be used in a game or a commercial - that would upset and cause offence and hurt to many, many Muslims."

Did the Church of England ever get any kind of apology/action from Sony for for using Manchester Cathedral in Resistance?

[Lyris]

or if it were to be used in a game

Does he mean a game specifically, as in "games are not worthy of this because they're fun" - would it be OK if it was a film?

[Brats]

At the moment, companies and councils are paranoid about offending certain faiths. This is obviously because certain offending certain faiths provoke a much bigger reaction than others. This isn't necessarily due to the faith itself, but more to do with the environment that the groups of people find themselves in.

It so happens at the moment that a number of muslims live in states where violence is more prevalent, hence offending these faiths results in the state being offended followed by in flag burning, AK47s being fired into the air and embassies being ransacked. In developed countries, people just go on the internet and have a whinge. Of course, foreign policy towards some states from countries that call themselves Christian doesn't help.

A friend of mine is a devout Christian. She wrote to the BBC about them showing the Harry Potter films because she finds them deeply offensive (seriously). She never received a response - I'm sure her letter either got filed in the bin or the cabinet marked 'harmless religious nutters'.

My point is that there are people of faith who get offended about all kinds of pointless crap (and non-religious people for that matter). Most of the time these get rightly ignored, but maybe I can't blame Sony for doing something. They had the chance to change the game fairly quickly and easily without a big delay and probably thought it was worth that rather than risk the small chance of the Japanese embassy being fire bombed in some less than happy place. If the complaint were from a Hindu or a Christian, I doubt they wouldn't have bothered.

At the end of the day, if you're prepared to get up and fight for your rights (regardless of how absurd) people will listen to you more.

[Brats]

Does he mean a game specifically, as in "games are not worthy of this because they're fun" - would it be OK if it was a film?

From David Byrne about the track Qu'ran on his and Brian Eno' 1981 album 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts':

Way back when the record first came out, in 1981, it might have been '82, we got a request from an Islamic organization in London, and they said, 'We consider this blasphemy that you put grooves to the chanting of the Holy Book.' And we thought, 'Okay, in deference to somebody's religion, we'll take it off.' You could probably argue for and against monkeying with something like that. But I think we were certainly feeling very cautious about this whole thing. We made a big effort to try and clear all the voices, and make sure everybody was okay with everything. Because we thought, 'We're going to get accused of all kinds of things, and so we want to cover our asses as best we can.' So I think in that sense we reacted maybe with more caution than we had to. But that's the way it was.

[Taurine]

Scopes official name in up to the early 90s was The Spastic society but after so much ridicule of the term spaz/spastic they changed it.

If you where disabled you would understand it aint a term to be used lightly in this country as its had bloody decades of bile attached to it. You really cant get much lower when you call someone a spaz/spastic as it means the same as a retard so best not to use it.

Just an aside, I'm sure you must know this, but the Scope name-change was an expensive way to achieve nothing other than to make some people wonder what this new charity Scope was all about, and why don't the Spactics Society want any money any more etc...

It was a great success in that it stopped school children calling each other "spastic" as an insult. These days they call each other "scopers" instead.

It must be true, it says it on Wikipedia.

[Number45]

Bah, Play have changed the date to 5/11.

[funkydan]

I really enjoyed the LBP beta and can't wait to play the full game, he said in a feeble attempt to return this thread to it's original topic and hinting subtly that perhaps a new thread could be started in General Gaming about elements of games causing offence to organisations/religions etc!

[Number45]

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2008/10/22/lbp-gets-patched/

Seems it's been patched, but the song is still present. Waiting for confirmation that they've included a modified version of the song, or if they just don't have it patched for that yet.

[Dazzyman]

Just an aside, I'm sure you must know this, but the Scope name-change was an expensive way to achieve nothing other than to make some people wonder what this new charity Scope was all about, and why don't the Spactics Society want any money any more etc...

It was a great success in that it stopped school children calling each other "spastic" as an insult. These days they call each other "scopers" instead.

It must be true, it says it on Wikipedia.

But you have to understand that because spaz was a common derogatory term Spastics in itself became a ridiculed term thats the whole reason it got changed to Scope because of idiiots in this country. Its happened with other terms ie the term negro became basterdised and the n word was born meaning a vile term. Spaz and spastic mean two different things born out of the same phrase but thick pillocks cant disasociate spastic and spaz and think its funny to call disabled people spaz when in fact their calling them a subhuman disabled retard. The term is nearly 30yrs old, everyone knows what it means in the UK and its got no place in our games in UK. If people dont know what scope is than thats their own ignorance.

Some of you might find it funny but if you where disabled you would understand the amount of crap that is associated with that word. But again its always the disabled that get treated like a POS before everyone else (we where the last to gain human rights in this country for discrimination April of last year) and I thank the goverment for still not being able to get on public transport,into shops and have to share a toilet with a soiled baby

Anyway not talking about it anymore. Can we please keep away from thinking its funny and ok to use it though in UK as it aint in games its as deelply offensive as you can get. The reason Ive gone off on one is regarding this recall of LBP. People think its funny to post shots of the nintedo games laughing over it when its deeply offensive to me and others who are disabled. It got recalled for a reason and it was done quiet with zero fuss from the disabled community when the news broke wheras two sentances from the Quran everyones going ape over in the news.

[steve morris]

Blimey, back on topic & take this elsewhere please.

[Lyris]

People think its funny to post shots of the nintedo games laughing over it when its deeply offensive to me and others who are disabled.

I think people laugh over it in the same way they laugh at cartoons like "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" and "Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs"; it's uneasy "Wow, I can't believe that's there, it's just so wrong" laughter rather than "Ha ha, they really stuck it to them".

The rest of your post I agree entirely with. It really puts it into perspective when faith-inclined people complain over comparatively trivial issues like this (not saying that's all Muslims/Christians/Jews/whatever). While at the same time they would be much better off dropping the self-righteousness and realising how good they have it.

[funkydan]

Enough please! Can you take this discussion elsewhere please? Feel free to start a thread about it somewhere else on the forums! This has nothing to do with LBP!!

[Number45]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediamolecule/2963518473/

Don't usually buy this kind of thing (Oblivion is the only one I have) but I honestly think it might be worth it for the creating side of this.

[Matt]

Let us know what that covers regarding creating levels. TBH I imagine the best bet is wait a few weeks then download some other top maps and see how they're doing it. That calculator from the Beta, for example.