Defending Sony Against the Church Of England

Ian Bogost writes at Gamasutra about the (now quiet) controversy between Sony and the Church of England. You may recall the religious organization's objection to the use of the Manchester cathedral in Insomniac's alternate history WWII shooter Resistance. The result of this objection was a weak-kneed apology from Sony, and an attempt to push the whole thing under a rug. Bogost notes that never once did the company try to defend itself on artistic merit, simply capitulating to the objections of the church. That, he has decided, leaves the job up to him: "For my part, I think the cathedral creates one of the only significant experiences in the whole game, one steeped in reverence for the cathedral and the church, rather than desecration. Resistance is not a game richly imbued with wisdom. It's a first-person shooter, and it is a pretty good one. It's beautifully rendered, taking apparent advantage of the advanced graphical capabilities of the PlayStation 3. The game is very linear, both in its plot and the paths through each level, but that linearity allows it to focus the player on a smaller, more tightly crafted environment. Resistance takes up a common theme in science fiction: an ultimate test of humankind against the Other."

Uh, right.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

From TFA:

Absent the creators' own ability, interest, or resolve to defend the artistic merits of their creation, that task is now left to the critic.

Sony did something stupid - include a landmark owned by a church in a videogame of theirs without getting prior permission. If this church was to be included in a movie, you know that the studio would have to get permission, etc. So, Sony apologized for their stupidity, and moved on. This blogger has the "Al Sharpton" syndrome - take up a cause that very few people care about and act like it's the most important thing in the world. Good job.

Re:Uh, right.

[sqlrob]

Why do they have to get permission? For a movie where it's done on location, that's understandable. But if it's done completely through CGI?

SOE vs COE, next on WWE Smackdown!

[nobuddy]

two heavyweights of their genre (fantasy, magic, talking animals vs video games) stand toe to toe, and Sony pussies out instead of bringing the fight.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Manchester

[Kohath]

That was a good scene in Resistance. The cathedral and the hospital beds were a good counterpoint to the alien attackers. And the layout really worked to focus the action.

I'm not sure why anyone needs permission to copy something like that in a game or a movie. It's been there for a while now, so the design can't be copyrighted any more. The Church of England seemed to just want money.

Some people might have been "offended" by a shooting game in the church, but people who are "offended" need to be told their choice to take offense is theirs alone. If you start empowering people based on their choices to take offense or not, then they'll eventually have 100% total power over you.

Re:How hard is to make an alternate cathedral?

[PJ1216]

It's supposed to be alternate history, therefore it's supposed to take place in places that people will recognize. If you start making up things, it no longer is alternate history fiction, it's just plain fiction.

Imagine the Spider-man game based off the movie. If the Empire State building was something else, it wouldn't be New York. If Ellis Island was re-named and remodeled, it wouldn't be the same. It'd basically be Grand Theft Auto: Spider-man.

The reason the author is making a big deal about this is that Sony didn't set a great precedent. They didn't back down, but they didn't really stand up and fight and say, "Hey, we're right," when they were actually right. I think it's fine that the church was included and I think they had every right to include it.

Supporting unpopular companies against censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we're supposed to be all concerned for Sony (of recent rootkit fame) and defending them against criticism and wouldbe censorship by the Church of England how about we take a stand for another company we dislike as well? They need to be defended from criticism and censorship by Islam. Any takers?

Remember this from back in August? Capcom Removes Islamic Phrase From Wii Game [gamasutra.com]

If you read the linked article you might also notice that Kakuto Chojin back in 2003 got Microsoft in some hot water.

Here's a couple of links making reference to that:

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/kakutochojin/news.html?sid=6105587 [gamespot.com]
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/39309975/m/8700918055 [arstechnica.com]

Sticking up for companies we don't generally like when people try to censor them is a good thing, but lets remember to stick up for them in cases besides those where it is Christians trying to censor them.

Re:Uh, right.

[sesshomaru]

Ok, a lot of what I'm reading here is in terms of this being a legal defense. Well, it's not supposed to be a legal defense because Sony doesn't need a legal defense. They don't have to recall their game or give a percentage of the profits to the Church of England, and they won't have to. They "won" basically (Church of England didn't have a leg to stand on, so their was never any chance of them losing), but said they won't do it again for public releations reasons.

The article is an artistic defense of the game. How to explain. Okay, years ago, some German Expressionists decided to make a film version of Dracula called Nosferatu [wikipedia.org]. This film is considered to be one of the high points of Expressionist film making, a work of art.

However, the film makers made it without permission or compensation to Bram Stoker's widow, and she was within her legal rights to have every copy of the film destroyed. Which she tried to do. It is only because she was unsuccessful that copies survive to this day.

A defense of the film as a work of art might have been made not to the courts, but to Mrs. Stoker. An uninterested party could have made a critical judgement of the work and said, "I understand you were ripped off, but don't destroy the film. It is a powerful work of art. It would be a shame to rob the world of this."

Sony didn't make an artist defence of Resistance because they don't care about it as a work of art, only as a product in their catalog.