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Digital Praise Takes Up Christian Gaming Cause
Thanks to GameSpot for its article discussing the formation of a new Christian videogame developer, Digital Praise, formed to create a "planned line of non-offensive games." CEO Tom Bean notes: "Digital Praise is founded on the principle that fun, exciting computer games don't need to be flooded with violence, sex, hate or images of horror", and the company's official press release discusses "development on two games based on the Adventures in Odyssey radio theater series", arguing: "As long as new game titles are top quality - offering exciting game play and high production value - we believe that interactive Christian games will skyrocket in popularity much like Christian music did 15 years ago."
"As long as new game titles are top quality - offering exciting game play and high production value - we believe that interactive Christian games will skyrocket in popularity much like Christian music did 15 years ago."
Well, if that is their baseline for success -- we can only hope.
-- The Great Satan, Dark Lord Of The Underworld
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!"
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
From the press release:
:p
"Digital Praise is committed to releasing fun, exciting game titles that promote virtues and family values like forgiveness, tolerance and kindness, rather than the violent and sexual behavior that is the mainstay of most popular computer games today."
This single sentence implies two things:
- most games today actively promote violent and/or sexual behaviour;
- any kind of violent and sexual behaviour is a bad thing.
Starting with the second point, I think that we can all agree that this is utter nonsense. Violence and sexual behaviour are facts of life, and are two of the things which most actively define ourselves and our surroundings. Apparently it refers to the 'turning the other cheek', and the 'no sex before marriage/sex is solely for reproductive purposes' parts of fundamentalistic Christian beliefs.
Moving on, I'm guessing that even a game like the Sims is considered to be offensive by certain people. FPSs are violent by nature, but it would be ridiculous to state that the violence in this type of games promotes more violence (looking at the crime statistics for the US, the number of crimes committed since the introduction of Doom in the early '90s has sharply decreased, and never can a criminal act be directly attributed to a game).
Besides, there are already plenty of games which are totally PC and 'lots of fun'. They're called children's games
Anyway, those smug, fundamentalistic Christian types never seem to change, so this press release isn't exactly news, or even mildly shocking. With a couple of minor adaptations you could turn it into a press release regarding Christian music.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
I totally agree. Hangman, anyone?
Strawman detected.
In an average TV crime show, the hero of the plot kills one person per episode. An average New York police officer draws their gun about twice in their working lifetime. An average FPS player kills several opponents per minute.
What they're looking for is a game which is closer to Real Life, both less traumatising/anaesthetising for the player (however small the doses of trauma are) and better training for Real Life.
Children's games don't fulfil that aim because they are too simple.
I notice that you don't directly address your first point. Meanwhile...
Not. To be precise (AFAIK) all that you can make a valid claim for is "existing FPS implementations are all violent", and this represents a poverty of imagination, not a natural feature of the genre.Does a paintball FPS exist - where the objective is to tag opponents rather than killing them, or perhaps paint them with enough of your team's colour to initiate them into your side? If not, maybe it should. How about an FPS where the objective is to stick radio tags to wildlife? How about an "orbital debris hunter" FPS? How about a waldo FPS, where you're working on mechanical stuff in high orbit (or maybe you're in a ship orbiting a planet that needs terraforming), and there's a couple of seconds of lag in the feedback loop, maybe even a slowly-varying few seconds? Much harder to master than Quake, and much easier to set up for a meaningful ranking system.
Any of these can be intricate and exhilarating, and there's absolutely no need for them to be nasty or gory. How about a baseball FP[BatterPitcherFieldsman]? How about a first-person run in a fibreglass suit to emplace sensors in and/or collect samples from an actively erupting volcano?
The problem is your viewpoint. It's not an honest one, it's only an excuse to run people down from faux philosophical high ground. If your aim is to convert Christians to your own (short-sighted) way of thinking, you should be pushing this for all it's worth, as a foot-in-the-door way of weaning Christians onto more violent games. But no, you're too busy looking for immediate peer-group approval instead, so you're not. News flash! There is more to life!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The words "niche market" come to mind. They are obviously targeting a very specific audience: people who want to play games, but who want to feel safe and moral while doing so.
I would posit that the vast majority of us who play games with violent or sexual content do so for the following reasons:
1. They're fun.
2. Normal, being a relative term, people can't do the things in meat space that they can do in computer games. They like that. They feel free. They get to step outside the boundaries for a bit.
