Water Cooler Games - Holy games

Holy games
August 5, 2005 - by Gonzalo Frasca

Wired reports from the Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland, Oregon. I find particularly interesting that the article is so concerned about the violence or lack of it in these Christian games. Why would Christian games need to be non-violent? Has anybody read the Bible lately? I mean, the book has tons of extremely violent content (God kills little children when he gets mad, remember?) Tons of violence on the book and none on the games? Come on! Certainly the Old Testament is more bloody than the New, but if you have seen Mel Gibson's opus it should not surprise you that there is a bit of violence in the New Testament, too. I am puzzled, really. The Bible is a fantastic book and, as such, a great source of inspiration for new creations, especially videogames. However, assuming that just because Christianity preaches peace the games have to be peaceful, that's a bit problematic to me, especially if you happen to have read their Holy Book.

Comments (8) | Post a Comment | TrackBack (0)

Comment from josh g. on August 5, 2005

Yeah, why doesn't someone make an Old Testament RTS? (It's gotta be at least five hundred thousand billion times better than a Left Behind one. Speaking with pure objectivity of course.)

Comment from D. Clarke on August 9, 2005

Perhaps because the Bible stories illustrate the consequence of violence which is not so fun and easily overlooked in games & history.

Even David who killed Goliath is call a "man of blood" by God because of how involved he was in the violence and he was not allowed to build a Temple because of it. No "Sim-Temple" building for him. Several "David & Goliath" games out there, not too many "David gets run out of town and almost killed by his son's army" or "David not allow to fulfill life long building dream" or "David loses illegitimate baby at birth" games out there.

… Today's warriors find children who are trained to be warriors in a culture of war too scary as well. The Bible has insulated the western world from that concept but many other cultures don’t see that our way. Do a search for today's "child warriors". “God kills little children…” you forgot what their life was like before a better way was shown. Those children were being burnt to their idols by their parents.

Romans kill Christ… representative democracy and senate doesn't insulate you from evil leaders.

Comment from Christiangamer on August 11, 2005

So if that is the case, then why not make a game based on peacefulness, rather than Christianity. Yes, the bible is a violent book. Lets not make a game based on Christianity then, lets make a game based on the main aspect that Christianity preaches, peace. There, that solves that problem.

Comment from Tim on August 23, 2005

Some of the current games available do have violence, others still present fun games without having it. See:
http://ChristianGamesNOW.com

Comment from Stephan Puff on May 8, 2006

The problem that half of Christianity believes the Bible is divinely revealed kind of throws out a consensus of what a Christian game would be. People should stop trying to label games or music with 'Christian.' It is not a genre. Were the early poets and writers Christian genre? No, but they wrote about God.

Since there is no consensus, then labeling a game ‘Christian’ is a self-presumption stamp that the person has done something great or a good marketing strategy to the people who love consuming religion and materialism.

Comment from gaylord on July 19, 2006

hey yall watsup
xx luv yall

Comment from gaylord on July 19, 2006

hey yall watsup
xx luv yall

Comment from gaylord on July 19, 2006

hey yall watsup
xx luv yall

POST A COMMENT

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

TRACKBACKS

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.watercoolergames.org/mt-tback.cgi/445

Links to weblogs that reference Holy games will be listed here.