It's more like asking Playboy to scrub out a muslim prayer rug tattoo from a womans tit in one of the photos.

People want to escape to the witcher world when they play..Some don't want to see that stuff when they play...we don't even know if it was islamic pressure or others who just don't want to see mainstream religious symbols when they play.

This is what they said

17. Islamic–themed and similar textures have been deleted and/or replaced.

Thats it...nothing about Jihad or anything

They shouldn't have to remove anything in the name of religion, no matter how trivial. Anything else is groveling.

There's a 99% chance it wasn't intentionally a prayer rug, but just an artist choosing an eastern-themed pattern and unwittingly choosing one that's a prayer rug. If it's not there deliberately as some sort of artistic statement, and if it's just accidentally offending some people, and if it's the sort of thing that takes five minutes to fix, then why not change it? That's not a freedom of speech thing, that's just a common courtesy thing. Why antagonise your customers unnecessarily? I say good on them.

It would seem out of place in any case to have islamic symbols in a game set in a universe where abrahamic religions don't exist, and was worth changing just as a matter of artistic consistency of the gameworld.

Not sure why so many people are getting worked up on this issue. It's not like it is violating your rights or interfering your enjoyment in the game.

As has already been pointed out - they didn't have to, they wanted to, out of cultural respect (or as a design decision perhaps) You're over-exaggerating and blowing things out of proportion unnecessarily.

Rubbish. No-one's committing a sin themselves by watching fictional characters engage in potentially sinful activities. You seem to be generalizing "religion" with crazy fundamentalism.

So you are telling me Muslims shouldn't tell people what they can do and can't then you go ahead and say Muslims have no right to feel offended? you want to control their feelings ? the fact other religions get mocked all the time have no value to the issue and Muslims are not telling what others should or should not do, they just wont buy things that offend them or in terms you understand they "Vote with their dollar" which is something many none-Muslims people do.

Many atheists women are against the entire sexual stuff in the media, it's not only a religion issue, many strong women are against movies/games/marketing ads that always try to use women as a sexual tool to sell stuff or please men, most men are okay with it, but many women are not okay about that direction, i think religion matters are too complicated to be explained in here neither i came to discuss religion but to show my thoughts to CDP after their move, i can tell you though that archaven have no idea what is he talking about

So you give a crap about things you don't give a crap about, I'm sure your game experience will be more enjoyable with that mod XD

People need to relax and enjoy the game :)

I'm Scandinavian American, and quite offended by the liberal misuse of Nordic mythology in the game. Oh...and I'm a practicing Pagan.

*Response from CDPR* ..................

I hope you will get better reception then delegation in Blue Stripes HQ

I don't think this is the issue at all. I think CDPr wanted to illustrate a fantasy world in which modern religions do not exist. They erroneously included an object from one such religion. It conflicted with their artistic intentions and spoiled immersion for some people.

One may ascribe any intention to the developers in this matter that one wishes, as they have not specifically given a reason for this action. I think my interpretation is reasonable, based up their previously published background materials.

You're not really offended though, just pretending to be. :D

Right, as I said it could just have easily been a harmless design decision and had nothing at all to do with potentially "offending" anyone.

That is not what I said at all, I said they don't have a right not to be offended by others. IE, they can't tell people what not to do because it will offend them. Everyone has a right to feel offended, but we don't have the right to demand people not do anything which offends us.

For example many of the ideas in Muslims' religion are offensive to me - enough to say Islam itself is offensive to me, but I don't have the right to demand that it not be shown in any media because of this.

Actually you do have the right to say Islam is whatever you please and demand it to be removed from media/books/etc this is what freedom of speech is for and Muslims have the right to tell others not to offend them but the offenders still have the right to disagree and keep offending Muslims. (tip : Muslims never get offended by what others do, the reactions you see generally is the idea of dealing with someone who does not respect us as offending)

for example When xxxxx country made the whole cartoon thingy, most islamic countries demanded official apology or relationships will be cut, the president/prime minster of that xxxxxxx country said he wont apology because what the people did is protected by law under freedom of speech, muslim countries did boycott that country (because people were raged by dealing with those still who try to offend us at purpose, xxxx country economy turned into crap and they did apology then and freedom of speech was nothing but an idea that fell when reality was against it.

In usa for example hating on black people "saying crap about black people due their color not their persona just words not action" is not covered under freedom of speech, you can go to prison for it, try put a sign at your garden "i hate all black people" it will be pulled by the police and your freedom of speech will be useless, common sense people need to use that sometimes and deal with it as you put it

I have no problems Muslim playing the game.. for all i care the more the merrier. BUT WHY do we have to REMOVE game element to cater for those WHO ARE OFFENDED??

There ARE many who are offended by the sex and nudity in this game.. by that philosophy.. CDPR MUST REMOVE nudity in next patch?

There's a difference between using cultural/religious symbolism intentionally to get a certain vibe or concept across, and doing it accidentally in an inappropriate context because you weren't aware it was a cultural/religious symbol in the first place.

This was an accident, clearly inappropriate and could therefore easily be considered offensive, and it was very easy to fix. So they fixed it.

If, on the other hand, they used well known religious symbolism like crosses or crescents in temples and churches in the game, it's obviously intentional and intended to get the religious context across. Some people might still consider that offensive because the in-game religion is nothing like their own religion, but CDP would be unlikely to change it, because they knowingly did it for a specific reason.

Still, if they had put prayer rugs in a brothel on purpose, they could get in legal trouble for it. There are laws against the defamation of religious symbols in the EU. We're a bit less open than the US in that regard, and value the human right to dignity higher than free speech sometimes.