Update: Paolo responds, after the jump.
Some Islamic guy got upset that Mohammed was depicted in the original Faith Fighter, and he did what Islamic folks tend to do when the founder of their religion is graphically depicted, they politely file a complaint. The thing got stoked up and surprisingly, Paolo decided to pull Faith Fighter, literally removing it from the internet. When the story broke but before Paolo reacted, my impression was that wanting to "remove it from the internet" was tantamount to removing all traces of cadmium from the lipid tissues of every lifeform on earth, the internet is too pervasive, too viral to just take something back. Then I remember that this particular game was just stored on the Mollindustria site, unlike his other games, and poof, it's gone. It's been replaced with a sequel.
Faith Fighter 2 has you clicking on each deity, causing a stream of hearts to emerge. It isn't entirely clear whether these hearts are supposed to represent the loving belief that keeps these entities meaningful, or a torrent of beating hearts that have been rended from unwilling victims of ritualistic sacrifice to keep these entities fed. If Paolo's intent was to mix metaphors there, it would have been cooler to have the heart graphic have little veins in it, the classical heart icon was not an aesthetic decision I fully agree with. The gameplay is completely boring and pointless as you're merely moving the mouse around, holding the left button and watching the years tick up.
Pulling a game is not something I'd ever imagine Paolo doing. This is a guy who had to flee his home country because an offended institution wanted to put him on trial and send him to jail for making a game, and that game is still available online. He decided that the original Faith Fighter didn't adequetely communicate the irony of religions that teach peace constantly causing physical harm to people, so he threw this up instead. Now this game is ironic, despite being shallow, and indeed its shallowness is what makes it even more irony-y.
The game borrows a dynamic from Frasca's Madrid, makes the skill totally irrelevant, and modifies the feedback loop. Frasca's game had it so that you could never keep all the candles fully lit, there were too many and they went out too fast. Paolo's game, on the other hand, suggests that it's all too easy to be politically correct and distribute love between Jesus, Mohammed, both incarnations of Buddha, Xenu, and the Flying Sphagetti Monster. We could spread the love/hearts around and keep everyone unoffended for years and years until we get bored and quit to go, say, rape the children of parishoners.
Not gone.
Pedercini didn't remove the original game from the Internet. Indeed, while it's gone from his website, it's still available on Newgrounds (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/421199). It's there under the molleindustria account, so if they wanted it removed, they certainly could. It's also available on a hundred other sites. Googling "Faith Fighter" reveals many of them.
You're Right, it's the Streisand Effect
Paolo responded to this and I thought I'd repost his mail in full because it's pretty honest and good. Comment seemed better than in the body.
Paolo says:
Hi,
no please, what you write sounds romantic but I left my country because I wanted to. I've been accepted to RPI long before the whole pedopriest thing. And Operation: Pedopriest WAS removed from the website for a week or two exactly as FF. Have you ever heard about the Streisand Effect? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Faith Fighter 2 was made in 25 minutes, do you really want to review it as a game? I had very little time to follow an manage the story, I've got all this end of the semester stuff and job-related issue and I had no time to write something more articulated about this story. But I'll spend a couple of minutes anyway and you can quote this mail, please spell check it if you do so.
I started thinking about FF during the Danish cartoon controversy. I felt frustrated by the polarization that was happening at the time. On one side there was this right wing newspaper publishing those islamophobic cartoons just as a provocation. It was a perfect media operation because it forced EVERYBODY in the west to defend that crap in the name of the freedom of speech. On the other side there were these demented islamic groups that build up an international champaign based on the cartoons. Since the one with the turban-bomb was humorlessly making the equation Islam = terrorism and the whole west was defending it, those groups gained a lot of support by pushing the idea "the West is against Islam".
Which was a credible statement, cause in order to justify and deal with that genocidal project called Israel and the two imperial wars in middle east that are clearly not targeting just the terrorist, most of us need to think that the muslims (all of them) are a special breed of barbaric, sexist, intolerant, brain damaged humans.
