The Church of Convenience. If history is correct didn't a fat pig of an English king create the C of E because the Catholic church wouldn't let him get a divorce? That's patently more offensive I would imagine.

imafurby,

That sounds exactly like something i would say. Are we twins separated at birth?

I certainly hope so.

"Church officials find the scene offensive where the main character enters the building and then proceeds to shoot at enemies, and has demanded both an apology and monetary compensation"

Hahaha, the church, the churh...what are you going to do do with the monetary compensation, give it to God for the emotional distress?, ITS A MFKN GAME!!!

And if the church produced a game in which a church collector went into a virtual sony office and sent their soul to satan for not putting anything in the collection tin would be welcomed with open arms ?

Sony did this for profit, the best way to hurt them is to reduce profit. They have done it before and they didnt learn and so its there own bloody minded fault.

All I'm saying is that a video game is nothing else but a virtual scenario of FANTASIES! people need to stop taking things too damn serious about video games, I get so fed up whenever I hear news about people getting offended by video games, about what is going on in them, now we have churches getting upset about it too? hahaha, come on man...and what exactly is this?..."the Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch called the scene 'beyond belief and highly irresponsible'", belief of what? responsible for what?

Well, I'm sorry...I just think its too much and ridiculous, now when I grow up I wanna be a plumber, jump around collecting coins on my way to save a princess and save the world!! I hope I don't offend all the plumbers in the world by that comment =p

Churches, as I recall, are public places. They can legally be used in any form of art or parody.

Sure, it may not be the most politically correct.

Of course, as far as I am concerned, the less PC, the better. People are way too easy to offend nowadays.

WE need a big sign on Ellis Island, "Welcome to America. You *will* be offended. Get used to it."

The point is they just blithly assumed they could take photo-realistic images of the Church and do what they liked.

Well tough ti*ty Sony, wrong, the Church of England is the 'Established Church' in the UK and that has serious legal ramifications, including legal protections.

You can't just do what you like.

.....and as has been said if this was photo-realistic images of Sony's property
(and wholly recognisable as Sony's property)
they would have been the 1st to leap into a courtroom as fast as possible.

They're a typical bunch of arrogant hypocrites; the Church roof funds etc etc across England will happily accept the massive donantion the judiciary are, hopefully, about to squeeze out of Sony for their crass stupidity.

Last I checked, churches were public property. Able to be used and reused in art, parody, you name it.

PC - you crack me up!

I think we should change the book in the Statue of Liberty's arms to read:

Give us your whiney, lazy, looking for a handout,huddled masses yearning to have life handed to them. The wretched dorks who don't realize how good they have it. Send these, the flotsam and jetsam, we'll leave a light on for them.

You got that right!!!

I'm sorry, its just wrong to see a church making a scandal like this, and ASKING FOR MONEY!! that's what I don't like about the whole thing! Everyone knows that games are made for profit and what's even worse, the church in the game is not even that church, it may look similar to it but its not even it...that'd be like someone suing a film company or game company for using a character that kinda looks like you, are you gonna go after them for that? anyway...I just see where things are wrong, morally =)

Maybe where you live but here the C of E is Crown property.

...ultimately all property is here in the UK, even freehold private property ultimately belongs technically to the Crown.

Bling bling! What an upstanding church. They're really grabb'n for those pockets.

Usually it's the lawyers that you have to worry about, now it's the churches too. What a sad age we live in.

Sony's no sweethart company, but now this church is stooping the ethical level that a parasite lawyer happy corporation would. I guess the only way the fight evil, is with lawyers...? wait... hmm... Perhaps turning hell upon it spells victory for the big G.

I'm sure this will get the Jesus seal of approval from the pope too.

'Course if it was anyone else using recognisable Sony property & images then Sony would have been so fast into court b****ing about the possible loss of reputation etc etc it would give you a nose bleed.

em, wtf are they thinking?? i guess that they are on crack, smoking marihuana and drinking vodka or Sake(sake is an alcoholic beverage made in japan)

If the Bishop was smart, he would have simply created a campaign to turn this to his advantage....something like

"Now that you've killed everyone,
come to the REAL church for forgiveness"

(grin)

Can Sony go a week without pissing off somebody?

"However, it added that the church was not necessarily meant to be the Church of England although the building in the game is quite similar to the historic structure."

The Church of England is not a building, it is the Church in England which the Queen is head of.....

Sony PR doing what they do best ...

Cant imagine why they are upset, Sony must be really suprised a church would be a bit miffed about this.

You'd think that Sony would have learned something from the "Passion of the Gamer' stunt in Italy a couple years ago. Apparently not.

The shock n sell tactic, can backfire. Glad it was the case with Sony. To say I dont like them is a understatement.