"Faith Fighter" Game Unites Religions in Outrage

"Faith Fighter" Game Unites Religions in Outrage

www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk

Representatives of several major religions have called for a game by radical developers Molleindustria to be removed from the internet because it is “deeply provocative” and “disrespectful”.

Faith Fighter is a punch-up game for one or two players which involves bouts between Jesus, Mohammed, Ganesh, Buddha, Budai, and God Himself.

(visit the link for the full news article)

When you go to the developers website to play the game the following disclaimer prompts people to select a version of the game that is palatable to their sensitivities...

This game is not intended to be offensive towards any religion in particular. Its aim is to push the gamers to reflect on how the religions and sacred representations are often instrumentallly used to fuel or justify conflicts between nations and people.

The game contains a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be unpon him. If you feel that such a depiction would be offensive, we ask that you play the censored version of the game in which the character's face have been removed. Or better yet, don't play the game at all.

The reaction to this game has me a bit puzzled. No one god is being singled out... everyone is on the same playing field or i should say fighting field. So why the fuss?

This also makes me question the legal rights that religions have to their set of story characters. Disney has exclusive rights to Mickey and Minnie... Marvel has Spiderman and Hulk (though Stan Lee was the creator)... you get the idea. Celebrities are in a way public property but if their image or likeness is used for commercial purposes, permission is required.

This also brings to light how religion has been the video game industries' archenemy in terms of censorship. So i am left with the impression that violence is ok as long as it's in the pages of a holy book, but expressed in the world in the name of their god they are silent and when illustrated in a virtual medium they cry bloody murder.

www.mediawatchwatch.org.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 28-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

If you don't like it, then don't play it. If it offends you, then why torture yourself by going to the website? (I use "you" in general-- not targeted at the OP )

The disclaimer seems right on target to me and it seems plenty fair that the game makers offer a censored version if seeing Mohammad offends a person and yet they still want to play the game.

that is too funny,I can just picture a long haired jesus throwing a round kick into Bhuddas gut,and having his eyes bulge out of his head.lolol..

Noting the mention of "Prophet Muhammad, peace be unpon him" in the disclaimer...

i'm sure the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy was reason alone for making this special exception.

[edit on 28-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

Well for the Prophet Mohammed, it is a big no no to show any depiction of him. So it is degrading to their religion to do so, disclaimer or not.

As for the rest. Well its just disrespectful in general.

I personally don't mind it, but I can see why some would see it that way.

that would be hella dope if in the game, each 'god' uses his powers out of their entries and onto the screen Mortal Combat style.
They need to make a game where you can create your own god andbattle other gods, to see who is the ultimate god.
You even get to dress yourgod up any way you want to!
batteries not included.

Does anybody remember "Super Best Friends" the South Park video?

That depicted Muhammed but I do not recall much of a fuss being made over that when compared to the fuss made over the Family Guy effort and the Danish cartoon?

I could be wrong there, I might just not have noticed.

Personally, I am not for religion in any way and am glad people still have freedom of speech to do such things.

When the atheist bus campaign was going around London what right did religious people have to kick up a stink? Yet they did, they did just that. You are allowed to express your views as long as they conform with ours. That should be the new mantra for religion.

After all of the atrocities caused in the name of religion I think a little bit of light hearted fun is needed. I can understand the flip side of the argument but people really need to grow a thicker skin.

If you don't like it, don't play it.

I was amazed to see Xenu get in on the action, as the final boss. I was glad that I got to slap him around a little bit.

Lol, that was some good fun, first battle was god vs jesus.
Epic.

reply to post by george_gaz


Great points... and brilliant episodes/skits... Super Best Friends
and
religion according to the Family Guy

Since the holy books read like a comic book, the transition to video games and animated cartoons seems to me to be a natural progression... or more accurately put... "evolution"?.

As for the mockery, anyone from the view point from outside of the belief systems can clearly see how ridiculous the stories are.




