They can go ahead and condemn Sony, won't hurt them any.

everyday i find myself more and more overwhelmed by the sheer ignorance and stupidity of people

I mean, europeans are quick to criticize the US, but a situation this stupid could never happen here.

"Will he join me in condemning Sony for the publication of a new video game that depicts scenes of Manchester cathedral"

By new he means 6 mos ago, and who cares what building it is in. To any non anglican that cathedral is just interesting architecture.

I agree with Alejo, things like this just make me crease my forehead and gape at the monitor in disbelief.

"My right honourable Friend is right about the issue, and there has been totally unacceptable practice on Sony’s part. It has a moral duty to withdraw the game and make reparation to a Church charity, but it ought also to have some enlightened self-interest about the damage that it is doing to what was a reputable brand."

1. His right honourable friend is WRONG about the issue! There has been no unacceptablepractice on Sony's part. If there was a legal issue, this would already be in the courts or Sony would be admitting wrongdoing and be involved in damage limitation/reparation.

2. Sony does not have a moral duty to withdraw the game, nor to give any money to this opportunistic charity.

3. Sony is not the one doing damage to their reputable brand, the Church of England is damaging Sony's image with these ridiculous accusations. Sony weren't damaging their image when the game was released several months ago, the only damage has appeared when this silly money and headline grabbing accusation was levelled toward them.

If people don't approve of the game or it's content, then that's fine. You are free to complain/whinge/moan to anyone who will listen. You are not free to demand money or an apology just because you do not approve of someone elses creation or expression when it does not break any laws.

Still, at least Keith Vaz did not try and dredge up Manchester's gun crime problem in connection with the game. That has been the most irresponsible part of this whole debacle.

"Will he join me in condemning Sony for the publication of a NEW video game"

How long is new? Sony stand strong. Most smart people in the UK will stand by you, we are not all idiots, like the people complning about the game.

I think it's a double edged sword for Sony. If they fight back they look bad cause they are taking on the church AND THE ALMIGHTY G word....yo! But the longer they sit and wait, the worse this is going to get. And if they cave in to these ridiculous demands they look weak and it opens them up for more attacks from other people looking to cash in.

I'd rather not believe the church would stoop to extortion, but this seems to be the case. They are just fishing for the right amount of leverage.

It is more like a weak "stop, or we'll boycott your games!"

This gets more humorous to me each day. First they said they wanted money, now they want a donation?
I bet you its all pocket money for them in the end or they spend hours squabbling over who gets the bigger share for making the most noise.

I wish Sony wouldn't respond to them anymore and not take them seriously. They are just trying to get their names on the newspaper now. It be more refreshing to see "CoE actually helps several people by providing food and shelter" rather than some "CoE attempting to remove game from shelves."

Keith Vaz:

The single greatest reason to have term limits in British Parliament (and by extension, most legislatures).

'I mean, europeans are quick to criticize the US, but a situation this stupid could never happen here.'

Yeah, because the Rainbow 6 thing with Vegas never happened :)

http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/323342.html

Of course politicians are going to side with the church. They don't want to make older voters angry - the most traditional, conservative voters - and video games are trendy to pick on.

This is only being done to make themselves (the politicians) look like they're standing up for something. Bloody hypocrites.

Whats next? The Vatican demanding that Angels and Demons is pulled from books stores and requesting money from Dan Brom because he wrote a book about a nuclear device placed on holy ground?

@Sidewinder

Hmm well there goes that idea for a war ending with massive nuclear devices being detonated over the Vatican, Jerusalem, Mecca , and Medina and leaving the earth in burning ruin.

God that would be a fun shit storm to deal with.

In addition, we also work better together than most other groups, at least based on my time on WoW and Anarchy. We recognize the necessity of "playing together," which is more than we can say for Bush and his administration ...

annnd, I'll stop rambling now.

I really can't speak to the English laws, but in the States this wouldn't be an issue for a few reasons. First, the church in question may be a privately owned building but it is freely open to the public and therefore they do not have any expectation of privacy. Sony and the game designers are free to take pictures to their heart's content.

Second, they're trying to go after Sony using the precedent of how they deal with film crews but any reasonable person can see that there are major differences. It could (and likely will) be argued that the payment given by a film crew is done as a means of compensation for having temporary exclusive use of the location during the shoot. The developers didn't do that. The "shoot" so to speak was done off location and without disturbing the church in any way.

Sony created a derivative work based on the cathedral and if the CoE is going to go after Sony for that then they need to go after anyone who takes or paints pictures of the church. You can't just pick and choose who you go after - you either go after everyone or you go after no one. It's been six months - if the CoE didn't realize that they were offended and that their copyright was being violated by a piece of widely distributed pop culture for a six month period then they're not performing their own due diligence in maintaining the copyright.

