Now I’ve bashed the PS3 as much as anyone, but finally here we have something that Sony doesn’t deserve to be blamed for:
Cathedral row over computer game (BBC News, 9th June 2007)
The Church of England is considering legal action against entertainment firm Sony for featuring Manchester Cathedral in a violent Playstation computer game.
The Church says Sony did not obtain permission to use the interior in the war game Resistance: Fall of Man.
No, and nor should they have.
The game is an apparently flawed, war-based FPS set in an alternate (that is, not real) 1950s where what are either aliens or a biological experiment gone wrong are invading the West, spreading virally. Let’s emphasise that this is not real. Since your objective is to win the war, using ground-based resistance tactics, this of course means that you battle in real-world locations like churches, just like in every other war. That’s what war is.
And forgetting this context, they then make a very horrible comparison:
The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd 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.
“For a global manufacturer to re-create one of our great cathedrals with photo-realistic quality and then encourage people to have guns battles in the building is beyond belief and highly irresponsible.
For a start, Sony didn’t write Resistance – it was developed by Insomniac Games, the people who came up with Spyro the Dragon, and merely distributed by Sony on their console. Secondly, it’s from what I hear not actually a recreation of the cathedral – it’s a model whose outside look is based on it but internally is fairly different (unsurprisingly, as it’s being destroyed by the enemy when you turn up). And, most importantly, exactly what the hell has Manchester’s gun crime problem got to do with a fantasy game set in an alternate 1950s where you play a resistance member fighting a last-ditch battle against an alien invader?
If Resistance was the British-set equivalent of the 50 Cent game they might have a point, but it’s not and the press should be ashamed at this comparison. It is not encouraging street crime, it is fantasy. Churches are fine to be used offensively in all other media – only a few weeks ago, Doctor Who’s “Lazarus Experiment” episode featured a denouement set in a cathedral, and I didn’t hear any of this lot complaining then – so why not much the same thing in a game?
And besides, they don’t have a leg to stand on over the image issue anyway, legally; buildings are there. It would be like the New York tourism department raising hell because I put a destroyed Statue of Liberty in a counter-terrorism game which, as per Deus Ex, they didn’t do. Hell, it would be much the same as a church complaining about the type of church-based deathmatch level that’s turned up in pretty much every World War II FPS ever made (I played it a lot in one of the variants of Medal of Honour), but they don’t.
Note also that this game has been out since November – it was a PS3 launch title, and as a result sold well because amongst the launch titles only it and Motorstorm were in any way decent (they’ve now been joined by Oblivion, but that’s still pretty much it if you don’t count PS2 games) – and the controversy has only started now. Have the gutter press got tired of Big Brother already?
F L I C K E R I N G / F R A M E 
I’m finding the trackback post an interesting alternative view, so here’s my opinion on the use of the church:
For a start, the part of the game in which you turn up into the church (courtesy News 24’s video and kotaku) is a section in which you and your squad attempt to go to the church to hide out, not to fight in; churches have of course a long history of providing sanctuary, providing dramatic impetus. The church is then invaded by the crawler creatures that provide your enemy for most of the game and you are forced into defending yourself against them whilst escaping. This is not massacring your way through a helpless congregation (like, er, the end of the last Hitman game); it is self-defence.
But most importantly,
IT’S FICTION.
It isn’t happening. The game is not the real world. It is not even set in our world. It is not meant as an insult to the church (in comparison, the Muhammed cartoons were designed to specifically annoy Muslims everywhere, something they unfortunately succeeded in doing.) It is a game set in a dramatic location which is justifiable in the context of the game’s storyline. It is not a very good storyline, but at least it is an attempt at one.
[Note that Resistance is rated 15 – it’s not for kids, and can’t be bought by them. So those playing should hopefully have at least an adult understanding of the plotline.]
So yeah, I have no issue with its use at all; and I doubt most reasonable Christians would either, if they knew the full facts. Your opinions matter, though.
Since the Church seems to be using a dual arguemant at present I would like for it to clarify whether its stances is moreso due to copyright of defamation. If it is the latter, which the BBC report suggests, then a comparison to the cartoon affair would suggest the public are being very quiet. Whether or not the game intended to insult, which it did not, if it is found insulted and if the public supports this view, then this would be in stark contrast to the cartoons affair. Personally I think the chuch has a right to complain.
Hi Inquisitor,
Liked your comment about how Churches used to provide sanctuary to all in the past.
One historic example is of the East European monarchs being sheltered in an Austrian Church when their lands were invaded by the Mongols (13th or 14th Century?)