Church Of England Smites Sony June 12, 2007
Read more Consoles , Games , PS3
Sony has been blasted from the pulpit this weekend by the Church of England, following the use of a virtual version of Manchester Cathedral in the million-selling PS3 game, Resistance: Fall of Man.
It seems there’s a been a bit of kerfuffle over the use of a house of worship for some serious human/alien blood-letting. The Church said gun-crime in the Manchester area is bad enough without the Cathedral being used as a back-drop to some sci-fi gunplay and is threatening court action.
It wants an apology [likely], a complete withdrawal of the game [highly unlikely] or a modification of the game [hmm, still unlikely], a sizeable donation from the profits to help with its youth programmes [more likely but not sizeable] and ongoing help by Sony in helping out the local youth [free PS3s and copies of Resistance: Fall of Man for all the hoodies, then].
Sony doesn’t want to go to court about this and is in talks with the Collared ones today regarding suitable penance.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
Comments
" And the Lord sayeth to the creature 'Yippie-ki-yay motherf*@k$r' "
this is pathetic it is obvious that the game is not reality! the church of england is just being petty and doing this for a substantial donation from sony. thay are reacting as if you are shooting real people in the church. THEY ARE ALIENS GET OVER IT CHURCH OF ENGLAND!
It raises an interesting point... do games companies have the right to use photo realistic copies of someone's building and use in a way that they diapprove of? I've shot policemen in THE GETAWAY in front of the gate of 10 Downing Street. Is that something they'd object to?
I've done a long posting on our blog today about the legal issues. Its at http://impact.freethcartwright.com/2007/06/church_of_engla.html
I was rather pissed off when i read this, as was my Dad who works for ELSPA(the games trade association) as he will now have to waste a load of time explaining to people how stupid this claim is- your shooting aliens, get over it. Its also 18 rated, you should be able to tell the difference between reality and a game by that point and plenty of other mediums like films etc. have used churches for the sences of carnage, not to mention Dr Who using it...
But there are a few interesting things- firstly no one else seems to remeber the nearly identical trouble we had a few years ago with the level of Hitman being set in the mosque... that seemed to die out pretty quickly.
Also every time the BBC or other news channels show footage of the game showing how life like the representation of the cathedral is they are just advertising the graphical power of the PS3 so Sony will probably milk this for all it is worth- any publicity is good publicity right?
They should do more of these photo realistic copies of real building for games:Specially holy sites, for added publicity.
Is it the game, or that it's set in a church that's the problem. If it was set in the Arndale centre this would have probably passed them by.
Can't remember who said it "Blasphemy is a victimless crime".
I really, really hope Richard Dawkins has something to say about these petty claims.
i do not see any reason! at all! why game designers do not have the rite to map ther games on real locations! its a game for god sake!! it makes the game easyer to relate to, and therefor makes them much more enjoyable, i think this is the stupidest thing i have ever heard!