3. Fragging helps to release tension. Sure, you would really like to go after Phil at the office with a rail gun, because he fucked up again and really made you angry. Go splatter some bots instead. You won't end up in either the electric chair or strapped to a gurney with a needle in your arm that is about to deliver to your bloodstream some chemicals of a very dubious and harmful nature.
4. A lot of geeks, nerds, dweebs, dorks, and whatever term you choose were kicked around a lot when they were younger. Violent games are a way for them to kick back in a manner that, while cathartic, is not harmful to others.
I suppose most of these points are intertwined.
There are already a great deal of fun games available that are non-violent, non-sexual, and non-Christian. I submit, for example, games like Enigmo, Text Twist, the wiley veteran Tetris, UpLink, etc. These are but a few examples.
I think that this company is merely using the tired argument that violent games lead to violent behavior. If anything, I would argue the opposite. I, for one, have become so jaded by violence in the news that I really don't care anymore. Some more soldiers exploded in Iraq again today. Some more Jews killed some more Palestinians. Some more Palestinians killed some more Jews. I've heard and read it so many times that I don't even care anymore.
This company just wants to offer alternatives that disseminate Christian values, which, I think, is not necessarily wrong. More power to them. However, I do believe that their market share will be rather slim and limited to Christian fundamentalists.
SiO2
Calling horror and violence something foreign to the church seems a little off kilter- anyone remember the crusades?
Making the moon less necessary since 1998.
Here are a bunch of people who are saying we don't like the current crop of games for a number of reasons. So instead of protesting and trying to make it so that others can't play they are going to make their own games. In a free country this is exactly what people should do. One of the points of free software is that people can take it and make it better, for whatever value of better they happen to want. Even if its something that is totally un insteresting to you and me.
If these folks want to make their games power to them. Remember in the USA fundemtalist christains are a very large number of people.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It is a shame that it takes a group as descredited as any religious organization (don't start me on this one, just my opinion OK?) to tackle excesive violence and demeaning or exploitatve sex stereotypes.
I, being a non religious person, am sick and tired of games whose only aim is to brutalize as many characters as possible in the worst possible way.
I think game designers have a moral responsibility towards society, specially having in mind that many of their "customers" are impressionable young persons, I am not saying that there should not be ultraviolent, sexually explicit or politically incorrect games, the point I am trying to make is that game developpers seem to think that without at least one of the above they can't sell.
It is a testament to how wrong they are how Tetris, Pac Man, Myst, SimCity and other games like thes are perhaps the most successful in all time,
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
All of that being said, I don't really like they way this company seems to be headed. Christian music has become to popular, to the point it is often difficult to tell the difference between sacred and secular. It is my entrenched belief that once you cannot see the line anymore, it isn't there. Christian games should strive be the best out there, not the most popular. Christians these days often lose sight of it not being about money. You do what you are called to do, not because it is easy or popular but because you were called. You needs will be met, and by that I don't mean your need to drive a Lexus and live in a 3000+ sq. ft home. (unless of course it is a generational home or something similar).
Christian games can be fun, exciting challenging etc. All to often, however, they are cheesy, shoddily made, or quite droll. The Christian life isn't some go stick your head in the sand way of living (though again some have made it that). People forget that it is a Christian world view that shaped Tolkien's works and yet I would argue that there are a fair number of
In any case I will leave you with the following quote ascribed to CS Lewis regarding one of the many conversations he and JRR Tolkien had on issues of myth, storytelling and its effects"
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
So the games won't be based on bible stories then?
Free as in mason.
FYI, 'Mohammedan' is a potentially offensive term. It implies that the followers of Islam worship Mohammed, just as Christians worship Christ. Moslems worship Allah; Mohammed is His prophet.
Granted, there are those who would argue your callous word choice was the least offensive portion of your post.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
Abracadabra, Aramaic for "I create as I speak" is heavily paralleled in the Bible. The term you're probably looking for is "hocus pocus", a corruption of "Hoc est corpus meum", the Latin uttered at the climax of a Mass when the priest purports to compress God (presumably a copy) into a wafer.
In another interesting pierce of irony, the cross is actually a symbol of Tammuz, the sun god. The cross-with-halo is an exact replica of the rising sun with atmospheric "lens effects". Christ was crucified on the symbol of His arch enemy. Mutating the solar disk into a crown of thorns in order to get away from the pagan implications is spectacularly ironic.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The largest "Christian" denomination in the world demands first loyalty to the head of a small European state.
