Faith Fighter No More

By: Derek Yu

On: April 28th, 2009

Faith Fighter

Faith Fighter, the controversial browser-based fighting game where you could pit your favorite deities against each other Primal Rage-style, has been pulled from the creator’s website, following a brief statement from the Organization of the Islamic Conference condemning the game as being “incendiary in its content and offensive to Muslims and Christians.” Molleindustria, who also developed the game Operation: Pedopriest, explains why they removed the game, citing a failure on their part to communicate the inherent irony of the game, which was created shortly after, and partly as a response to, the uproar over the Danish newspaper cartoons which depicted the face of the prophet Muhammed.

A more detailed write-up can be found here, on the liberal news and opinion blog The Huffington Post. Faith Fighter can still be played on Newgrounds.

TIGdb: Entry for Faith Fighter

  • Raiten

    Mocking religion is a human right. Not the other way around. Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed with Molleindustria.

    “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’.”

    This doesn’t make much sense as most people will only interpret this whole incident as “Censor-loving Islamists forced Italian game developer to remove game mocking religion”.

  • Raiten

    Hell, the Huffington Post article is even called “Islamic Group Forces Site To Remove Satirical Religious Video Game ‘Faith Fighter'”, so I guess mission anticomplished.

  • Craig Stern

    I hate it when religious groups who can’t stand to be subjected to ridicule attempt to bully people into silence.

  • MikeK

    i’m offended BY Muslims and Christains….

  • Zulgaines

    lol invisible sky wizards.

  • Jotaf

    Wait you mean the deities in ADOM aren’t real??!

  • Anonymous

    >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”.

    Too bad, it did!

  • I’m offended by all theistic religions; I request they be removed from the planet.

  • ><

    You know, doesn’t it strike any of you odd that whenever their is some sort of protest about some offensive material about religion (such as the Danish cartoons or the Muhammad Teddy Bear incident), it is pretty much always Islam that is at the forefront? As much as some of you may want to deny it, it pretty much is “Censor-loving Islamists forced Italian game developer to remove game mocking religion”.

  • http://www.sadmoons.com/letters Kaworu

    Good God… :)

  • Scott

    if some kid in middle school drew a picture of you doing a dog and you said “i find this incendiary in its content and offensive” you would so get beat up.

  • Oddbob

    There’s an important piece of information missing from this story that I think probably won’t be immediately obvious to anyone not in the UK. It is an important point all the same, mind.

    The Metro is a fucking joke.

    It’s published by the same right wing twats who publish The Daily Mail which next to The Express is one of the most hateful rags published in the UK.

    I wouldn’t wipe my arse on that sensationalist, scaremongering piece of crap for fear of infection.

    The fact that they’ve gone out of their way to tinge a relatively unsensational story with their usual anti-Muslim, anti-Islam, anti-anything that’s not white or god save the queen stand up Christian doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

    That’s what they do. That’s what they are. It’s hateful in every possible way.

    Yet people buy it. People believe the drivel and fearmongering crap they peddle. It scares me not just that people believe it but that there’s people that want to believe it.

  • Fools

    Anyone got a download link or mirror for the game?

  • Freep

    Sounds a bit like Australia then Oddbob.

  • Paul Eres

    Hm? I read the Metro article linked to from the Huffington post link in this blog post and didn’t see anything particularly anti-Islam. Are you referring to some other article? I don’t know anything about the Metro and don’t disbelieve that it’s a right-wing paper, but I just didn’t see anything particularly anti-Islam in that article. The only mention of Islam at all was:

    “A spokesman for the Federation of Muslim Organisations said: ‘In the current climate, this game can only create fear about religion. ‘Having images depicting Muhammad in this way is also very offensive to our faith.'”

    And that was alongside similar quotes from non-Islamic religions saying largely the same thing. It didn’t feel as if Islam were being singled out among all those other religions.

    Anyway, I think this is a good game, I remember reviewing it back when it was first released. It’s a fun idea.

  • Oddbob

    It’s all in the way they report things, Paul.

    You can’t come out (in a mainstream newspaper at least, and given The Metro is as mainstream as it gets in that it’s given out on trains and on the bus etc…) and say “Look at the evil muslims” because that’ll get you fined and lambasted to high heaven. Not that it’s stopped them coming pretty darn close over the past couple of years.

    Seriously, if you’re ever in the UK on a Sunday, try to ignore the newspaper headlines from the majority of papers unless you want to hang your head in shame at humanity. The gutter press is strong.

    Anyway, so they can’t come out with something that’s outright hate. That’s against the law. So they do something far more insidious and far more damaging in the long term. They weight the article.

    “Muslims are particularly outraged because Islamic tradition prohibits drawings of Allah.”

