MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
A player who objected to his forced participation in a baptism in an early scene in BioShock Infinite has been refunded by Valve.
Players are made to undergo the ceremony to gain access to the game’s main setting Colombia. All that is required is the pressing of a button. However, Christian gamer Breen Malmberg was so uncomfortable with the scene that he felt unable to play on.
As a result Malmberg contacted Valve directly to request a refund – a request he says was honoured.
I wish to return/exchange this game (Bioshock Infinite) for steam credit or refund on the grounds that I cannot play it,” he wrote in a letter to the company, as reported by Kotaku.
I cannot play it because at the very beginning of the game there is a section of the game that is so offensive to my religious beliefs that I cannot proceed with it any further. I did not know this section of the game was there and had no way of knowing it was there before-hand as it was not shown in any trailers, previews, screenshots or other marketing material.
The player is forced to make a choice which amounts to extreme blasphemy in my religion (Christianity) in order to proceed any further – and am therefor forced (in good conscience) to quit playing and not able to experience approx. 99% of the content in the game.
There is no option to turn this particular content off or to bypass or skip it in any way. In Modern Warfare 2, they at least allowed you to skip a particularly offensive level. This is the same sort of thing for me, but there is no way to skip it in this case.
If you need further convincing, I will use the analogy that if you were a Muslim, it would be like forcing the player into an in-game action of ‘press x to spit on the face of Allah’ in order to proceed any further with the game and with no choice or way around doing so.”
Presumably Malmberg also objects to being forced to kill characters to progress in certain games as that also offends his religious beliefs?
