Worldwide Gamer Suicide Watch: LittleBigPlanet Delayed

Written by Ryan Hewson

Friday, 17 October 2008 09:05

I feel like an asshole for even repeating this news, but how can I not? LittleBigPlanet has been delayed worldwide – possibly until November 14. That's another 3 weeks of existential pain for those who aren't already joyfully cavorting (and building ridiculous difference engines) in the beta.

The reason? Knee-jerk religious backlash. No, I'm not kidding. Gamesindustry.biz is reporting:

"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," admitted the company in a statement.
"We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence that this may have caused."

I'm not going to comment on the feces-flingingly mindfuckingly vapid nature of this.

I know why they can't just patch it on launch day – because of fucking Jack Thompson and shit like Hot Coffee. If the "offending" (gag, choke) content is still physically on the disc, then that's more than enough for the zealots to go berserk, so Sony's lawyers are playing it safe. I mean, this is their flagship game this fall for the PS3 – you know this delay is killing them.

I'll leave it as a mental exercise for the reader to imagine what would happen if there were Bible references in there. O NOES.

That is all. Gonna go chew my wrists open now. I hate people.

UPDATE – Sony has confirmed the delay on their official blog. There is also a statement from Media Molecule. The so-called questionable lyrics are in Somalian. I... I... gah.

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.
[EDIT Sony are going to announce new dates and information re discs for each territory soon. We’ll keep you posted! The patch is ready from our side and I imagine it will go live at the same time as the game. More info when we get it. ]

Comments (18) Add Comment

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, October 17, 2008

I was in the process of writing this but couldn't find a way to do it without stringing a hundred curse words together

MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!11!!!

There I go again....

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written by b, October 17, 2008

I just went to EB in my mall and they said that they have heard of no such delay. I don't know if it will be communicated to them tomorrow but they do have the game in the back room. So hopefully it isn't something that effects the US.

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written by Dan Zuccarelli, October 17, 2008

What I need is a friend in EB that will sell me the game regardless. If not we just need a few days to get the game out. fingers crossed.

Apparently the song is question is from an award winning world music CD by a Muslim composer.... so not sure why it's suddenly a controversy

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written by Ryan Hewson, October 17, 2008

From what I gather Sony is going to be *recalling* discs... although I would be ecstatic to be wrong on this.

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written by b, October 17, 2008

I don't know man. If Fable wasn't coming out at the same time and if I didn't have Dead Space, I'd be more pissed than I am. Also if the disc's are recalled and we don't send them in, would that keep us from being able to play online?

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written by Xerxes3rd, October 17, 2008

I don't understand why they can't do a voluntary recall and a day one patch. In fact, I don't understand what the problem is in the first place.

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written by b, October 18, 2008

i just got a call from the Gamestop machine guy saying that it is indeed delayed but should be out the next week

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written by Jim Squires, October 18, 2008

As I've mentioned before, I work at Blockbuster. I was working today. At 11am, the LBP shipment came in. At 2pm, we got a voicemail telling us to pack those things back up. Mandatory recall before street date. Nobody's getting their hands on this one. Allah be praised.

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written by Ryan Hewson, October 18, 2008

Fuck, how much is it gonna cost to trash all those blu-rays...

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written by Dr. Cossack, October 18, 2008

This is only a three weeks delay people, don't freak out.

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written by Mike, October 18, 2008

This whole thing is really ridiculous. I'm sure if you asked most gamers about the song they couldn't give a rat's ass. Slap a warning sticker on the offending copies and let people who want to buy it anyways do so. It would have saved alot of time and money.

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written by Miles Moore, October 18, 2008

I'm not one to really care about this stuff most of the time. I haven't really followed LBP since it was announced, until I got in the Beta like a week or two ago, and even then I've only played it twice. But this is just dumb.

99.9% of the people out in the world wouldn't have noticed or cared. And the fact that this did happen, so close to release date, when most stores already had the game...thats very disappointing.

I also never really am one to complain and point fingers and blame...but this is a really big mistake and someone should loose their job.

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written by Utopaline, October 19, 2008

oh nooo, booo hoo,...oh wait, I don't care, hehe loving my 360. Sorry Jim

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written by Jim Squires, October 19, 2008

Dear Jody - what's it like to be an internet troll?

kthxbai.

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written by Utopaline, October 19, 2008

I don't know Jim, I learned it all from you.

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written by Utopaline, October 20, 2008

how was that trolling anyways, it was relevant to the discussion. me showing my concern for the lovers of the game. and the 360 part was just in retaliation to EVERYONE (well almost) on this site bashing the 360 all the freaking time. BTW how did you review Viva Pinata if your box was kaput? did you fix it? just wondering cause with Gears coming out soon I wanna play it with you.

much love Uto the "Troll"

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written by Jim Squires, October 20, 2008

"oh nooo, booo hoo,…oh wait, I don’t care" doesn't add anything to the discussion. As a matter of fact, it's the definition of trolling. Talking about the delay, the reasons behind it, etc.. would have been adding to the discussion.

"the 360 part was just in retaliation to EVERYONE (well almost) on this site bashing the 360 all the freaking time." cite some examples. Dan doesn't like the NXE and he doesn't have to. I don't like that the VelocityGirl spirit has jumped consoles. We all have our gripes, but i fail to see how our opinions can just be discounted as "bashing the 360 all the freaking time." There's some real reactionary fanboy in that comment. We usually hear that sort of nonsense from Nintendo fanboys. I think that's the first time we've heard it from a 360 guy.

The Viva review was mostly sitting in the can for awhile just waiting for some finishing touches. On a side note I am working off a borrowed 360 until my repaired one comes back. And if I pick up Gears 2 (honestly, I might not. It's just not that high on my radar this fall) I'll be more than happy to school your sorry ass.

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written by utopaline, October 21, 2008

bring on the schooling bro. and you also know that at no time would i ever be seriously bashing anything unless i had reason. and the fact that i did not back it up would definitely mean that i was not serious. i know how much that you wanted that game to come out,and i understand you being upset when it didn't

uto