Game with God

Andrew writes "GamerDad has an article up about how religion is handled in computer gaming, titled 'Game With God'. The article features quotes from Sid Meier, Jane Jensen, Will Wright, Peter Molyneaux, Phil Steinmeyer, and Richard Garriott. Here's a snippet: 'While religion and spirituality add a lot to a game world, they often aren't used effectively. 'I don't think there are any games that treat religion at anything more than a superficial level,'; says Firaxis founder and Civilization creator Sid Meier. PopTop Software's Phil Steinmeyer agrees, noting that 'Religion is ignored in gaming, or if it is portrayed, it's wildly caricatured.'"

Comments

Re:Games?

[abb3w]

Ever notice that bishops and knights don't move straight, and well the king and queen can swing both ways.

I recall once seeing the moves expressed in terms of the powers of state (row/column moves) and church (diagonals).

• Foot soldiers/Pawns make progress through the authority of the state, but may only prevail in battle by the grace of God.
• 
  
  Rooks/Castles, as the embodiment of worldly authority, are immensely powerful in matters temporal, but impotent in matters spiritual. Bishops, as the representatives of the Church, are the other way around.
  
  The King and Queen are, British style, empowered with the authority of both church and state, and may elect to act with either as they choose. If you wonder why the queen seems more powerful, look to Elizabeth and Victoria. =)
  
  And Knights, due to their holy vows to defend the right, must always act simultaneously under mandate of both church and state, thereby transcending any obstacles in their path.

Any resemblance this has to why the rules are the way they are is, no doubt, purely coincidental-- but it's a servicable means to explain the moves to new players.

Religion is suppresed because writers are ignorant

[Znord]

There's been a big vacuum in the world of sci-fi / fantasy with religious overtones ever since the modern age of thought began back in the 1920s with Freud and the concept of "wishes" as a basis for fiction and dreams.

C.S. Lewis and (to a point) Tolkien did much to show that religious themes can easily coexist with fiction. The endless "let's try it from scratch" 60s put a bit of a kabosh on that... experimenting in ideas of myth-religion without knowing how much they repeated in old fiction.

Frankly, I see "religion" is actually present in many many spheres... but a new establishment has arrived. It's just the pop-psyche (i.e. Oprah) plus bits-of-new-age psuedoscience that we've had tons of in the 20th century. (practice X does Y for your spiritual Z condition, take two and call me in the morning).

Religion in Babylon 5, for example, was one of the first beginnings of a good treatment in mass media... because believers at least showed some positive though vague devotion as part of a plot (monks at one point, and the Minbari otherwise).

Most scifi religion is incredibly shallow and made for outsiders, with the constant drum of "Hey man, don't get all religious about stuff cuz it all looks the same to us." moral-of-the-story.

Even that only started from the 50s and earlier when tons of minor religious divisions mirrored ethnic/cultural ones (i.e. blacks, whites, immigrants etc..). I knew one old lady who declared the One thing she knew about her Presbyterian church was that she wasn't Baptist. Yikes. That has always scared authors.

Anyway the writing can only occur when religion is handled in a fashion that doesn't get everyone spooked about the loudest minorities involved. Someone's got to stop caring about Pat Robertson and yet still know who Jesus (or Bhudda) was without a minor "survey of religions" class.

Besides, atheism/materialism keeps framing the discussion (e.g. Babylon 5 came down to assuming all "gods" were advanced races) and that forms a rift on how much you're even allowed to describe beliefs. It's tough to write plot about followers of God X or Y when the author makes clear that they're idiots doing something for no purpose or reason except the cuteness of "blind" idealism.

What's gotta happen is that some story writer somewhere has to first avoid the swashbuckling loot-and-horde-and-kill plot. Secondly they need to leave mystery about something Bigger having a role in the story instead of mere science-and-discovery explaining it all by the last 5 minutes.

If it's "universal harmony" that someone deals with (i.e. Ultima V) so be it, but if its God in any fashion it makes the plot and reality of behavior much richer. Yes it makes NPCs *much* more complex... and a score isn't just "gold" or "life" anymore. Deal! I want to see that happen.

We're at the effective top for polygon counts anyway. Someone has to *THINK* that fiction matters someday in a game.