Qur’an References Force LittleBigPlanet Recall
Sometimes, you’ve got to wonder where these guys pick up music for their games. Word has come down from Sony today that the publisher will be issuing a worldwide recall on the upcoming LittleBigPlanet, less than a week before its scheduled North American release date. Apparently, the problem stems from one of the licensed background music tracks in the game, which contains two references to lines from the Qur’an, the central text of the Islamic religion.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe released a statement saying:
“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. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused.
We will confirm the new launch date shortly.”
For its part, Media Molecule, LBP’s developer, had this to say on its website:
“As some of you may have noticed, LBP has been slightly delayed in some territories. At MM we were as shocked and dismayed by this as anyone - shellshocked and gutted. We can’t wait for you all to get playing and creating!
We learnt yesterday that there is a lyric in one of the licensed tracks which some people may find offensive, and which slipped through the usual screening processes. Obviously MM and Sony together took this very seriously. LBP should be enjoyable by all. So within 12 hours of hearing about this issue involving a lyric (in Somalian, I believe!), we prepared an automatic day 0 patch and had a new disk image ready; however a decision was made within Sony that the right thing to do for quality and support of people with no on-line was to replace existing disks. They assure us that they are doing everything in their power to get things straightened out as fast as possible, and will announce dates soon.
Apologies to everyone excited to play the game and I can assure you that when it arrives, it will be worth the wait! We want everyone to be able to enjoy the game, and this tweak should help - we’re just gutted it couldn’t be sooner. MM continues to work hard to support the game too. We know that LBP will be something that you can enjoy for a long time to come, when all of this is forgotten and all that remains are thousands of incredible levels and creations to play, create and share.
This isn’t the first time a situation like this has caused issues for a game. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time had chanting in one temple which sounded similar to Islamic chanting, forcing a revision of the game’s audio in subsequent releases, and the original Xbox brawler, Kakuto Chojin, was recalled from store shelves after it was discovered that music in the game also contained references to the Qur’an.