What was missing here was the voice of the non-west-supremacists people (the majority in the west - I'd like to think) and the secular, non fundamentalist muslims (the majority of them for sure).
Faith Fighter was meant to be a commentary / satire of this neocon self fulfilling prophecy called clash of civilizations. It's a crass silly game, that reflect a crass silly real-world narrative. It was not meant to be a controversial object, or at least it wasn't meant to create a controversy in the aforementioned terms. The sensationalist article on METRO UK and the response from OIC (based on that report) set the term of the discussion: "There is a game inciting religious hate where Jesus fight against Mohamed, should we put it offline or not?". Well, that was exactly the same Danish Cartoons stuff I didn't like.
In order to reassert control over the DISCOURSE AROUND the game I had to do something that would force the press to refocus on the intention of the game and defuse a potential turmoil based of false assumptions. In the past years we saw a way too many game-related controversies and what I learned is that the public debate is informed by the STORY AROUND the game and not by the game AS A TEXT. Outside the specialized press, Journalists who write about videogames, especially controversial videogames, DON'T play those videogames, they don't feel required to do that, they check the screenshots, they copy other reports. We can complain about it, but it doesn't matter because they keep doing disinformation.
So the temporary removal move was just media tactic that made the news bigger and reframed the debate. Faith Fighter 2 is a more molleindustria-like response but it required a little bit of time in order to see how serious was the thing. It worked, I'd say, if you check the endless comment threads that this story generated you'll see very articulated debates and not just bullshit about "offending" people, censorship or hate rants. And that's precisely what this project is about.
And by the way Faith Fighter is not just online everywhere but also available on molleindustria.org, the removal lasted just about 24 hours. All the sites and newspaper reposting the news "removed from the internet" never actually verify the fact.
Said that, you can join the disappointed right-wing commentators bullshitting about the freedom of speech and suggesting me to make a more extreme game that can really, REALLY piss off those islamofascists.
IMHO every direct confrontation that falls in the West vs Islam crap makes the neo-cons AND the foundamentalist stronger.
Peace,
P
Awesome.
Awesome.
What a load of crap
"Said that, you can join the disappointed right-wing commentators bullshitting about the freedom of speech"
The only person bullshitting here is him. Criticizing other religions IS freedom of speech, and it's not only right-wing nutjobs who believe that (I find myself criticizing their favored religions all the time). Even if I don't like what's being said, I will defend people's right to say it. If that somehow puts me as "the West" in some imaginary "Islam vs. the West" situation, I guess I'm the enemy of anyone who wants to take that freedom away.
Israel and other issues are very messed up and important to point out, but that doesn't suddenly make exercising your freedom of speech wrong.
On loads of crap and FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of expression
"The only person bullshitting here is him. Criticizing other religions IS freedom of speech"
Let me get this straight. Do you really believe that in the name of freedom of speech we should be forcing Paolo to keep saying things he does not want to say? Because, really, that does not feel very free to me.
And considering opinions and feelings of other people in response to what one says is not slavery (or bondage, or unfreedom, or whatever nice word you would like to use), it might simply be politeness or being considerate.
Well, fair enough
I don't recall saying he shouldn't have the right to pull his game. That's as much his freedom as everything else. It's his work after all.
I just think his overall argument about the whole Muhammad cartoon thing is ridiculous. Just my 2 cents.
Quick Edit: Also it should be pointed out that he hasn't taken the original away completely. It's still around, and he pointed that out. I respect him a lot for that, since people should have access to the original work to best understand the controversy.
So the guy makes the
So the guy makes the 'operation pedopriest' game first, and then comments on Danish carrtoons like: 'right wing newspaper publishing those islamophobic cartoons just as a provocation'.
Ah. All is clear now.
Also, his comments on Israel... any discussion with this guy is pointless. Bullshit is not a strong enough word here.
"You didn't respect a
"You didn't respect a religion and the worlds in a mess!"
Heh, if a mega meme is going down, it makes sure everyones going down...