Catholics are Christians; in fact, they're the authentic Christians. Christ said that He'd found His Church on the rock of Peter (it was Jesus who gave Simon the name Peter/Kepha, or "rock", in the first place). See Matthew 16:18-19. Note that Jesus says this in response to the Father communicating to Peter the truth concerning the identity of Jesus.
The above passage also mentions the keys given to Peter, which express Peter's role as Christ's steward on earth (compare Isaiah 22:22). John 21:15-17 also refers to this role: the Good Shepherd places the care of His sheep in the hands of His steward Peter, in preparation for His departure from the world.
Also, Jesus prayed that the faith of the Apostles would be preserved by Peter. (Luke 22:31-32) Why didn't He pray for all the Apostles instead of just Peter? Because it was part of the role Jesus intended for Peter.
So if you want to conform to Christ, then you should accept the steward He has given you: the Pope, successor of Peter.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Based on this quote from the article --
"Digital Praise is founded on the principle that fun, exciting computer games don't need to be flooded with violence, sex, hate or images of horror," said Bean."
We won't have the following titles show up any time soon.
The Adventures of Jephthah
Punish the Midianites
The trial and execution of Jesus
Inquisition - Heretics
Inquisition II - Torquemada's Rack
Fantasy and superstition should be used for entertainment purposes only.
It'd be nice to see people try and keep an open mind about games like these instead of just immediately writing them off with "Oh, a God game. It'll suck."
Compare a previous rather similar Slashdot story:
Recruit More Women Developers, Attract Women Gamers?
Quotes: "Half of the population isn't having input into what's being created... And the one thing that I learned is that people make games they like to play. Having a diverse opinion helps games"
Contrast with: "Digital Praise Takes Up Christian Gaming Cause" (that's this story)
Quotes: "those smug, fundamentalistic Christian types never seem to change"
Read the various comments on both articles.
Sure they're not about the same thing. But it sure is enlightening if you really think about it.
Taken from here.
Bart: When I'm feeling low, you know what cheers me up?
Rod: Kindness?
Bart: Oooh, tough room. Video games! Whaddyagot?
(He reaches to the bookshelf and picks up a copy of "Billy Graham's Bible Blasters," and they begin to play.)
Rod: Keep firing! Convert the heathens!
(A series of "heathens" crosses the video screen as a "Bible gun" fires Bibles at them. When a "heathen" is hit, he turns into a conservatively dressed man with a halo.)
Bart: Got him!
Rod: No, you just winged him and made him a Unitarian.
Todd: Look out, Bart! A gentle Baha'i!
(Bart zaps the Baha'i, turning him into another suit with a halo).
Bart: All right! Full conversion!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Historically accurate Crusades perhaps.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
In the realm of video games, christian video games have been lacking. There have been a couple doom off shoots and other miscellaneous games that have fallen short of being anything quality. One possible reason is because these company are not doing it out of a want to spread "the gospel". But they are also capitalist trying to make a quick dollar. If they can sell a game that does require almost any time for programming the game and market merely as a "christian" game. Some mom is going to see it on the shelf and say "Its christian, it will be a good alternative to my little boy that like to play games that blow up things." This is as far as the game producers would care. Once the product is bought the lack of quality is no longer a problem. A game should not merely be looked down because it holds the title "christian" but because it is coming froma capitalistic society that it marketing on its christian label. If this company can produce quality games that have a christian influence it might change the tide of previous crappy programming. And in defence of christian about the previously mentioned crusades. These are obvious black marks on christian history. But the inquistion and the crusades had little to do with what the bible actually said. No where in the bible does it say anything about harming anyone or forcing anyone to believe in anything. The crusades where not based on christian morals. Simply Christianity is not at fault for the actions of people claiming to be Christians. Churches have been filled and will be filled with people who claim to be christians but really aren't.
No one would pick up that case here in Canada either. You say it's a Christian school so I'm assuming it's not a public one. Private organizations can set their own policies regarding hiring and membership. That's why the Boy Scouts don't have to accept homosexual members for example.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
(In the style of Zork)
You are in a brightly lit room.
You are likely to be blessed by a Grue
(In the style of Zero Wing)
How art thou?
All thine church are belong to us.
You have no chance to resurrect, make thine prayers.
