Yesterday, the Church of England asked Sony for a large donation as well as a formal apology for supposedly using the interior of the Manchester Cathedral in the game Resistance: Fall of Man without their permission. Church leaders are set to meet today to discuss any further legal action that could be taken against Sony.
David Marshall, the cathedral’s spokesman (yeah I didn’t know they had those either), said they have received numerous emails in support of their complaint to Sony. These are most likely coming from Xbox and Nintendo fanboys, but that’s just my opinion.
Church officials are upset not only because the cathedral was used as a backdrop in Resistance, but also because of the game’s violent nature. Sony counters by saying that players are only killing fake creatures (Chimera) and not "real" human beings.
Manchester is known for having a serious gun problem, and portraying shootouts inside a sacred church is completely irresponsible on Sony’s part, according to church officials.
The church wants Sony to either remove that section of the game entirely, or remove the game from the market. (Right. How about turning lead into gold while we’re at it? — ed.)
Having done some research on my own, I can clearly see that Sony did use the Manchester Cathedral as part of the game. It appears in both the campaign mode and the online mode, and is a major part of the game. The question is why church officials just discovered this now, as the game has been on the market for more than 6 months now.
I guess we’ll all know what church officials are going to do after Sunday mass this week.
