How to Circumvent the not depicting Mohammed thing

[Lemont Elwood]

I have a feeling that religious Muslims are not a major demographic for Paradox games.

Not to cater to extremists, I would say just depict him with a generic random generated portrait.

However, it is not worth the hassle really. It doesn't affect gameplay and has the potential for a lot of negative publicity.

Why do you people (the Paradox fanbase) care so much about "publicity"? You all don't really think anybody outside of the tiny strategy gaming cares one whit, or has any effect, do you?

 

[Xdevo]

Pretty sure people would get violently upset if you depicted jesus or buddha as a drunkard lunatic satanist.

There's been dozens of portrayals of Jesus in much less than ideal circumstances for over 50 years (Jesus Christ Superstar, South Park, Family Guy, Simpsons, Bless the Hearts, Robot Chicken, etc.). A few people got upset, but never to the point of violence. CK2 already portrays numerous Saints as (potentially) drunkard lunatic satanists. No one has cared yet.

Let's not paint blame with far wider brush than we need to.

 

[Streletz]

Pretty sure people would get violently upset if you depicted jesus or buddha as a drunkard lunatic satanist.

Any character in the game could become a drunkard lunatic Satanist. And there is already several playable Catholic and Orthodox saints in the game, which nobody cares about.

 

[Commonblob]

Pretty sure people would get violently upset if you depicted jesus or buddha as a drunkard lunatic satanist.

Not violently. You might get some angry posts on this forum, maybe an angry youtube video talking about the game, but certainly no violence. And the people who would get angry would just be told to grow a thick skin and stop pushing their religion on others.

Though I agree with the person who said it would be an unnecessarily large risk for PDX to do it. I don't expect a video game company to actively stand up to terrorists.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Depict him like any other character. Those who are ethno-centric enough to be offended that non-Muslims don't follow Muslim rules shouldn't be catered to.

Ignoring any PR stuff, there are about two billion Muslims in the world. Paradox does not want to unnecessarily limit their opportunity to sell games to them.

 

[Mikebloke]

I have a feeling that religious Muslims are not a major demographic for Paradox games.

Hi. See all my icons.

As a Muslim the feeling I get on the depiction of prophets (that includes Jesus, Adam and the rest guys, not just Muhammed) is going to be based on purpose: that is, what point does it make? Culturally / religiously insensitive material can cause offense and boycotting (x files, love the series, right up until the new modern series did the weirdest episode ever by trying to debate religion in a one sided argument).

When Jesus was covered in Eu:Rome, it was an event right? Just text. Nothing evil about it. It was a recognition that something happened. Why couldn't anything depicting the timeline surrounding Muhammed be similar?

Also, the vast majority of Muhammeds life wasn't as a political figure anyway that would be depicted in a paradox game. One could argue that the Caliphate didn't become a true nation state till post death, a lot of features we associate with the caliphate as political concepts (welfare state, taxation, regular armed forces, infrastructure) weren't in Muhammeds life time as they were only religious requirements or non existent.

Obviously people would discuss the details of that till the cows come home, but if you are doing a paradox map of the time of Muhammad's life its a boring swash of pagan and Jewish tribes infighting with each other, even medina might not have been big enough to be worth depicting on a paradox map.

Event chain the whole thing, use pretty images without depicting Muhammed's face, and don't use any text that could be deemed offensive. Its all fair game when Abu Bakr and Umar take over! Could make a whole paradox game on just them two!

 

[m1c]

The Shia have a more relaxed attitude towards this with plenty of depictions of the prophet throughout history. Wikipedia does have a whole article on it with lots of depictions from medieval times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad

 

[Knut Skallagrim]

Lol this reminds me of this sketch xD sadly i can't put it precisely where it begins so if you're interested it starts at 1:37

How i see it in this contest
PDX graphic designer "i don't think i can, maybe paaassss?" johan "you can't pass "

 

[Avian Overlord]

I'd actually be more worried about the gameplay implications. He's like Alexander. A single leader whose career can't be simulated under the hood, but needs to play out roughly historically to have an even slightly recognizable history.

 

[kingsword]

Depict him like any other character. Those who are ethno-centric enough to be offended that non-Muslims don't follow Muslim rules shouldn't be catered to.

