A fighting game about world religions on Steam is causing trouble in Malaysia. PQube Games, publisher of the recently released PC game Fight Of Gods, says that the Malaysian government is taking steps to ban the game including blocking access to Steam within the country.
Fight Of Gods is a fighting game where religious figures such as Jesus and Buddha duke it out, and although it looks pretty rough, players have taken to it. But Malaysia, an Islamic state that is known for heavy censorship of all media including books, TV and music, appears to take issue with the depiction of deities. (It’s worth noting that Mohammed is not portrayed in the game.) The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, a regulatory government group, has called for a ban on the game within 24 hours.
“Malaysians respect all cultural and religious sensitivities, and the sale and distribution of the religiously insensitive and blasphemous games must be stopped immediately,” they said according to Malaysian newspaper The Star.
“We never received any communications from Malaysian officials here at PQube,” the publisher said in a press release. “However reports seem to indicate that Malaysia has now blocked access to all of Steam in order to prevent access to Fight of Gods.”
Malaysian players on social media and NeoGAF claim that their access to Steam has been completely blocked. Members of the Malaysian consulate in North America did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Valve has replied with the following statement:
Right now players in Malaysia can access the games they own on Steam, but the Steam Store is being blocked by some local telcos in Malaysia. From reports we are reading, this is due to a single game that conflicts with local laws. We have contacted the developer, removed the game, and are attempting to make contact with the officials in Malaysia to remove the block. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Malaysia’s government has a track record of attacking video games and the people who play them. In 2013, a member of the country’s parliament called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto 5.
“We are disappointed that such freedom of choice is not given to everyone and in particular that the game has been forcibly removed from sale in Malaysia,” said PQube’s press release. “Nevertheless we respect any rules and censorship imposed in any given territory.”
Comments
10 responses to “Publisher Of God Fighting Game Says Malaysian Government Is Trying To Ban It”
Last I heard was Steam removed it from sale in Malaysia.
Which would have been 15 seconds ago in the article?
Religion: …..
The developers had to know they would be offending a large group of people by making this.
Hint: It’s not the Christian, Hindu or Buddhist Malaysian communities that are upset enough to drive this.
Edit: I stand corrected!
Exactly…
It doesn’t take a genius to realise the kind of publicity this game would attract.
So it’s likely they wanted to attract this kind of publicity.
While everyone argues about religion, taking offence, freedoms of speech, censorship and other things, the game will prob sell pretty well despite its quality.
(There was a positive story here that spoke about how janky it was just yesterday?
lol)
On the one hand – wow, what the fuck, knee jerk reaction! That’s insane blocking the whole store over one game.
On the other hand – this is the scary kind of mentality we’re facing when we demand the banning of anything that some group finds offensive.
but muh feelings
Bugger off censorship!
Once again some religion/nation’s the knee-jerk reaction to something causes said something to reach an audience magnitudes greater than what it might otherwise have achieved if the religion/nation had remained quiet on the subject.
Way to go Malaysian government! Hope you don’t suffer whatever punishment your religion deems necessary for introducing something blasphemous to someone who would never have encountered it otherwise…
Bad graphic, bad fighting combination., even street fighter 2 arcade game are better than this game, they cover their weakness with controversy.