My gut says this, though: It's not their church. Something like that is a cultural landmark and the rights associated with it are not the same as a truly private building. If somebody recreated my apartment for use in a game then I would have a valid reason to go after them, but if my apartment was open to all comers and considered a DC landmark then I couldn't go after someone who used it in a game set in DC.

Must be a slow day in Parliament.

Can someone please make a game where I can blow up churches? It would be really great if it was a game all about undermining religion.

I feel sorry for all of you UK'rs out there.. This is not only making this church look really stupid, but the rest of you too. No offense meant, but this scape-goating propaganda enforcing BS is getting really bad.

Not that most people don't think that religion has become quite retarded as it is.. but this is just pure greed right now. There's nothing for the church to gain here but money and I assume that because the church has tax-exempt status for being a church that they don't necessarily need all that much money. I'd assume they'd buy a new rug or something and the rest of the money would conveniently disappear into the pockets of the clergy therein... or robes.. or what ever the hell they wear.

The thing that gets me, though, is that these people can't possibly be going home at night and think what they've done that day is a logical and well meaning. I can't even understand the logic of them considering all games "extremely violent and sexually explicit!" but that's something else entirely.
Fact of the matter is, right now CoE and british parliment are trying to pick a fight with a game they know nothing about. I can only assume they think it's a GTA clone where you go around and defile famous churches.

Its funny that these folks totally disgrad the context the church was used in. In the game its been converted into a makeshift field hospital. When the chimera roll in and start slaughtering everyone from the wounded to the non-injured it was just a plot device to show that the chimera are totally devoid of compassion. Me thinks that many of these politicians who are so concerned about this issue have never actually seen said stage, and are just operating on the "OMG gunz in the church".

Every time I hear about "morals" coming from a politician, something rings in my brain saying "false morality". They are quick to condemn others, while they themselves engage in things that are imoral without hesitation.

About this mess, there are two things:
1) The church officials are complaining because they want cold, hard CASH. And to get it, they scream about morals.

2) I always knew what this battle against video games is all about. Religious zealots want them banned because children prefer to play than to go to boring rituals in churches. So if the games don't exist anymore, children have more time to go to church. At least I get this much from the statement "We are fighting for the minds of our children". Not to save their minds, but to OWN their minds. It's so stupid that it borders on the insane.

Oh fer cryin' out loud...

Why is it that politicians focus on nonexistant problems instead of genuine ones? Hey Parliament, you're worried about the kids? You've got a missing four-year-old girl in freaking Portugal! Worry about that!

Heh, good job the RIAA don't hear about this, you'll have to start paying just to look at photographs of famous people if this line of thinking continues.

@ Timmay!:

I think what pix is saying is that it would have been a good gesture for Sony to have asked the CoE first, however there was no obligation to do so.

In all honesty if Sony, or anyone for that matter, was obligated to get the CoE's permission then official action would have already been taken. It wouldn't be this, "Oh we don't like it and we're a Church! A Church, for Christ's sake! Give us reper... donations and you'll be good with the big guy." Rather, it would be, "This is our lawyer, Mr. Yousoscrewed. He'll be in touch."

If the British Parliament shortsightedly decides to make a law that would somehow retroactively force Sony to do anything then that same law would have a massive chilling effect on art throughout the UK. Everybody involved knows this and all you're hearing now is, to quote another famous Brit, "sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Sony have said sorry -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6758381.stm

@IanC

yea they "apologized" but it really was kinda a back handed apology, they basically said that they were sorry that the church was upset they they got confused between the real church of the 21st century, and the 1950's era church that is being besieged by aliens

The Church of England is not Catholic.

Regardless of which church it is, the notion that Sony owes them any form of restitution is laughable at best. Organized religion is just another name for organized crime. Hell, just look at the founder of the C of E as an example. Ol' Hank the 8th didn't have any problems lopping off heads and torturing and killing people routinely. If anything, the church has set the precedent here, and we're only talking about fictional violence in a video-game.

The various churches out there are amongst the most powerful corporations on the planet. They don't pay taxes. They still own vast amounts of land, have vast amounts of wealth in cash, art assets, etc. and they still sucker in people for more. Comparitively, Sony look like angels in this respect.

So let me get this straight because you are in a church you are not allowed to kill things, even if they have guns and are attemptuing to murder you and your buddies? Under that logic if I started shooting people in a church it would be declared obscene for them to try to shoot/kill me back? Rockstar take note of this while you're making GTA4.

