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Church Threatens Legal Action Over Sony Game
An anonymous reader writes "The Church of England is threatening legal action against Sony over the game Resistance: Fall of Man. The game features a shootout in Manchester Cathedral, and the Church claims that Sony did not ask permission to use the interior of the Cathedral in the game. The Bishop of Manchester called the game 'highly irresponsible' due to the history of gun crime in the city. Sony denies the charge — a spokesman said 'We believe we have sought and received all permissions necessary for the creation of the game.'"
You mean horrible submission. It said "The bishop of Manchester has stated that violence shouldn't be associated with the church, a view which may come as a shock to history students and those who've actually read the bible." First, according to the article the bishop said he didn't like the association with guns and gun crime. And those aren't in the bible. That submission looks more like an excuse to bash the church, and has little to do with the article.
Erfurt, Germany, April 26, 2002: 19-year-old expelled student shoots and kills 13 teachers, two students and a police officer.
Ruzhou, China, November 26, 2004: Intruder stabs eight students to death and injured four others at a high school - the sixth such incident in China in four months.
Ruzhou, China, 2004: Man with a knife and homemade explosives attacks 28 children at a kindergarten.
Osaka, Japan, June 8, 2001: Intruder stabs 13 elementary school students and two teachers.
Carmen de Patagones, Argentina, September 28, 2004: 15-year-old boy fatally shoots three classmates and wounds five others.
Out of Cheese Error:
Please reboot universe
Well then Sony, how would Japan react if you included Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in your game?
Or a game mission involved the Yasukuni shrine?
Or the Golden Temple of Amritsar?
No wait, how about Resistance: Mission to Mecca? That'll be a good one to do. Think of the potential market in the Islamic world.
Going to do that in the next version?
Nah, didn't think so.
This is not about IP rights to the images of the building. This is not about freedom of expression for the game designers. This is not about the freedom of players being able to shoot the (virtual) shit out of alien nasties in whatever way seems most appropriate / effective / satisfying / amusing. This is not about censorship. This simply shows a sad lack or respect.
Sony's and the Developer's lack of respect.
A complete lack of respect for an entire religion is a step up.
Their rootkit fiasco only showed contempt for their customers.
Somehow I doubt that the Anglicans or Manchester citizens will be the only ones getting annoyed over this one. I suspect that this might be seized by the religious conservatives who don't like video games as something of a cause célèbre.
Nice work Sony.
Trying to associate Microsoft with "fun" is like trying to associate Satan with aromatherapy. -Tycho