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In brief, Church of England officials have condemned Sony for their game, Resistance: Fall of Man for featuring a level set in Manchester Cathedral.
They are especially angry about two specific things: the use of guns and violence considering the gun crime already rife in the area, and the fact that Sony didn't ask permission to use the setting.
Sony have pointed out (in a ‘brilliant’ PR move) that the game features aliens, not humans, as the enemies who you need to kill. But they have said that they’ll talk to the Church Leaders to work something out. They claim to have had the necessary permission, though.
Personally, my first reaction was that this was another chance for the media and ignorant people to have a go at violent games again. It stems from one mother’s complaint when she found her son playing the game in this well known landmark. However, the argument is more complicated. I don’t think the issue of encouraging gun crime itself is that relevant, it’s clearly a fantasy setting set in an alternate future.
What is worth talking about is the use of licence for a location such as this in a game. It raises the question of whether the content is important when seeking permission to use a building, landmark or even a town/city in your game. Should titles such as PGR4 be able to map out whole areas of London, where there is a (very thin) argument for them causing reckless driving? Would a puzzle game need permission to use the same cathedral if it depicted falling blocks of masonry which need to be saved? Or is it just this type of violent game that needs some sort of sign off before being set in the ‘real world’?
The other issue is religion. If it wasn’t a religious building in the game, would it matter so much? Is a game which finds the player holding a firefight in a church, synagogue or cathedral morally wrong? What about a supermarket or, perhaps even more controversially, a school? In other words, should programmers have a moral obligation to think about where they set violent games and the possible impact it would have on the player?
In the meantime, the church is calling for the game (which has already sold over a million copies) to be withdrawn or, at the least, altered to change the cathedral in to something else.