    It’s all in the implication of the text. “Muslims are particularly outraged”. The implication, of course, not being a minority of Muslims. Oh no, all of ’em. And look, here’s your one line explanation and justification. Funny culture, Muslim innit? Look at how silly and different they are to us civilised folk.

    It’s planting little tiny seeds, y’know. Just little factoids, tiny little stories like this. And rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat until you’ve said it enough times that hey, it’s got to be factogeddon.

    Throw a Buddhist in so y’know, it doesn’t look like a complete hatchet job and Bob’s yer uncle.

    Couple all that with the fact that it was evidently the journalist who went out of his way to bring the game to folks who he knew would get irritated and annoyed by it, and bingo. Hatestory101.

  • Günter

    11. Thou shalt stop being so serious and laugh at theyself every once in a while. For Christ’s sake, this is a tough crowd.

  • Paul Eres

    Ah, that’s true about that sentence, I missed that — it’s even an inaccurate sentence. While it is true that in Islam you’re not supposed to portray Allah, Allah wasn’t actually in the game, it was Mohammed. And Muslims don’t believe Allah is Mohammed the way Christians do with Jesus and God.

    (One of the comments in that article was a Muslim who liked the idea of the game and found it hilarious, as an aside.)

    I guess the Metro doesn’t seem so odd to me since I live in the US, and here pretty much every newspaper is like that, even the NYT says similar things occasionally.

    So anyway, what I take out of this blog entry is:

    1. This really was a great idea for a game, and fairly well executed too.

    2. It’s a pity that people were offended by this game enough that the creator felt the need to take it off his site.

    3. It’s a pity that people (including people like comment #8) are painting Muslims as entirely more offended than they actually are (for political or other reasons).

  • Paul Eres

    Wow, auto-list formatting! This blog software is interesting.

  • mrfredman

    Check out the sequel, Faith Fighter 2: http://www.molleindustria.org/faith-fighter

    Even better then the first one.

  • torchedEARTH

    Remember, if someone hates you and your way of life, let them.

    If you hate them and their way of life, please do everything in your power to appease them.

  • @Paul in comment 18: I’m not only saying that in response to Islamic organizations attempting to have ‘offensive’ media removed from their eyes, it’s everyone. I did put it in this thread/entry, but that’s my basic retort against any religion-centric censorship requests.

    Hell, just today in class someone said that they thought all anti-Christian/satirical media should be burned. (Woot livin’ in the bible-belt!)

    “I’m offended by all theistic religious texts, I request they be burned.” (had to adapt it)

    I doubt all, or even any kind of extreme majority of, Muslims could possibly be offended by anything, just the same with Christians or Jews or Hindus.

  • Raiten

    Molleindustria mentioned two catholic priests complained about the game too.

  • Esquar

    Are Santa and the Easterbunny in the game as well?
    They should…

  • bateleur

    Never mind Islam, check out how badly Ganesha is getting pwn3d in that screenshot! TIGSource is going to be shut down by the Hindu inquisition for this! ;-)

  • http://shinji16.110mb.com Shinji16

    What the fucking hell… Seriously, I know it won’t happen in my lifetime, but I can not wait for theologicide…

    Raiten said he was a bit disappointed with Molleindustria. I’m fucking infuriated. If you’re gonna make something satirical/funny/mocking, stick to your guns. I’d rather see a group say “Hm, this might be offensive and not accomplish what we intended” and not post/tell their joke rather than this reactionary “pull it due to kvetching” crap.

    Granted, I think the Faith Fighter 2 that has been put up is rather funny, and an excellent counterpoint to all this, but the censored prophet is just another win for tight ass Islamics who don’t know their place when it comes to free speech.

    My two bits? Islam needs to shut the fuck up. It’s ok to yell at infidels and damn everyone to hell, but heavens to Betsy some joke is made that involves Islam in any way, shape or form. Fucking bullshit all around. Normally, I’d say “religious radicals” but it seems only the radical Islamists get noticed. Mainly because they’re batshit enough to kill people over this bullshit.

    Take care and be safe everyone.

  • http://www.kabang.tk Django Durango

    So… is it on P2P networks yet?

  • http://shinji16.110mb.com Shinji16

    As of commenting, and in the main post, it’s still up on NewGrounds.

    http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/421199

  • Whatchucawmefoo!?

    I think we all need to watch more South Park and learn to grow together! Only through South Park can we break down these social, economic, and racial barriers. It’s time to rise above this nonsense and be more understanding while also being less sensitive. Even the lines and roles between that both males and females play has become misconstrued and warped by society. South Park sets things right and makes us step back and think for a change. This particular court case explains it all very well:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHFk_GXRkZk&feature=related

  • Love God or Burn

    So, Molleindustria basically got stoned to death over the Internets.

