Fortnite is in the spotlight in Indonesia –the world’s largest Muslim country as its tourism minister pushes to ban the massively popular online shooter game amid reports that a user-created map allows players to destroy the Kaaba, Islam’s most sacred site.
“In this game, I was told that there are icons that are considered to be similar to the Kaaba that must be destroyed to get new weapons and advance to the next level,” Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiaga Uno said in a statement to CNN Indonesia on Monday. He has instructed his staff to look into barring children from playing the game, the news outlet reported.
The YouTube video has caused a stir in the Islamic world, with Egypt’s Al-Azhar University in Cairo issuing a fatwa against the game last month.
Fortnite is played by an estimated 350 million gamers worldwide, many of them in Indonesia. “Banning the game is way too extreme, since Fortnite has a huge fan base in Indonesia,” one 25-year-old fan told Vice News on Wednesday. “There’s always a possibility that the objects in the game resemble a building or something … it would be better for the government to cross-check with the developer first.”
“If anyone is to blame, then it’s the creator who made it,” another player told Vice, adding that the government needed to do more research before deciding to ban anything.
The original article appeared in RT.