[edit on 28-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

The game has been taken down


www.molleindustria.org...

FAITH FIGHTER 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, it 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.

This has happened before with games as Super Columbine Massacre RPG, Virtual Jihadi and our Operation: Pedopriest, works that attracted heavy criticism based on false assumptions spread by mass media. This phenomenon is related to the still marginal role of the medium: commentators feel authorized to judge a game without playing it and just conforming to the common narrative depicting video game as violence generators (a narrative we tried to make fun of promoting Faith Fighter as a cathartic tool for religious hate). We knew that this was a risky operation and we acknowledge our failure as communicators. Taking down the game from this website is a symbolic act: copies and documentation of Faith Fighter can be found all over the Internet. Hopefully this will help people to make their judgments by examining the actual work and not the sensationalist accounts spread by mass media.

Mirror of the game HI-RES pics of molleindustria games

Update: In few hours this statement generated a way more heated reactions than the release of the game. We are not "bowing to the foundamentalists", we have no sympathy for any religion but we are aware that muslims are victim of widespread racism in the western world. This islamofobia is functional to the imperial interests in Middle East and all over the world. We just want to make clear that the game was not intended to contribute to the media-assisted narrative "islamic world vs freedom of speech".

Thank you alora for the prompt heads up.

Just like jesus, the game is unstoppable, it can't be killed.

The game is currently available at the following sites, until they all cave under the threats imposed on them:

www.andkon.com...

www.onemorelevel.com...

www.gamesforwork.com...

www.funny-games.biz...

arcadevoid.com...

www.fishflashgames.com...

www.dragongamez.com...

www.gamesheep.com...

www.lorenzgames.com...

...if anyone comes across a download link for the game please post.

Thank the GODs for Flash and may they all Bless the Internet... may they grant us permission to worship them in any way, shape or form we find accessible... Ahem Shalom

[edit on 28-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

This game is terrible compared to Adult Swim's Bible Fight. It's all christian characters, but the game play and graphics are very well done. www.adultswim.com...

As offensiveness goes, I think there are far worse things.

If for no other reason than to represent the final legal truth that no aspect of free speech is negotiable, this game needs to come to market.

I image it is offensive in context, but this is virtual construct and a representation of a concept; someone being offended by it need simply avoid it, sort of the way I avoid tofu....

Thank you All Seeing I


My Buddha turned God into a bleeder. Woot!

reply to post by Avarus


Your right... Bible Fight is a far superior game in audio, video and concept...in noting special moves: jesus uses his crown of thorns as a projectile weapon, noah can summon all the animals of the ark, and eve can whip with the devil-snake. Good old holsum fun for the whole family.

At first i didn't think the game was playing because i could barely detect the load bar at the bottom of the intro page... but once loaded, what a glorious entrance it was.

Being that i am an atheist on a bad day, agnostic on a neutral day and deist/universalist on a good day... i find these games very clever and fun. Now if i fully believed in any one of these characters or set of characters as being the one and only oracle and creator of the world, i could see these caricatures rubbing me the wrong way... but then we have something called freedom of speech.

"As for the free speech argument, people are completely fine with making fun of things until it hits close to home. A prime example is Isaac Hayes (Chef from South Park) was happy to make fun of anything and everything on the show but as soon as they were going to make fun of scientology he quit the show." ~ old_skool_gamer at kotaku.com.au


[edit on 29-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]

hey, if i have to click on the flying spaghetti monster, you have to click on god. what was your point again ?

Too funny. I have always wanted to animate a caged death match between Jesus and Mohammed.

Did someone say Flying Spaghetti Monster?

www.freeworldgroup.com...

This game was developed with the permission of Bobby Henderson, prophet of the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism religion.

There are 25 original characters in the game. Try to convert them all to Pastafarians in the time limit, using your noodly appendage.

For those interested in the teachings of The Church of the FSM ... www.venganza.org...