CoE sez videogames are bad.

[Roger Godpleton]

The Church of England is upset because one of its cathedrals gets shot up in Resistance: Fall of Man.

I can see why they would object, but the stuff this bishop says about gun crime is utter crap.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6736809.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6736809.stm

[VampiraJen]

i've just had such a rant about this on gamespot.  in short, a load of wank.  the game is not anti the church or anti any work they do.  it is simply a setting for one of the levels (and one i rather liked)

but look on the bright side, sony, there's no such thing as bad publicity

[WoD]

That's what I thought...SONY must be rubbing their hands.

[Peter Wolf]

     I can only see his point about a church being  a sanctuary from guns etc but thats it.   Otherwise its a bit hypocritical as they dont make much noise about the wars that are going at the moment and the prime minister who says he goes to war because god told him it was the right thing to do.   anyway war doesnt discriminate about which buildings get hit.    Its a bit wierd that St.Pauls cathedarel never got hit in the blitz though.

[Steve Green]

Violence in Church aside, if they want the publicity, Sony should send the BBC some better footage rather than the dreadful stuff they're using at the moment.

It makes the PS3 look terrible.

- Steve

[Adrian Bamforth]

It would surely be naiive to not suspect that the patrons of the church wouldn't be offended by this, if they hadn't given permission, or if it was not made clear what use it's image would be put to. The Bishop doesn't say here that games make people violent in real life (it's others that say that), just that it's insulting that this real place should be made part of a shooting game.

Here's an interesting fact: You can't sell an image of the Eiffel Tower taken at night - because of the lighting design, its image is copyrighted.

[Floyd-the-k]

Does the game encourage people to have shoot-outs in  Mancunian cathedrals, as the Bishop says?  Does anyone here play the game and feel more inclined to shoot things in Manchester and its cathedrals?

[Keef Monkey]

If they manage to force the game to be withdrawn does this mean it's no longer possible to set anything violent in the real world in case the owners of the area involved take offence? Ridiculous.

[House of Usher]

Does anyone here play the game and feel more inclined to shoot things in Manchester and its cathedrals?

I don't even play the game, and I feel more inclined now to shoot up Manchester Cathedral than I did before, after seeing the Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch wining about unimportant stuff on BBC news last night.

Thanks to his efforts, my awareness of the game has increased by 100%, seeing as I hadn't even heard of it until he brought it to my attention.

[Adrian Bamforth]

"Does the game encourage people to have shoot-outs in Mancunian cathedrals, as the Bishop says?"

I don't know about any other interviews, but in that news report, the Bishop says:

'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.'

It doesn't have to mean it's encouraging people to copy it in real life, just that the game encourages people to do it in the game as part of the game (and how could it not if that's how you complete the game), which he's likely to find disrespectful since it's his job to protect the image of the church as a house of God. And games in which you kill for fun are unlikely to be hist cup of tea.