As if they didn’t have enough problems with financial losses, now Sony has to contend with the Church of England. I don’t know about you but I never want to piss off an organization with God in their corner.
The dispute is over the popular (and by popular, I mean probably the best of the Playstation 3’s meager game lineup) title Resistance: Fall of Man which portrays Manchester Cathedral in detail. I’m sure this wouldn’t be a problem under normal circumstances or if the game happened to be Sims 2 or something but Resistance is a first person shooter…and quite a bit of, oh, shooting occurs on site at the cathedral in the game. Naturally, the Church of England isn’t pleased as they believe this is not only promoting violence but also that they did not give permission for the likeness of the cathedral to be used.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, described the decision to feature the city’s cathedral as “highly irresponsible” – especially in the light of Manchester’s history of gun crime.
“It is well known that Manchester has a gun crime problem,” he said.
Sony said they thought they asked for and received all the permission that they needed to make the game but the Church maintains that they were not asked and demanded that all copies of the game be removed and asked for an apology from the technology giant. I’m almost sure this is going to go to court and since both parties have plenty of cash, it might be a big one.
I don’t think any game let alone this one promotes gun violence in any way. Games aren’t reality and people should be smart enough to make the distinction. However, that being said, if Sony did indeed use the layout of the cathedral without permission, that’s just a stupid movie, not to mention disrespectful. I’m not saying that because it’s a church but hey, I’d be a little pissed if they modeled my house exactly, probably with me in it and a dude shooting me with a load of big guns.
…well, that might be after the “Holy crap! I’m in a video game!”
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