(In the style of Mortal Kombat)
After performing a fatality, your opponent comes back to life 3 rounds later.
(In the style of Dance Dance Revolution)
(to a chant with a techno beat)
KNEEL, PRAY, GENUFLECT, HAIL MARY, NOVENA, NOVENA, GENUFLECT, KNEEL...
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
I am not religous at all, but I would love to see some different themed games. For one, I think the adventure game genera would fit in with their goals nicely. With some good animators drawing some really nice 2d artwork, it could make for a fun game. They could theme it a bible setting, or the garden of eden, or even do a modern story with someone finding faith through some adventures. I don't mind what the message is behind the game as long as it's well written and nicely animated.
Maybe they could invent some sort of sim game where you run a church and have to deal with the same types of things that most church administors have to deal with. That could be interesting, letting you build and expand the church, while trying to run programs that increase the amount of worshipers coming in. You could try to generate aditional income by using different donation collection methods all the way to installing a cell phone tower in your steeple for 12,000 a month. Throw in some events, such as weddings and funerals, and you've got an interesting game.
This could be interesting, but I know it will result in some people making crappy games trying to make a few bucks by using the term "christian" in the title and marketing it as the safest video games EVER for concerd parents.
I was wondering the same thing, and read most of the books (up through half of the fifth).
The main distinction between the two was the framework and the underlying worldview which permeated both works.
Both Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia are set in modern-day England, both involve every-day children that the reader can easily identify themselves with, and they both embark on journies which said readers would like to envision themselves.
The main difference to whom one answers. In the Chronicles of Narnia, sorcery is something that is not for mortals, and shouldn't be meddled with (the two main mortals I can think of using magic in CoN are Dr. Cornelius in Prince Caspian, and Diggory's uncle in Magician's Nephew.) All magic is recognized as above one's self, it's not a solution to problems (it doesn't set scrubbers to wash pans automagically, etc).
But as said before, the main difference is the worldview, and what it would instill in a child fantasizing about what they wish they could do. Witchcraft is a real thing. I recognize this, I believe it, and have known people with very personal contact with this (as I'm sure most of us have). Both stories recognize the existence of good magic, and evil magic, but it is a problem when the users of magic are not ultimately answerable to any being higher to themselves. In Harry Potter, if you're strong (whether it be the Ministry of Magic or Voldemort's Death Eaters), you can be the end-all-say-all. Morals are arbitrary, though granted HP & friends do exhibit many noble charictaristics, Harry still has no accountability (unless you count the sparse teachings by Dumbledore) for his lying.
It's all very abstract, and I don't feel qualified to say "Harry Potter is evil, you shouldn't partake of it!". However, for myself, I've read them, though when I found myself enjoying them too much, it sent up a warning flag in my mind, and I decided to stop reading halfway through book 5. If you can read it, and not feel prodding of the Spirit to do otherwise, then I do not speak against you, and I can only support you and try to encourage you in your walk. :)
A similarly tough example in my own mind is why Tolkien is okay and HP is not -- though I follow similar reasoning for all of this. Basically the worldview behind the story, and who is Ultimate in the story: people or Something Else.
Respectfully,
clint
I'm no fan of Christianity (I'm an atheist--christian raised), but I must admit it's in general not as intolerant and hateful as Islam (at least its extreme branches). Christianity used to be just as bad, but over many years reformed into a slightly more open-minded and less violent religion. Today many Christians are still close-minded and I have talked to many who think that any religion other than Christianity (or even Protestantism) is the Devil's work.
From what I understand about Islam, one of it's main tenets is that the religion should not change or modernize. And it makes sense, since Islam to me seems to be the most "primitive" major religion. And in that I mean that it still objectifies women and endorses holy wars and the like, whereas Christinanity, in general has given such things up. Of course there's the occasional Christian nut, like the lady who drowned three of four of her children because she thought they were possessed, the people who blow up abortion clinics, and then there's David Koresh. But there aren't whole organizations (anymore) of Christians whose sole aim is to kill nonbelievers like there is in Islam.
A note to any followers of Islam: I don't mean to insult all Muslims, I don't have a problem with anyone of any religion unless: (a) they try to convert me or (b) they kill people don't believe what they do. As long as you don't do one of those things, I will have no problem with you or the branch of your religion that you ascribe to. I have met quite a few Muslims who I'm sure just want to live their lives and practice their religion in peace and I have no problem with that.