Faith Fighter: Mohammed vs. Jesus

FoxNews and the AP today are reporting that the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, representing most Muslim nations, has persuaded Molleindustria to remove its online game "Faith Fighter" in which various gods are depicted fighting each other.

From the news story:

In the game "Faith Fighter," caricatures of Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, Buddha, God and the Hindu god Ganesh fight each other against a backdrop of burning buildings.

God attacks with bolts of lighting and pillars of fire while the turbaned Muhammad can summon a burning black meteorite.

The OIC's complaint was "The game was incendiary in its content and offensive to Muslims and Christians. ... The game would serve no other purpose than to incite intolerance."

Molleindustria has the following statement on its website:

Today after an official statement by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) we decided to remove the game Faith Fighter from our site.

Faith Fighter was meant to be a game against intolerance that used over the top irony and a cartoonish style to express the instrumental use of religions.

Faith Fighter depicted in a mildly politically incorrect way all the major religions as a response to the one-way islamophobic satire of the Danish Mohammad cartoons.

If a established organization didn't understand the irony and the message of the game and is claiming it is inciting intolerance, we simply failed.

The game has been released more than a year ago, it got international news coverage and has been played by millions of players on the Internet and it has been exhibited in several artistic venues around the world. Reviews have been generally positive and we only received two letters of complaints by two catholic players.

We suspect that people at OIC never played the game and only referred to the article on Metro UK that successfully manufactured this controversy.

According to Molleindustria's site, it is composed of "an Italian team of artists, designers and programmers that aims at starting a serious discussion about social and political implications of video games." One should question, however, how this team invited "serious" discussions given their other "games": "Pedopriest," which mocks the Catholic Church's recent scandals, "Queer Power," where the inhabitants of Queerland do not have "fixed sexual orientations" but rather fornicate with whomever with whatever whim, and "Oiligarchy," where you as the oil baron can explore and drill, corrupting politicians and suppressing alternative fuels as you go.

One could perhaps argue that Molleindustria showed some cultural sensitivity in giving the game a "censored" option, which blocked out the face of Muhammad ... But, it is unlikely that one could get very far with that argument.

[submitted by kmacginn of Hummers & Cigarettes]