It's not like Sony hasn't been under fire from
outlets in America and
abroad before, but the latest quibble is coming from none other than the Church of England. Turns out that Sony reportedly took it upon itself to recreate the historic interior of Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man without first asking permission, and now there could be
hell heaven to pay. Currently, the Church has asked
Sony to "apologize and contribute a large donation from the game's profits as it did not pay a commercial fee to use the cathedral as a backdrop." Additionally, Sony could face two other demands -- one that requests the withdrawal of the game altogether, and the other to modify the section of the cathedral's interior. Notably, it's been no secret that certain sects of the
UK have been
dealing with rashes of gun crime, and while Sony hasn't succumbed to paying up or recalling all copies of the game just yet, it did say that it would "contact the cathedral authorities to understand their concerns in more detail."
posted June 10th 2007 8:16PM
church thinks should they have a say in everything. Now theyre trying to get a dollar.
I love that everyone here is backing sony and sees how stupid it is.
Just to split the atoms within hairs for fun:
Artistic depictions that are way more offensive than this have been defended.
I hope artists take issue with this, but show integrity by not demanding defamation damages from the church.
The church ends up turning on artists. That's philosophical infighting, there.
This is a fun can-o-worms. :)
I've never liked some of the church's commissioned depictions of Christ, if you want to go THAT far. Too violent a focus for such a peaceful man.
Then of course the end of the world prophecies. They've screwed up many a kid's outlook on humanity, and they claim absolute validity! Not sci-fi license over already past events.
Sony should apologise out of pure politeness, but refuse to back down on the principle of artistic freedom.
theyre claiming theres a shootout in the church when you have to kill 100s of people but i thought you mostly kill chimera and not people
@ thomas_malkin
The Church of England is not funded by the Tax Payer, The Queen is the head of the Church but has no say in where Tax Money goes. Some Churchs do get what are called "Heritage Grants" to maintain them, and from your post I woul guess you are from the USA so you would be unaware of what Heritage is due to the fact your country is so young and any group of people (ie Native American Indians) who would have had a heritage have been wiped out.
In all fairnes though to Sony I don't think they should have a problem, as long as the Church in the game is all computer generated and photos etc weren't used for textures the church doesn't have a leg to stand on. To be quite sinical about it I actually think this sounds a bit like a publicity stunt - there is no good or bad publicity, just publicity
"What's so holy about the Church of England Anyways? There's nothing but a long list of hypocrite church leaders and bloody massacres that have occurred because of them for over a millennium. The Church of Satan (England) can go to hell. - kompression"
Erm, you do realise the Church of England was founded in 1534? That's 473 years ago, which is less than half of a millennium... The CoE hasn't partaken in any religious bloody massacres that I can think of (and any smart arse that brings up stuff like Protestantism vs Catholicism should realise that violence was never sanctioned by either side) - if you're thinking of the Crusades, well that was done in the time of Catholicism...
By the way, I'm no religious at all, so don't put me down as some CoE supporter. For the record, I think they're a bunch of idiots.
well the game has been out how long? and the bishop only just got around to his outrage now? guess his appeal needs money or whatever then......
cynical i guess, but claiming off sony (the publisher not the developer natch) is ridiculous - encouraging gun crime? er no - the whole game is about saving england against alien invaders? it's not like even a wwII sime where you shoot nazis for christ sakes.....
besides one would have thought some publicity in-game would maybe stir up a bit of interest in his cathedral, it's not like the church is overflowing with worshippers these days.....which brings me to my final point: the majority in this country are non-religious, isn't it about time we stopped listening to self-righteous morons who seek to impose their pompous preachings on the rest of us under the basis of bad fiction, especially when it's generally these same people who abuse their positions to commit the self-same sins they preach against?
sony should just soak up the unexpected publicity and ignore this idiot.
Manchester Cathedral is a beautiful building, just a short walk away is a place called Hanging Ditch. I'm sure you can guess what they used to do there, Sony better watch out!
You never cease to amaze me engadget.
Deleting my comment just proves your as biased and racist as the next bunch.
(refers to a post that was deleted)
It went something along the lines of "Muslims complain about Mosques being blown up in a video game, they're not open minded. The Church complains and it's a whole field day because we're in an unjust world."
This is rediculas. I live i Manchester and this is on the news about how the Church is offended because this is inappropriate jut because there is some gun crime. I always thought that gangs carried pistols with dodgey barrels and sometimes sawn-off shot guns. Not post WW2 Carbine.
look past the ovbious. the church and the mediatorial shadows that work with the christian church have been paid by sony to get the game its advertising on tv, just like the hype about grand theft auto was all about. Also, a key things about the bbc news reports that aired this was the time is was aired, about 4-5pm when i remeber first seeing it, key time for kids to watch it and go out and by the game on the internet (as age restrctions mean nothing nowadays). They very obviously put the name and platform of the game up, showed the best bits of the game, and hyped up the hate. Just like the hype of hatred between christianty and marilyn manson is. Maybee in n over my head, but if im wrong, theres a side of it that is right. This is the best thing to ever happen for sonys PS3 so far (as the ps3 isnt doing well, this is what they want fools!)
Love wild bill
www.wildbillonline.co.uk
First of all, as one poster mentioned, if there were legitimate legal grounds for these demands, Insomniac Games--the developer--should have come under fire as much as Sony. That said, the publisher will always be the one who eventually takes the blunt of a controversy, and this can only hurt them and the video game industry in the eyes of non-'gamers' if it isn't handled properly. And Lord knows (ha), Sony knows how to mishandle PS3-related issues.
This isn't a case of copyright/patent infringement, but a symbolic desecration of a holy monument to those who recognize it as such--the same type of desecration we see recreated in film, television, and literature time and time again (which, I suspect, nothing is said about). There are two reasons there is even an issue being made about this: there is the most money to be had (video games > everything else but porn), and it comes from a place that has been made out to be the most vulnerable. The reason why there’s as much to-do about violence/sex/potential-moral-detriment in video games is because every time a Jack Thompson adds his argument to the tubful that stand perpetually raised against ‘video games,’ the industry remains an impersonal entity with nameless identities and faceless fans, and collectively takes its slap on the wrist so not to risk losing their ability to buy and sell games at Wal-Mart.
This is yet another chance for one of the big guns of the video game industry to stand up for itself as a form of media that's here to stay. Though, as we've seen in the past, video game figureheads are more than willing to take their punches, say their sorries, and go back to making entertainment without putting up the least bit of a fight as to whether or not their medium should be respected.
And that's why Roger Ebert remains right: video games aren't art. More like graffiti, their artists flee at the first sign of flashing lights.
Stupid fcking churches.... FCK OFF!