With less than four days to go before its projected top-selling video game was to arrive in retail stores on every continent, Sony Corporation yanked the deliveries due to fears the game would offend the world's Muslims.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Sony Corporation issued a global recall for the video game, "LittleBigPlanet" just as it was being prepared for delivery for the start of the big winter holiday season.
The game involves international travels in realistic environments by a funny little knitted and black button-eyed hero, Sackboy. The move was an expensive bit of extra insurance at a time when every day can mean millions of dollars in retail holiday sales.
Two Arabic-language phrases in one of the background music cuts used in one of the numerous levels of the game were belatedly found to have been taken from the Koran. According to a spokesman for Sony, the discovery was made by an online player of the game during testing.
The song, "Tapha Niang" (composed and sung by Mali-born singer and kora player Toumani Diabate, himself a devout Muslim, with a prayer room attached to his office) includes two lines from the Koran: (3:185) "Every soul shall taste of death" and (55:26) "All that is on earth will perish."
Apparently there are some forms of Islam that forbid the intermingling of Koranic text and music, hence the offense.
In a statement posted on Sony's official PlayStation blog, Corporate Communications and Social Media Director Patrick Seybold explained the dilemma and said the game would be re-issued without the possibly offensive material by the end of the month.
"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 Koran. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused," read the statement.
Media Molecule, the UK-based developers of the game, prepared a patch to be offered on-line to users that would immediately remove the "offensive" material. But Sony was concerned about consumers who did not have Internet access. Rather than risk the wrath of those they might have missed, the company opted instead to go for "better safe than sorry."
The game is currently scheduled for shipment to retail outlets in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
The American Islamic Forum for Democracy opposed the censorship. Edge quoted M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D., president of the nonprofit group, as saying that "Muslims cannot benefit from freedom of expression and religion and then turn around and ask that anytime their sensibilities are offended that the freedom of others be restricted."
The BBC reported that Manzoor Moghal of the Muslim Forum think-tank praised Sony for its sensitivity and "for taking decisive action by withdrawing these games immediately, and releasing a version that is not offensive to Muslims."