Muslim Massacre: The Game of Modern Religious Genocide
Encyclopedia
Muslim Massacre: The Game of Modern Religious Genocide is a controversial 2008 amateur computer game by Something Awful
forum member Eric Vaughn under the screen name "Sigvatr". It is a top-down shoot 'em up
video game. The aim of the game is to kill all Muslim
s that appear on the screen.
's Eric "Sigvatr" Vaugh. In describing the game, Vaugh explained the game as "something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim." The game had a promotional ad on its front page reading "Don’t be a liberal...! Download the game now". Muslim Massacre' s gameplay has been likened to Robotron: 2084
and Berzerk
as the game's directional controls are operated separately to the direction of fire, allowing the player to move in one direction and fire in another, making techniques such as circle strafing possible. Players control an American hero armed with a pistol who has been parachuted into the Middle East
. The player can also pick up special weapons such as a shotgun, a machinegun, hand grenades and a rocket laucher, supplied by an overflying plane. To progress to the game's bosses:, the player must kill all the Muslims who appear on-screen during each stage, each of which lasts between 60 and 90 seconds. Some Muslims are dressed as civilians while others are depicted as terrorists wearing a suicide vest.
s Matt Peckham compared it to the Atari
video game Berzerk, commenting that without any meaning to it, it is a parody that feels "utterly devoid of anything remotely Swiftian, and which viewed at the mechanical level is pretty weak, monotonous sauce." He noted that as opposed to banning it, people who do not like it should boycott it, while parents should supervise what their children play. Kotaku
's Michael McWhertor called it a straight-forward shooter, calling its "visual style and retro 8-bit musical nods" well crafted. He felt that it alluded to shooting games such as Contra and Ikari Warriors
, ultimately stating that "it doesn't play particularly well, nor is it a bad game." GameSetWatch's Simon Carless gave it a "resounding "eh"". The game has been downloaded over 100,000 times as of April 11, 2008.
's Adam Hartley called the game "vile, childish, tedious and desperate to drum-up-controversy". The chief executive of the Muslim youth organization The Ramadhan Foundation Mohammed Shafiq
commented that "encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive". He also stated that it "incites violence toward Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims", urging both the British government and Internet providers to shut the web site down. Inayat Bunglawala
of the Muslim Council of Britain
said that Vaughn and the ISPs who host the game should be ashamed, stating that "anti-Muslim prejudice is already on the increase and needs to be challenged and not reinforced through tasteless and offensive stunts like this." Similarly, the president of the Islamic Council of Queensland Suliman Sabdia urged for the web site to be shut down by Police Minister Judy Spence
, commenting that "this is the sort of game which creates hysteria." Spence was concerned with the game, commenting that the web site has been "brought to the attention of police, who are making an assessment as to whether it breaches any legislation." A Queensland Police spokesman announced that the game was examined, where "no offence was detected". They referred the matter to Canadian authorities.
Viewer comments on the web site of the Arabic television channel Al Arabiya
were mixed; some condemned it, while others viewed it as a reaction to extremism in Islam. The web site was blocked in some Arab states. Gulf News
Nicholas Coates erroneously suggested that the game was intentionally released to coincide with both the Muslim holiday Ramadan
and the attacks of September 11, 2001; in fact, it was released in January earlier that year, and simply gained increased attention around September. He criticized Vaughn's for exacerbating poor Muslim relations, referencing the controversy over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
and how Vaughn was making the situation worse. He also bemoaned how ratings boards such as the British Board of Film Classification
had no oversight in Internet games. Arab News
Aijaz Afaqui referenced violence in American-made video games and the use of Muslims as enemies in them, citing this game as an example. In the book Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, author Craig Detweiler discussed the Under Siege series of video games, which he describes as being both anti-Semitic and a promotion of Muslims. He makes reference to Muslim Massacre, saying that games such as it seemed to validate the creation of games like this, suggesting that it was a role reversal in response to anti-Muslim sentiment in video games.
