Modern Warfare 2 map removed over offensive religious imagery

[rug]

Favela taken off rotation following complaints from Muslim players



Posted on Monday 8th Oct 2012 at 9:58 AM UTC
By Tom Ivan for CVG UK

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's Favela multiplayer map has been temporarily disabled due to the discovery of offensive religious imagery.

Activision said that the online stage was taken off rotation after the publisher received complaints from Muslim gamers about holy Islamic text contained in the map.

Two in-game paintings featuring a representation of a quote attributed to the Prophet Muhammad were hung in a bathroom, something that can be offensive to those of Islamic faith.

Activision told Kotaku: "We apologize to anyone who found this image offensive. Please be assured we were unaware of this issue and that there was no intent to offend. We are working as quickly as possible to remove this image and any other similar ones we may find from our various game libraries.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/371971/modern-warfare-2-map-removed-over-offensive-religious-imagery/

Let's have a little respect while we're obliterating terrorist villages.

[Drale]

1. I don't like to think this way but

what doesn't offend these ultra religious people? If its not one thing its something else. How come when we say that a cross on public property is offensive they have a hissy fit yet demand that we do everything in our power so they are not offended by anything?

[rug]

2. Well, I don't care much about public crosses or the location of Qur'anic scriptures.

What I find odd is that nobody is complaining about destroying villages.

[cleanhippie]

3. Because destroying villages is so blase'. Were up in arms about HOW we destroy villages now.

Now, all the latest fashionable outrage is directed toward drones, as if somehow an actual human were sitting in the machine, it would be okay.

[ButterflyBlood]

6. You obviously have not played the game

Or even paid attention to its release considering there was controversy over it, though not over "destroying villages" (as that never occurs in the game.)

[rug]

7. No I never have.

I get my fill from the news.

[dmallind]

11. Because destroying pixels is harmless, whereas some pixels are, recently, blasphemous to Islam

I think modern involved video games are pointless wastes of time, but the idea that the violence in them is, or begets, harm on any meaningful scales is far more so.

Destroying the image of a village rendered on a PC screen harms no-one. Neither of course does harming Islamic quotes rendered on the screen, but at least complaining about that is logically consistent with the recent move in Islam to worry about any images at all of their sancta. Logically consistent with an illogical belief, but at least not logically inconsistent with an illogical belief, as it would be to worry about PC gamers pretend blowing up pretend villages.

[ButterflyBlood]

14. Actually you don't even destroy villages or quotes from Islam in the level in question

If you play on the special forces side, you shoot other players playing as gang members aligned with an arms dealer, if you play as them you're shooting other players playing as the special forces. The buildings in the game aren't even destructible.

[Jim__]

4. You say, "Let's have a little respect while we're obliterating terrorist villages."

I'm not familiar with the game. But, if they're obliterating terrorist villages and they're showing quotes from Muhammad hanging in the village, I can see Muslims being offended by that.

[ButterflyBlood]

5. That's not at all what's happening in that level

The level is not set in a Muslim country at all in fact, but in Brazil. In the main campaign you're part of a special forces team who are seeking out an arms dealer to interrogate him about ties to a Russian ultranationalist terrorist, and the enemies are favelas gangs aligned with the arms dealer. This is a multiplayer map though, so some people play one side as the special forces, the other side plays as the gangs.

What's especially odd is the game is almost three years old and the level has been around since it was released, and this was just brought up now.

[rug]

9. Then why was the Qur'an put in in the first place?

This reminds me of those special forces movies going after drug cartels between the Vietnam and Desert Storm. If there's no enemy apparent, there's always the drug dealers.

[ButterflyBlood]

12. That's the puzzling thing

Yeah I have no clue why someone would include a quote from Mohammad in a level set in Brazil. It almost seems like it was an easter egg to see if anyone would notice and complain...which came almost three years later.

[ButterflyBlood]

8. "Obliterating terrorist villages" does not happen in this game

The level in question, in the single player campaign, is a special forces team going through the slums of Rio to capture and interrogate an arms dealer about links to Russian ultranationalist terrorists. It's only a small part of the game, and in fact probably the majority takes place in DC playing as Army Rangers fighting back against a Russian invasion, the other parts mostly take places assaulting things like an old prison in Siberia and terrorist hideouts in the Caucasuses.

There actually IS a rather controversial level in the game due to a rather graphic and realistic depiction of a terrorist assault killing civilians in an airport, one that even resulted in the game being banned with the level in some countries, and even in the US putting up a warning about "disturbing content" at the beginning allowing to skip the level. However even that has nothing to do with the multiplayer levels, which the one in question is from. And above all that, the game is almost three years old. The fact that this is brought up NOW is a little perplexing to me.

[rug]

10. Is there a waterboarding option?

[ButterflyBlood]

13. Nowhere in the game, no

The only part of any game in the series that involved the player's side engaging in torture was in the Cold War-set game Black Ops that came out the next year (with its sequel due out next month) that involved force feeding glass to a Soviet spy, but that was: 1-From a different developer and 2-A very small part of the level in question.