Update on MSN that Sony sent a letter to the CoE. Stating that they apologize for offending anyone for their 'REPRESENTATION' of a building. They invited these people to show them the context of the game, that's already been out for some months.

1) The Church of England is not Catholic. Yes this is an important distinction. Blaming the Catholic Church for what the Church of England does would be like blaming Nintendo for developing GTA. It completely misplaces the blame, and makes you look like an ignorant fool.

2) Sony is entirely in the right in this. The most they owe is what they've already given. A "Sorry, we did not intend to offend".

3) Three, having never played the game, I can see why they decided to use the Cathedral, and why it's absurd that Sony is being irresponsible.

It's set half a century ago in a post-apocalyptic type scenario. Sony clearly wanted to use a national landmark as setting for a battle to help highlight the collapse of civilization. The Cathedral works well for this, as if it becomes a battle ground then you know things are really going down the tubes.

The enemy is alien creatures, not humans. One does not think of the Alien movies, or Independence Day to name a couple of examples, as encouraging people to have gun battles with each other. These are no different from this game in that respect. To say that military men of half a century ago defending themselves from aliens in the Cathedral in a fictional story encourages Manchester youths of today to battle one another in the Cathedral just defies all logic.

4) My personal guess as to what happened, is someone whose knowledge of video games extended solely to the outcry about games like GTA and Manhunt learned that Resistance included a battle inside the Cathedral. They then proceeded to assume that it was a gang shoot out set in a contemporary time. Outraged that the church would be used as a setting in a game encouraging gang violence, they decided to make Sony pay. Once the die was cast, they could not admit to jumping to foolish conclusions or not doing research, leaving them only with the choice of pressing ahead.

Kudos to Sony for the terminology they used in their statement: "We believe a comprehensive viewing of the work will make its content and context clear."

It's important to challenge the notion that games are just mindless entertainment and that can be done most effectively through careful use of language.

This reminds me of when Nintendo was sued by Universal Pictures in 1982 over their use of the word "Kong" in the title of "Donkey Kong". Nintendo won that case just like Sony will win this one. It's more sensationalized because it's a church, but it's a ludicrous case just the same. BTW, I never knew that Manchester Cathedral consider itself "a brand". I look forward to seeing Manchester Cathedral watches, polo shirts, and handbags any time now.

The Shieve
better to take games a little seriously than to have the old men of the world route it and make sure all mature games are "hidden to the public" and all teen games scrutinized to the point of being made into E for all games.

Funny that all this happens only now a "real" church appears in a game in combination with violence.

No one complained much in the past:

"Virtual" churches have been combined with disturbing and violent acts in games for years now:

Sanitarium visits a church filled with dessicated corpses in one of the first levels.

Undying features a haunted chapel with dripping blood.

Call of Chuthulu has a violently desecrated church complete with crucified corpse of a priest/vicar above the pulpit.

The church in the Rickenbacker of System Shock2 features corpses and killer cyborgs AND the cross is inverted because the level is upside down.

Deus Ex has a gunfight with Gunter in a church in Paris in which gunter can explode in a shower of blood and, if you wish you can slaughter all the people in that church with any weapon of your choosing.

And there are probably more examples out there.


Only now, when a real church is used and there is a possibility of monetary compensation they all start screaming.

Morality = Money?

Wait, wasn't there a mock-up of the Church of Manchester used in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, in which Kevin Costner's character spills blood? Last I checked no one cared about stuff like that. If you don't care when live actors do supposedly heretical stuff inside mock-ups of churches, why give a crap about virtual mock-ups?

Hell, there's been violence in churches in both movies and video games for years. In Fallout 2 you could murder a bunch of religious people inside their chosen temples, be they churches or otherwise.

@ Barakku
Why would they go after Insomniac? Sony can write bigger checks.

What I'm wondering is: Why wasn't the church all pissed off when the game FIRST CAME OUT? They had to wait 8 months after the game's release to start complaining? Couldn't they have talked to Sony earlier than now?

Honestly, it seems a little odd that it took this long for them to "take notice"...

It sounds like the PROTESTANT CHURCH is trying to garnish money for nothing.

This is complete and utter bullshit; Sony owes them no apology.
Did the makers of Call of Duty or any of the other thousands of World War II games ask permission to use the towns, churches, etc. as sites for in-game combat? No.

[...] June 15: Sony is condemned in discussions in the British Parliament. Labour MP Keith Vaz makes the outrageous demand that all copies of Resistance: Fall of Man be recalled and a payment be made to the Church. [...]