Kimberlee Weatherall
, a senior lecturer in law at the University of Queensland
, commented that he could be guilty of inciting "hatred on the grounds of racial or religious vilification", for which he could potentially receive up to six months in jail. However, she added that applying the law to it would be difficult due to its "online context." Keyser Trad of the Islamic Friendship Association wrote to Australia
n Attorney General
Robert McClelland
expressing outrage, stating that it "teaches young people to “further hate Muslims” and encourages them to carry out “acts of discrimination, vilification or outright violence against Australian Muslims”." He added that it violated sedition provisions of counter terrorism laws, as well as other laws that "prevent the incitement of violence against sections of Australian society." The AG responded by saying that it was up to the Australian Federal Police
to investigate whether it did so. After contacting them, Trad was told that it was up to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
, though the Sydney Morning Herald noted that there was not much they could do since it is not hosted on Australian servers. Trad also mentioned other groups he had been "palmed off" to, such as the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
, which he found to take years to investigate claims. He added that he had no faith in the ACMA, citing a case where a radio station had to undergo cultural training, which he found to be ineffectual.
, "I think it's pretending to be legitimate commentary and I'm sure there will be lots of people who defend it on those grounds, but ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (Something Awful's forum world filter for "fuck") out of arabs." After the controversy, Vaughn took down the game, leaving an apology and a retrospective on his actions on the web site. However, in response to developer of Super Columbine Massacre RPG!
developer Danny Ledonne's comments on the matter, he said that his apology was fake, commenting that he was just "fucking with everyone the entire time and have had great success." Ledonne responded by hoping that he wasn't doing it for "the lulz" like V-Tech Rampage
developer Ryan Lambourn, adding that he would define a success as "the opportunity to think more critically about the elements your game addresses." Vaugh elabourated that the message was that Muslims needed to "suck it down and stop getting offended by everything", adding that "if they learnt to just ignore people, things would be better." He also noted that it wasn't just to Muslims, but all people, stating that "there are people all around the world who will do things that make you mad." Vaughn commented that the game's depictions of Muslims was no more negative than television news, adding that he didn't feel that children would be affected, and that parents were responsible for instilling positive attitudes in their children. Vaughn also developed another freely distributed violent game titled Spree Killers, based on the acts of Robert A. Hawkins who went on a killing spree in a Nebraska
shopping center, killing eight people before killing himself.
Something Awful
Something Awful, often abbreviated to SA, is a comedy website housing a variety of content, including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so...
forum member Eric Vaughn under the screen name "Sigvatr". It is a top-down shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
video game. The aim of the game is to kill all Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s that appear on the screen.
Overview
Muslim Massacre was created by Something AwfulSomething Awful
Something Awful, often abbreviated to SA, is a comedy website housing a variety of content, including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so...
's Eric "Sigvatr" Vaugh. In describing the game, Vaugh explained the game as "something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim." The game had a promotional ad on its front page reading "Don’t be a liberal...! Download the game now". Muslim Massacre
Robotron: 2084
Robotron: 2084 is an arcade video game developed by Vid Kidz and released by Williams Electronics in 1982. It is a shooting game that features two-dimensional graphics. The game is set in the year 2084, in a fictional world where robots have turned against humans...
and Berzerk
Berzerk
Berzerk is a multi-directional shooter video arcade game, released in 1980 by Stern Electronics of Chicago.-Gameplay:The player controls a green stick-figure, representing a "humanoid." Using a joystick , the player navigates a simple maze filled with many robots, who fire lasers back at the...
as the game's directional controls are operated separately to the direction of fire, allowing the player to move in one direction and fire in another, making techniques such as circle strafing possible. Players control an American hero armed with a pistol who has been parachuted into the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
. The player can also pick up special weapons such as a shotgun, a machinegun, hand grenades and a rocket laucher, supplied by an overflying plane. To progress to the game's bosses:, the player must kill all the Muslims who appear on-screen during each stage, each of which lasts between 60 and 90 seconds. Some Muslims are dressed as civilians while others are depicted as terrorists wearing a suicide vest.
Critical reaction
PC WorldPC World (magazine)
PC World is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal-technology products and services...
s Matt Peckham compared it to the Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
video game Berzerk, commenting that without any meaning to it, it is a parody that feels "utterly devoid of anything remotely Swiftian, and which viewed at the mechanical level is pretty weak, monotonous sauce." He noted that as opposed to banning it, people who do not like it should boycott it, while parents should supervise what their children play. Kotaku
Kotaku
Kotaku is a video games-focused blog. It is part of Gawker Media's "Gawker" network of sites, which also includes Gizmodo, Deadspin, Lifehacker, io9 and Jezebel. Named to CNET News' Blog 100, Kotaku is consistently listed in the top 40 of Technorati's Top 100...
