Bored/malicious programmer trying to get a laugh vs. Video game company trying to convert your young daughters to Islam? I think it’s obvious which one is happening here.

LibertarianBulbasaur on January 28, 2009 at 3:20 am

Islam is a lie evolved into a cult founded on fear, violence and mass-murder.
This is Islam in a nutshell.

Independent Conservative on January 28, 2009 at 4:00 am

weird, but it could bored programmers making people squirm

mindy1 on January 28, 2009 at 7:11 am

What an outrage that they would use DS as the model ID!!

BB on January 28, 2009 at 8:14 am

rejecting islamic rule = the oppression of islam.
all must submit, or else.
what can stop this?
educating all the infidels you can, about islam’s true nature, in it’s very own words.

JWWright on January 28, 2009 at 9:01 am

Just a little FYI-
HANDLEMAN COMPANY ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE CRAVE ENTERTAINMENT GROUP
October 21, 2005
http://www.cravegames.com/News/HandlemanAquire.asp
Handleman Company Names Khaled Haram as Chief Financial Officer (and Senior Vice President )
Mon Feb 18, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS130225+18-Feb-2008+PRN20080218

eloopd on January 28, 2009 at 9:07 am

Ok first of all Nintendo should not be blamed for any of this. If you wanna blame someone, blame the 3rd party company that made the game…Crave Entertainment.
Whenever 3rd party games are released for systems, of course it will be licenced by Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo.
And don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about, because I’m a very active videogamer and a proud owner of Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Wii, and Playstation 2.
So please direct all your hate towards Crave Entertainment, because I’m extremly sure Nintendo didn’t even know about this themselves. And the media doesn’t even know crap about videogames ether.

Squirrel3D on January 28, 2009 at 2:11 pm

if your going to put your company name on something, you check it out first to make sure it is what you want your name on. sure blame the “3rd party company” but nintendo put their name on it so people would buy it. they endorsed it and used their name to sell it, so yes they are responsible for it. this is why you see those silly disclaimers on DVD’s about the movie company supporting or endorsing any actors comments in the commentary sections, you don’t know what they will say and don’t want to be blamed for it.

ender on January 28, 2009 at 3:38 pm

Nintendo’s claim is pure baloney. Nintendo always vet all licensees’ games in their products for quality assurance and checking for inappropriate contents before releasing to the public.
Nintendo probably let that “Islam is the light” in a game slipped by on purpose.

Bobby's Brain on January 28, 2009 at 8:03 pm

I’m giving Nintendo the benifit of the doubt. They’re one of THE bedrocks of videogaming. I’ve been there since the very beginning of their success in consoles and playing them as a kid, so I’m defently behind Nintendo here. Sorry people.

Squirrel3D on January 28, 2009 at 9:03 pm

Crave: “Hey, Nintendo. Can we sell a video game on your system?”
Nintendo: “Sure, send us the game so we can QA it and screen it for content.”
Crave: “Here you go, a game where you use a stylus to give a bath to infants.”
You are Nintendo. At this point, you can:
A. Force your employees to play an awful game for hundreds of hours to make sure that the baby’s random noises aren’t subversive messages in certain scenarios.
B. Let Crave publish the game and get some quick money out of it.
If you picked A, you have a very strange idea about how software companies make money.

LibertarianBulbasaur on January 30, 2009 at 3:48 am

Interesting — this problem likely comes from the fact that movie and game companies use large databases of “stock” sound effects in their products. I’m sure you’ve noticed the same footsteps, door creaks, bullet riccochets, laughs and screams used in *hundreds* of commercials, movies, and games. I recognize sound effects from the games DooM and Goldeneye just about every day on the TV.
Anyway, this sound clip is probably filed under the searchable index “baby burbles” or “infant sounds” or something similar. It’s not surprising the same exact stock sound clip ended up in two different budget-value crappy toys and that hardly anyone paid attention to it.
Maybe Nintendo should have paid better attention in QA, but they have a strong history of removing ALL religious symbolism from their games. When Castlevania 2 was ported from Japan to the USA, all Christian and Muslim imagery was removed. The same happened with Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64 (and they changed it further to “sterilize” it when re-released on the Wii). Nintendo’s very vigilant on these things and I’m sure it’s an oversight. They’re definitely the most family-friendly company out of the Big 3 game makers.

KIFulgore on February 3, 2009 at 1:49 pm

It’s obviously the same sound, but it doesn’t really sound like “Islam is the Light” to me. Is that even something that Muslims say? All the Google hits for the phrase are about the “baby noise” sound effect issues. I just think it’s a weird sound effect that accidentally sounds like it’s saying something it’s not. Why would you have a newborn baby speaking in full sentences, anyway?

Alex Wallech on February 3, 2009 at 10:14 pm

Maybe the subject, author and readers of this article should google “Pareidolia” before they get too carried away with fearful conspiracy theories.

intepid on February 3, 2009 at 10:41 pm

Does anyone else notice that the actual sound is quite vague, and it’s quite likely that the only reason it seems to say “Islam is the light” is because our brains are programmed to find meaning in chaos? Please look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia for an explanation, as well as other well-known examples (seeing animals in the clouds, seeing Jesus’s face in a pancake, etc.) I have the strange hunch that those who hear “Islam is the light” are also those who are most fearful of Islam.

Sitakali on February 4, 2009 at 5:28 am

very nice article. thanks…

oyun on February 28, 2009 at 10:21 am

No.. the true message is “Islam is a lie”

4978 on February 17, 2010 at 11:35 am

The voices are the same. Two different toy companies. Something isn’t right here.

Chaya on September 17, 2010 at 9:36 am

“Islam is the Light”??

People, please.

This just does NOT make any sense. First of all, while some studies might purport to say that “subliminal” messages get to people’s inner noggins, this is highly disputed and questionable. Even if this is somehow real the larger danger of Islamism making headway into the West is far from likely to be from kids’ toys, but rather idiot politians bowing to Islamist pressure group pressues, and coming to the side of multi-culti PC mess.

I listened as intently as any human, and it is garbled. There might be some kind of cadence to the alleged words, but it’s by no means clearly a phrase at all but something along the lines of “biz pop bluddlemonwite.”

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/01/29/publisher-responds-quotislam-lightquot-ds-game-controversy

Wakefield Tolbert on September 18, 2010 at 8:33 pm

As one commenter had it over on the gamepolitics site, more likely that the audio would be “trophy wife get a life!”, and that apparently the bar is just not set low enough to pass certain basic tests of common sense. Had the audio been available in the 1980’s the presumed phrase without question would have been heard as “Black Mass is tonight!” or perhaps “Ollie North is Always Right.”

Wakefield Tolbert on September 18, 2010 at 8:44 pm