Cathedral row over Resistance: FOM

[mabo]

I think we have a contender for the most ridiculous gaming news story. Must be a slow news day.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=165667

Though it does make you think where the line between what games can and can't depict will be drawn. Can you use any real object/person in a game?

[Adcook]

"The Church of England is considering legal action against entertainment firm Sony for featuring Manchester Cathedral in a violent computer game. "

Just read this article on BBC.co.uk, bit over the top I thought, what about every one else?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...er/6736809.stm

[waring192]

haha, and most people agree that religion is the cause of most war

[Tony Hoyle]

Slow news day. *** RFOM is set all over the place. There's a London one too. Not to mention that the Manchester depiction bears only a passing resemblance to the actual city, and the cathederal is very generic and doesn't look like much like manchester cathederal at all.

It looks like ITV drummed up this one http://itn.co.uk/news/f25e0c0172bfa6...b20ec983f.html

I mean.. 'Manchester - a city plagued by gun violence which has left tens of youngsters dead.'

Sorry, what? I do volunteer work at nights there and not only is it not 'plagued by gun crime' it's almost unheard of in the city itself. Outside the city (in the 'manchester area' if you like) there are known trouble spots but even then it's not exactly 'plagued'.

It'd also be interesting to know what line the rev. was fed to come up with a quote like that... from what I know of him he's not the type to jump on bandwagons - so it's entirely possible RFOM was painted in the blackest possible light (eg. 'do you know there's a game where you get points for shooting people in a photorealisic image of manchester cathederal'? or something a bit more imaginative).

[coluigi]

Not that I'm worried by such an article as we all know controversy boosts sales I'll point out the following:

After the release of the first trailer, New York City officials were appalled with the choice of their city as the inspiration for the setting of Grand Theft Auto IV, and said that a game like GTA does not represent the city's crime levels accurately. A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg said "The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers". However, Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, accused New York City officials of hypocrisy, for criticizing video games but not other forms of entertainment, such as books, films and television shows, which use New York City as the setting.

People fear games a lot more than other mediums because they think that as we are interacting with the character we are more 'brainwashed'. The BBFC recently claimed that their classification scheme was outdated and too harsh on gaming. Like others they thought that as a game was interactive it had more sway over the user, however they recently discovered that because a user continually has to be putting input into a game they know that if they stop moving, the game stops moving, and that concept always seperates a gamer from the game. This makes games less invasive than films - we can easily stop the game by not giving input, however a film keeps on going and taking us along (we have no control over it).

So to criticise games over other mediums really annoys me. Violent games don't create violent actions in the real world. Exposure to violence in games can probably make a person more violent if they have it in them, but not moreso than a violent film or book (you can get away with anything in books.)

[monkeybayou]

I think that their reaction is a bit unconsidered. I'm actually in favour of enforcing ratings, and think that gaming has to get a bit more responsible about it's content (It doesn't make people shooters, but it doesn't exactly disway people from that if they are already inclined).

But the church seem to be speaking about this without having seen the game in question. R:FOM is not a hyper realistic gang shooting bloody game. And as for it's 'Manchester' setting (or 'Grimsby', 'Nottingham', et al) well that's laughable- the environments are cartoons of anywhere. I'd be surpised if the Manchester cathedral actually looked anything like the one in the game.

I worry about people who don't have the right understanding or morals to act in the right way in the real world. It is perfectly possible to teach people right from wrong and let them play games without the games confusing them.

[cobbler]

This was on the news this morning and it looks like sony refused to let them use footage from the game so the BBC just took a video of it off youtube. As you can imagine the quality was aweful, it looked worse than doom .... being played on a calculator. I like resistance fall of man and thought it was a little unfair to show such poor quality footage.

[RottenFox]

hmmmm church of england...middle ages right through to modern times..murder,torture etc..all in the name of religion..what hypocracy.
i do beleive the church have been responsible for a vast number of murders for centurys,and they have the nerve to bring this up..pff.

[dino2021]

Seems a bit late to be doing something about it now
Top and bottom of it is though, Sony should of got permission and didn't, but can't see them getting it pulled off shelves some how.

[Moogle]

I've merged these two threads together as they are both on the same topic.

[Simba]

totally pathetic. seems like anyone and everyone will try something to get in the media or sue someone for whatever ridiculous sum....

will be interesting to see how this ends

[small358786]

They should be glad,that was the first time I had been to Church (I know its a Cathedral) for years

[dino2021]

Originally Posted by Simba

totally pathetic. seems like anyone and everyone will try something to get in the media or sue someone for whatever ridiculous sum....

will be interesting to see how this ends

Personally I dont see what is pathetic about it, Sony should of got permission and didn't, its just a fact.

From what I have read the church is not asking for any money

[mabo]

I wonder what the law is regarding computational representations of buildings. I'm sure if it's a film then they have to get permission.

[dino2021]

Originally Posted by small358786

They should be glad,that was the first time I had been to Church (I know its a Cathedral) for years