's Michael McWhertor called it a straight-forward shooter, calling its "visual style and retro 8-bit musical nods" well crafted. He felt that it alluded to shooting games such as Contra and Ikari Warriors
Ikari Warriors
Ikari Warriors is a 1986 arcade game by SNK, published in the United States and Europe by Tradewest. Known simply as in Japan, this was SNK's first major breakthrough US release and became something of a classic. The game was released at the time when there were many Commando clones on the market...
, ultimately stating that "it doesn't play particularly well, nor is it a bad game." GameSetWatch's Simon Carless gave it a "resounding "eh"". The game has been downloaded over 100,000 times as of April 11, 2008.
Controversy
The game, while being released for some time beforehand, gained controversy around the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks in 2001. TechRadarTechRadar
TechRadar is an online publication focused on technology company which looks and reviews the most available tech today. TechRadar is owned by the Future plc company, the sixth-largest in the United Kingdom. It has a great number of reviews. Such as: Tablet Computer, Smartphone, PC, Macintosh,...
's Adam Hartley called the game "vile, childish, tedious and desperate to drum-up-controversy". The chief executive of the Muslim youth organization The Ramadhan Foundation Mohammed Shafiq
Mohammed Shafiq
Mohammed Shafiq is the chief executive and a founding member of the Ramadhan Foundation, the United Kingdom's leading Muslim youth organization'. The foundation is a moderate group aimed at helping young Muslims in the UK and fostering interfaith dialogue.As the Press Spokesman, he was able to...
commented that "encouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive". He also stated that it "incites violence toward Muslims and is trying to justify the killing of innocent Muslims", urging both the British government and Internet providers to shut the web site down. Inayat Bunglawala
Inayat Bunglawala
Inayat Bunglawala is media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain.He has written articles for The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Express, The Observer and The Sun focusing on Islam and current affairs. He is an activist for Islamist concerns and joined The Young Muslims UK in 1987...
of the Muslim Council of Britain
Muslim Council of Britain
The Muslim Council of Britain is a self-appointed umbrella body for national, regional, local and specialist organisations and institutions from different ethnic and sectarian backgrounds within British Islamic society. It was established in 1997 to help Muslims, to increase education about the...
said that Vaughn and the ISPs who host the game should be ashamed, stating that "anti-Muslim prejudice is already on the increase and needs to be challenged and not reinforced through tasteless and offensive stunts like this." Similarly, the president of the Islamic Council of Queensland Suliman Sabdia urged for the web site to be shut down by Police Minister Judy Spence
Judy Spence
Judith Caroline "Judy" Spence is an Australian politician and member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for the Australian Labor Party since the 1989 election. She represented Mount Gravatt until 2009, but after a redistribution she switched to Sunnybank, which covered much of the same territory...
, commenting that "this is the sort of game which creates hysteria." Spence was concerned with the game, commenting that the web site has been "brought to the attention of police, who are making an assessment as to whether it breaches any legislation." A Queensland Police spokesman announced that the game was examined, where "no offence was detected". They referred the matter to Canadian authorities.
Viewer comments on the web site of the Arabic television channel Al Arabiya
Al Arabiya
Al Arabiya is a Pan-Arabist Saudi-owned Arabic-language television news channel. Launched on March 3, 2003, the channel is based in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates, and is majority-owned by the Saudi broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center ....
were mixed; some condemned it, while others viewed it as a reaction to extremism in Islam. The web site was blocked in some Arab states. Gulf News
Gulf News
Gulf News is a daily English language newspaper published from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates with a December 2009 BPA audited circulation of over 117,036 qualified copies...
Nicholas Coates erroneously suggested that the game was intentionally released to coincide with both the Muslim holiday Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
and the attacks of September 11, 2001; in fact, it was released in January earlier that year, and simply gained increased attention around September. He criticized Vaughn's for exacerbating poor Muslim relations, referencing the controversy over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
and how Vaughn was making the situation worse. He also bemoaned how ratings boards such as the British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
had no oversight in Internet games. Arab News
Arab News
Arab News is an English-language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia, in the cities of Jeddah, Riyadh, and Dammam. The Editor-in-Chief is Khaled Al-Maeena. The publisher of Arab News is Saudi Research & Publishing Company , a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group .Arab News was...
Aijaz Afaqui referenced violence in American-made video games and the use of Muslims as enemies in them, citing this game as an example. In the book Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, author Craig Detweiler discussed the Under Siege series of video games, which he describes as being both anti-Semitic and a promotion of Muslims. He makes reference to Muslim Massacre, saying that games such as it seemed to validate the creation of games like this, suggesting that it was a role reversal in response to anti-Muslim sentiment in video games.
