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Indiana mother finds Islamic message in DS game Baby Pals

Islamophobia, anyone?

Indiana mother finds Islamic message in DS game Baby Pals
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| Baby Pals

Video games have been accused of a lot of things in their time, but this is a new one. It seems that Baby Pals, an infant rearing sim from Crave Games, is trying to convert your child (let’s face it, your daughter) to Islam.

This is the complaint being made by Indiana mother Rachel Jones, whose daughter heard the words, “Islam is the light,” whilst bathing her virtual child.

As far as we know, Crave Entertainment has no ties with radical Islam, but it may be that the developer took part of the game’s audio from Fisher Price’s Cuddle & Coo doll, which also stands accused of delivering religious propaganda, and indeed was expelled from Ms Jones’s home just months before the Baby Pals incident on those grounds.

According to WTNH, Ms Jones is angry at having had to take the toys away from her children.

"Not just my daughters' toys, but we have a son, too," she said. "Now I feel like I need to listen to all of his little toys to make sure they're not saying it."

Of course, when you summon a picture in your mind of a woman frenziedly listening to all of her children’s toys for Islamic propaganda suspicions are bound to arise. Is this woman all there?

Matel seems to think not, with regards to the doll at least. After the message was first reported by a group of concerned ‘anti jihadist’ parents calling itself Moms Ask Mattel for Accountability (MAMA), Matel denied outright that such a message exists.

And if Baby Pals doesn’t contain the same audio samples as the Cuddle & Coo doll, the chances of a Muslim exclamation – not, note, a particularly ‘jihadist one’ – sneaking into both are pathetically small.

Game Culture

Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.