I think the church is wrong, in that it doesn't have the right to stop the game...but I understand why they don't want to be associated with the game, and I don't think they're doing this for monetary reasons or anything.

This isn't about money and I'm surprised that people on here can't see why the church would be upset. Had the game featured a fictional Manchester church rather than a specific one then there wouldn't be an issue.

Had it been based in an actual school then there would have been an even bigger fuss and nobody would say it was about money. The fact is that the church see it as being in very poor taste because of what it means to them, not as a money spinner.

I'm not taking sides here, it just seems unsurprising that they're upset by this. And I don't think they want to ban violent games either so that hypocrits comment isn't really relevent, unless of course it was the bishop or whoever playing it.

oh hell, if their suing to take the church out of the game. their crazy. I thought it was about using their churchs intellectual property. If it's to take it out of the game, they have no legal right or ability to do so. The only thing they could do is sue sony for a % of profits from the game, for using the church in the game. That would be hard to win as well. And I'm talking in america, where it would be hard to win. In the UK. I dobut it is anything more than a small plea for ignorance.

Emotions aside, I think the interior of a building may be copyrightable. For example, what if Sony Home were to copy a Frank Lloyd Wright interior space exactly? Would that be legal?

'photo-realistic quality' sounds like a compliment

However what I don't get is that they say 'The game, which has sold more than one million copies'.... exactly! Why sue them now? After Sony has sold a load of copies now :S It's also been quite a while since the EU launch aswell.

However there was a case in the UK where a guy got expelled from school because he created some multiplayer (presumably?) map for a computer game that was based on his school so I'm not sure what the outcome is going to be. However it's really a double edges sword because this is only going to increase publicity, and like they say, any publicity is good publicity, which has been pretty true when other people have complained about video games.

FishyJoe - Only if they had the interior of the cathedral copyrighted, which I assume they don't.

It's a fictional piece of entertainment, and the church should embrace fiction, seeing at that is where it derives from.

I think people can safely assume that if they were to go into Manchester Cathedral that they are NOT going to get shot by Steelheads, slashed by Howlers or bitten by leapers.

Wow ...

I'm agnostic and it never fails to surprise me how biggoted and intolerant people are when it comes to the discussion of religion or religious organizations.

Wow, Sony and the Church in a legal fight. I hope they eat each other out to death.

PS: Nothing against religion here, remember we're talking about a Church, not christianity itself, which I respect.

Exactly.  Intolerance works both ways all the time.  Granted though, the Anglicans aren't helping themselves out by doing these wack types of things.

 That said,  the church has done a lot of wrong things in the name of christianity.  The ambivalence of the catholic church during the holocaust and the slavery period of the US both cfome to mind, as well as many of the christians intolerance for gay people.  I would want the church to start standing up for good, to be the moral leadership that america needs, but it has not done this in every case.  So, a lot of people are upset by these things and I can certainly see both sides.