
LittleBigResistance: Delay of Sackboy
The recent controversy surrounding Sony’s decision to delay the release of LittleBigPlanet, over a Qur’an reference made in one of the tracks, has many gamers flexing their memory muscle in an attempt to illustrate a double standard.
The belief is that Sony’s 2006 decision to essentially ignore the Church of England’s request asking for the removal of the Manchester Cathedral from their Resistance: Fall of man game, paired with the company’s recent willingness to comply to the perceived wishes of a Muslim community, demonstrates favoritism.
Several prime examples appear as comments appended to Kotaku’s recent post regarding the recall. Here are excerpts from a few of my favorites:
“Where’s the balls you had when it came to standing up to the Church of England, Sony?? Fuck you and your double standard, you bastards.” - Lachoy
“Sony, clearly, not willing to lift a finger to defend Western values or preserve our sensibilities, but willing to bend over backward to appease Islamic twits. They take our market for granted.” - rateoforange
To all those bringing up the Church of Manchester incident as a valid analogy: where the fuck have you been for the past 15 years? Stop thinking in absolute terms: “Christians are OK with it, so Muslims should be too.” Yes, there is a double standard here, and no, it’s not the end of the world. - Antiterra
This got me thinking about the two scenarios from a pure business standpoint. Armed with only an opinion, my belief is that Sony isn’t demonstrating favoritism, rather they are making what they believe to be sound business decisions based on a bottom line mentality.
While opinions are nice, I realized that any level of convincing was going to require more than a hunch. I needed proof that the cost of a potential Cathedral replacement would drastically exceed those associated with the recent LittleBigPlanet delay. Read more…