Posted by Tobbisb

In real life I would piss in front of Mohammed's and "Allah"'s picture instead of the toilet seat. Serves 'em right for having been massacred.

sigh

User Title

I don't need this!

In real life I would piss in front of Mohammed's and "Allah"'s picture instead of the toilet seat. Serves 'em right for having been massacred.

I don't believe InfinityWard would do that on purpose... i mean, for them and for me is a simple texture... not everyone reads arabic... maybe they thought "Oh, these arabic looks so cool on the frame, lets add it!". Nevertheless i respect each culture and religion. Personally, i love nasheeds!!! and muslim culture, too bad i can't read/understand arabic, tho...

• Agree x 2

Posted by Revers3

You gonna do the same (for non-muslims)

If there was your god name or whateva right in the place where you gonna piss

It feels like pissing your god

Actually lots of people have crosses and pictures of Jesus in their bathrooms.

User Title

Aminatoar

Posted by Revers3

You gonna do the same (for non-muslims)

If there was your god name or whateva right in the place where you gonna piss

It feels like pissing your god

My grandma had a picture of Jesus in her bathroom. She even had a 3D one of him hanging on the cross, where his eyes follow you when you walk by. :P

You gonna do the same (for non-muslims)

If there was your god name or whateva right in the place where you gonna piss

It feels like pissing your god

User Title

No

This is actually really funny.

wow.. again some religious nitpicking.. wtf..

Religion amnd censorship, two topics that always draw heat, and apparently here is no exception it seems. However I am also glad that people feel strongly about these kind of topics because they are important and it's good the GB users also think that.

Sith Lord made some interesting points in his post and although I respect where he is coming from, it does raise some questions.

Firstly in a country that claims freedom of expression, should the intention behind the expression matter or not? If someone did say something just to insult should this be more reason to censor it than if the motivation was different. The problem with this is that determining the motivation behind a statement is not a scientific process, it's ultimately subjective which means that it's dependent on the perspective of the person who is judging. Because we can never be sure of the intention we cannot use it as criteria for censorship.

Secondly Sith very interesting mentions Call of Juarez. Now this is a game I havent played but apparently has some religious overtones. If the Infinity Ward graffiti was not muslim, but christian, or hindu or buddhist? Firstly would there have been calls to rectify the situation and IF there were still calls, would the delveloper have behaved in the same way and actually made the changes? The problem is that because of recent world history the Muslim population has been pushed up far higher in the "potitical correctness" heirachy than other religions. The simple fact is that people do not react to "muslim" community problems in the same way as they would react to any other group. And bias is bias, be it positive or negative.

Posted by SM Sith Lord

So if the business of the offended customers is worth more than the cost it takes to change an arbitrary part of the game that they find offensive, you should obviously appease them.

This is also a very interesing statement. In itself it is totally correct; from a buisness point of view then it makes perfect sense. However the implication is more complex. If you reword the same concept you find you get something akin to, We will only conform to the ideas of the people who are able to do us harm. Now whislt businesses must do this to an extent to survive, what happens if we make the same consessions for morality?

The question you have to ask yourself is whether you believe religion to be "special". We can make fun of people who support Manchester Untied, or the Red Socks; we can make fun of vegitarians and vegans, we can make fun of people who believe in extraterristrials or sasquatchs, republicans or democrats, people with red hair or buck teeth?

Does religion occupy some special place above all these things that defies mockery, or (risking being more contraversal) does the Muslim religion occupy some special place above all these things.

Personally I think that no. But each person must decide. As they said in "Cartoon Wars", "either its all ok, or none of it is". Whilst this may seem overly simplistic, the alternative is drawing lines, which proves to be infinitely complex.

I'm a little bit on the fence on this one.

I don't think there's anything wrong with offending religions blatantly, as long as it fits with the story. Happens all the time, such as in Call of Juarez where you can walk around shooting people with your left hand and reading from the bible with your right hand about how God is cursing them.

On the other hand, there is a problem if you covertly & intentionally aim to offend people. For example, scribbling anti-semitic messages to fill space on a texture where the story does not call for such things.

And on the third hand, there are people that easily get offended and would require you to go very far out of you way not to offend them (such as people who absolutely hate sex and violence in video games).

However, Infinity Ward's case is very much in between these categories.

The game is based on reality, so obviously there is a place for religious symbols, figures, and wording to be used in the art design.

Even if Infinity Ward knew that Muslims would take offense if their religion is referenced in a room with a certain type of plumbing, the picture frame model could have still very easily found its way into the design of a bathroom later on, by accident.

The offending content being so obscure and "ticky-tack" in combination with the likelihood that the model made it into the bathroom simply to save on asset design leads me to believe that Infinity Ward had absolutely no intention of covertly offending Muslims.

With that being said, was Infinity Ward correct in pulling the offending content? Sure. I mean, at that point it is just a matter of keeping your customers happy. I don't think anybody who's not Muslim gives a crap if the religion is mentioned in the bathrooms of the game or not.

So if the business of the offended customers is worth more than the cost it takes to change an arbitrary part of the game that they find offensive, you should obviously appease them.

Taking the entire map down until you fixed the problem seems like the wrong way to go about it though. I would have left it alone until the "fix" was ready to go live. There's always the possibility that the offended group will be irrational in understanding why the content isn't immediately taken down, but you shouldn't sacrifice good business practices to accommodate irrational people.

On a side note, the guy who made the YouTube video seems rational enough, and even mentions that he didn't want the map removed completely. Not sure why he mentions terrorists in his caption, lol. But I assume it has something to do with the flame he must be catching on his YouTube video comments.