That's an already Western-centric attitude to approach the matter though as Paradox already caters to Chinese and Jewish sensitivities. Considering this is a purely aesthetic matter, no need to be bashful about it.

What they did in CK2 was very tasteful and respectful without diminishing anything, they can do something similar again if needed. A portrait being there or not won't affect gameplay.

 

[President Park Lee Ng]

There's really no reason to depict Muhammad. Unlike Jesus, whose adherents have largely adopted "who gives a shit" stance, Muhammad's followers can, and as history has shown, *will* rise up in anger.

The rise of islam itself is nothing special. Someone gets a revelation, someone moves out, and someone conquers his homeland to establish a religion. It's basically like pagan reformation in CK2, there's not a whole lot of drama related around it, or interesting tidbits. It's not like Christianity's dramatic Jesus gives military advice

So personally speaking, depicting Muhammad is not a risk Paradox should take, on account that there's really no reason to do it. The rise of Islam plays out like a normal blobbing, there's not much event you can make out of it

 

[I am angry]

Unlike Jesus, whose adherents have largely adopted "who gives a shit" stance, Muhammad's followers can, and as history has shown, *will* rise up in anger.

Birds of a feather flock together. So in the end, it depends on who actually depict Mohammed and who rise up in anger: if the former are journalists, satirists, politicians and other „freedom of speech fighters“ then, consequently and understandable, their religious counterpart react accordingly. But if it’s those who, traditionally, don’t care, and it used to be and still is the gamer scene, then there should be no fear of s rise up in anger of any kind.

So just a friendly word to journalists, artists, politicians, and all those whom they managed to influence by their beliefs: less talking, more gaming (of course with depicted Mohammed and Jesus as leaders of two historical blobbings).

 

[President Park Lee Ng]

Birds of a feather flock together. So in the end, it depends on who actually depict Mohammed and who rise up in anger: if the former are journalists, satirists, politicians and other „freedom of speech fighters“ then, consequently and understandable, their religious counterpart react accordingly. But if it’s those who, traditionally, don’t care, and it used to be and still is the gamer scene, then there should be no fear of s rise up in anger of any kind.

So just a friendly word to journalists, artists, politicians, and all those whom they managed to influence by their beliefs: less talking, more gaming (of course with depicted Mohammed and Jesus as leaders of two historical blobbings).

This kind of reasoning was used by Charlie. They ended up having to hire an entire new set of employees

As far as paradox is concerned, if somebody gets shot up over a very small detail that requires a lot of intentional effort to find, it better be not them

 

[I am angry]

This kind of reasoning was used by Charlie. They ended up having to hire an entire new set of employees

Why would a vegetarian in the first place work in a slaughterhouse... or a spoil-sport in the gaming industry?

 

[President Park Lee Ng]

Why would a vegetarian in the first place work in a slaughterhouse... or a spoil-sport in the gaming industry?

You are a woke gamer. You believe in Freedom of Speech. You believe that the world is just, and the general people will be none the wiser about what you're doing. As an idealist, of course you make a game and depict Muhammad in it. You are certain that making an English language game for a niche audience will keep your actions under the table. Of course you're residing in a country in which gun possession is strictly regulated

The universe of course conspires against you. Out of 7 billion people on Earth, one of them happens to be your audience. The person finds your defiance funny, and mentions this fact on Twitter. Mainstream media, as they are won't to do, picks it up, and in a fit of social justice outrage publishes the story about what you did.

The laymen who couldn't care less about your product now know what happened. Some of them are gifted with the rare combination of short temper, access to guns, and the ability to reach your office

The next week the cops surround your small office, ordering the group to get out and drop their weapons.

 

[I am angry]

You are a woke gamer.

I‘m not familiar with the case you’re speaking of, I sense though that you put an emphasis on „being awake“ alongside with „idealism“. Those traits I regard as rather political.

 

[President Park Lee Ng]

You can continue attempting to skirt answering, or stay quiet and admit people don't wanna risk dying for a silly reason

 

[I am angry]

You can continue attempting to skirt answering, or stay quiet and admit people don't wanna risk dying for a silly reason

I am safe and I feel safe, and I don’t expect that playing games with Jesus and Mohammed as characters would make me any less safe. I understand though that you might feel differently, and I do hope that you‘ll find a proper way of dealing with it.

 

[AndrewT]

Okay, enough.