  • lol

    At least they’re not being assholes. I think that’s the right decision.
    The muslim people just don’t have any sense of humour about their religion, so let’s just stop trying to annoy them, with the pretense of “free speech”.
    Some european right wing fuck countries just discovered they were in looooove with free speech, coincidentally it was on the subject of fucking with the muslim eh?

  • AmnEn

    Step One:
    Depicting their religion is an insult to a Muslim.

    Step Two:
    Fuck that, do it anyways.

    Step Three:
    THE EVIL MUSLIM IS ANGRY, ZOMG, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, WALLA, WALLA, WALLA

    ____

    Step One:
    Calling the pope a pedophile is an insult.

    Step Two:
    Well, let’s better not insult someone.

    Step Three:
    The good christians are calm, zomg, this proves it, they’re superior! lulz!

  • Trotim

    Why so serious?

  • lumpi

    Not letting religion rule the world is very offensive towards religion.

  • pgil

    Hooray moderate Islam!

  • http://0xdeadc0de.org Eclipse

    another proof that religion leads people to do stupid stuff.

    @AmnEn: Operation Pedopriest proves that they aren’t on a side of things.
    Also i insult christians a lot and they’re not calm at all D:

    The only superior ones are pastafarians.

  • Muhammed

    A real shocker that the muslism are the ones who are upset.

  • coochikoo

    Never mind that, the Catholics and Buddhists are just as angry! On last nights news in Thailand I saw a Buddhist monk bite the head off a chicken at a Celine Dion concert and A Catholic Priest was caught kissing a woman in Brisbane… A WOMAN!

    What the fuck is the world coming to!?!?

  • Oh noes!

    Someone believes in something I don’t think is real, and I’m angry. FUCK!

  • http://www.molleindustria.org/faith-fighter-source raindog469

    Who needs to P2P it? They released the Flash source under the GPL, making it legal to pass around by anyone who’s not afraid of a fatwa (or the other religions’ equivalents, lest anyone forget that they all have blood on their hands.) Bravo to them. My username above should be a link to it, and if not, google for faithfighter-fla.zip and you should get it.

    You can also find the Windows binary by googling for faithfighter.zip without the fla. As for the Flash version, newgrounds still has it up and you can get the address of the SWF file using Flashblock, Adblock or maybe even just viewing the page source.

  • Oddbob

    “another proof that religion leads people to do stupid stuff.”

    I prefer to see it as proof that right wing media will do anything for a cheap shot at a story. YMMV, obv.

    @mrfredman – that’s ace. Absolutely perfectly done :)

  • Jotaf

    At least in Faith Fighter 2 they didn’t leave out Scientology — boy that would get them a lawsuit! And the great… Meatballulhu?

  • Rockvillian

    If you’re upset an image of your deity is getting beaten/doing the beating, you’re showing that you think your god is small, or you’ve made him small. Christians especially should focus on more eternal things to get passionate about… not obscure fighters.

  • ><

    In response to post 18, let me put it this way. Travel to Saudi Arabia and start carrying around a picture parodying Muhammad and see what happens to you.

    I should remind you that Saudi Arabia is a nation where not a single church, synagogue, temple, vihara, or wat is allowed to be built. To preach other faiths is illegal and will get you tossed in prison. Carrying around a bible, tanakh, or any other non Muslim text is illegal and will get you tossed in jail. To covert to another religion or become atheist is illegal and will get you tossed in prison. Can you imagine this sort of scenario in America or Western Europe?

    This is the ideological setting that defines many parts of the Muslim world (not just Saudi Arabia), and you think I’m just some bigoted fool exaggerating Muslim anger? I don’t make this stuff up, just follow the news dude.

  • Fuzz

    Nice to see Pastafarians getting some respect.

  • Oddbob

    ><, Arguing "BUT SAUDI LULZ" is like tainting any African for the actions of Mugabe.

  • BeamSplashX

    I guess The Astral Deity Association (TADA!) didn’t support the game like they said they would.

  • Paul Eres

    Exactly what Oddbob says. I wasn’t saying that Muslim governments don’t censor. I was saying that Muslim people in developed nations don’t get upset by things like this, by and large.

  • http://shinji16.110mb.com Shinji16

    *pauses Rock Band and looks out his window*

    Hm… religions haven’t died yet. Oh well…

    *unpauses Rock Band*

  • http://www.g4g.it Firesword

    Religions is ok, but it must be private and don’t interfere with public, in other words no fanatism.

    Someday someone will come and tell us we are all biological-robots, so what?
    Robo-muslims of Dooms? lolz