Posted Apr 16, 2008 at 07:12PM by Ryan C. Listed in: News, Games, God of War: Chains of Olympus Tags: mythology, Sony, Ready At Dawn
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God of War: Chains of Olympus - Image 1


A crackdown against Ready At Dawn's God of War: Chains of Olympus for the Sony PlayStation Portable has recently been launched in Sharjah, a municipality in the United Arab Emirates. This was due to several residents complaining about the game allegedly containing material offensive to religion, values, and social norms, what with Kratos' main enemies being gods of Greek mythology. The game was also cited as having sexual content, which is probably the minigame at the end of the very first boss.

Another reason for the crackdown was that anyone could pretty much purchase the game easily despite it being banned. UAE national Khalid Bin Deemas' statement about God of War: Chains of Olympus:

I knew that it was banned, but many of my friends were able to buy pirated copies from Dh5 to Dh10. I was shocked to see how much it contradicted Islamic values.


With the crackdown ongoing, the permanent fatwa committee has instructed all concerned government departments to forbid the sale of games with similar content as God of War: Chains of Olympus, as well as confiscate any remaining stock of the aforementioned games - and they will continue to do so in future. Updates about this matter as they develop, and you can check out the via link below for more information.

Buy: [God of War: Chains of Olympus] [Via Gulf News] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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9 Comments


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   by digicron - 2008-04-16
 » wow

and i thought the UAE was one of the more liberal places out in the Middle East. apparently i was mistaken

   by Dodo - 2008-04-16
 » Shame

As a Muslim myself I'm very disappointed by this move from the UAE gov't. They need to understand the difference between "mythology" and actual religion. The ancient Greek Gods have no relevance to Islam or any of the Abrahamic monotheistic religions to be even insulted. I can understand if the crackdown was on pirated copies easily available to minors, or even the sexual content, which could be removed if they instructed Sony, but to ban it outright is ridiculous. There are far worse things in many shapes and forms available in the UAE that are threatening to "Islamic" values, not a bloody fictional video game.


   Re: Aces In The Palm - 2008-04-18
 » technically

all religion is mythology
the greek religions are no different to todays
   by Pwner1 - 2008-04-16
 » Pirated copies?

There are pirate UMDs available? Or does this mean just ISOs on memory sticks?


   Re: mIKE999196 - 2008-04-17
 » Just ISOs

As far as I know there is no way to copy UMDs, making ISOs of UMDs is easy, i've copied all my UMDs to my memory stick because of the faster load times and decreased battery drain, took me all of a couple hours.
   by Stewies - 2008-04-17
 » & Brian

That's what I liked to know too that people are actually making pirated UMDs. However, they're most likely isos on memory devices cause how would you get your hands on UMD creating tools?

   by sickofitall - 2008-04-17
 » wow

I guess they have never played the first two GoWs. This content is nothing new and has been there since the first game.

   by your_fire - 2008-04-17
 » actually ...

Bahrain is more liberal than UAE ...god of war is not banned here

   by st4r5cr34m - 2008-04-18
 » tut tut.

This is so stupid. I have lived in Dubai for about 8 months now, and I have already bought most of the games that are banned here, from here. I bought CoD4 (which is banned here) a few days ago - from MALL OF THE EMIRATES!! Municipality should try an concentrate on getting rid of all the fake stuff from the Souks before trying to ban harmless video games.



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