PQube’s new PC game, Fight of Gods (developed by Digital Crafter) released on Steam Early Access earlier this week. Unfortunately, it seems to have stirred up a bit of controversy. The reason is that Fight of Gods sees various religious figures duke it out in battles. The game takes a bit of a humorous approach to religion, as other formats have already done. Nonetheless, Malaysia’s government has blocked Steam entirely to prevent its people from accessing the game.
The country is an Islamic State that has a reputation for heavily censoring all forms of media. It should be noted that Mohammed is actually not one of the religious figures in the game. Regardless, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission called for a ban on the game within 24 hours or further action would be taken. Interestingly, PQube said the Malaysian government never contacted them. They released the following statement via a press release:
“We never received any communications from Malaysian officials here at PQube. However reports seem to indicate that Malaysia has now blocked access to all of Steam in order to prevent access to Fight of Gods.”
Understandably annoyed players in Malaysia took to social media, claiming that their access to Steam had been completely blocked. Earlier this afternoon, Valve released a statement about the unfolding situation:
“Right now players in Malaysia can access the games they own on Steam, but the Steam Store is being blocked by some local telcos in Malaysia. From reports we are reading, this is due to a single game that conflicts with local laws. We have contacted the developer, removed the game, and are attempting to make contact with the officials in Malaysia to remove the block. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
In their press release, PQube also expressed disappointment about this lack of freedom of choice for the people of Malaysia:
“We are disappointed that such freedom of choice is not given to everyone and in particular that the game has been forcibly removed from sale in Malaysia, although no direct communication has been received by us as to the reasons for this. Nevertheless we respect any rules and censorship imposed in any given territory.”