Kimberlee Weatherall
Kimberlee Weatherall
Kimberlee Weatherall is an Australian intellectual property lawyer, blogger and academic.Weatherall studied at Oxford and Yale, then worked for Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Sydney before becoming a lecturer at the Melbourne Law School...
, a senior lecturer in law at the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
, commented that he could be guilty of inciting "hatred on the grounds of racial or religious vilification", for which he could potentially receive up to six months in jail. However, she added that applying the law to it would be difficult due to its "online context." Keyser Trad of the Islamic Friendship Association wrote to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
Robert McClelland
Robert McClelland (Australian politician)
Robert Bruce McClelland is the Attorney-General of Australia. He has been an Australian Labor Party member of theAustralian House of Representatives since March 1996, representing the Division of Barton, New South Wales...
expressing outrage, stating that it "teaches young people to “further hate Muslims” and encourages them to carry out “acts of discrimination, vilification or outright violence against Australian Muslims”." He added that it violated sedition provisions of counter terrorism laws, as well as other laws that "prevent the incitement of violence against sections of Australian society." The AG responded by saying that it was up to the Australian Federal Police
Australian Federal Police
The Australian Federal Police is the federal police agency of the Commonwealth of Australia. Although the AFP was created by the amalgamation in 1979 of three Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, it traces its history from Commonwealth law enforcement agencies dating back to the federation of...
to investigate whether it did so. After contacting them, Trad was told that it was up to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
Australian Communications and Media Authority
The Australian Communications and Media Authority is an Australian government statutory authority within the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy portfolio...
, though the Sydney Morning Herald noted that there was not much they could do since it is not hosted on Australian servers. Trad also mentioned other groups he had been "palmed off" to, such as the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commission and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
The Australian Human Rights Commission is a national human rights institution, a statutory body funded by, but operating independently of, the Australian Government. It has the responsibility for investigating alleged infringements under Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation...
, which he found to take years to investigate claims. He added that he had no faith in the ACMA, citing a case where a radio station had to undergo cultural training, which he found to be ineffectual.
Creator's reaction
Its creator Eric Vaughn called it "fun and funny" and that some players have called it a "critical commentary of U.S. foreign policy." However, he noted that, as quoted by Murad Ahmed of The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, "I think it's pretending to be legitimate commentary and I'm sure there will be lots of people who defend it on those grounds, but ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (Something Awful's forum world filter for "fuck") out of arabs." After the controversy, Vaughn took down the game, leaving an apology and a retrospective on his actions on the web site. However, in response to developer of Super Columbine Massacre RPG!
Super Columbine Massacre RPG!
Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, abbreviated SCMRPG!, is a role-playing video game created by Danny Ledonne and released in April 2005. The game recreates the 1999 Columbine High School shootings near Littleton, Colorado...
developer Danny Ledonne's comments on the matter, he said that his apology was fake, commenting that he was just "fucking with everyone the entire time and have had great success." Ledonne responded by hoping that he wasn't doing it for "the lulz" like V-Tech Rampage
V-Tech Rampage
V-Tech Rampage is a controversial amateur action computer game that re-creates the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. The game was created by 21-year-old Ryan Lambourn from Australia...
developer Ryan Lambourn, adding that he would define a success as "the opportunity to think more critically about the elements your game addresses." Vaugh elabourated that the message was that Muslims needed to "suck it down and stop getting offended by everything", adding that "if they learnt to just ignore people, things would be better." He also noted that it wasn't just to Muslims, but all people, stating that "there are people all around the world who will do things that make you mad." Vaughn commented that the game's depictions of Muslims was no more negative than television news, adding that he didn't feel that children would be affected, and that parents were responsible for instilling positive attitudes in their children. Vaughn also developed another freely distributed violent game titled Spree Killers, based on the acts of Robert A. Hawkins who went on a killing spree in a Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
shopping center, killing eight people before killing himself.
See also
- Under AshUnder AshUnder Ash is a first-person shooter sometimes explained to be a response to how Arabs are pictured in computer games in general and America's Army in particular...
- Under Siege
- Persecution of MuslimsPersecution of MuslimsPersecution of Muslims is the religious persecution of Muslims as a consequence of professing their faith, both historically and in the current era.-Anatolia:...