How Games And Religion Could Mix

An anonymous reader writes "The Passion of the Christ brought in $370 million at the box office. The Left Behind book series have sold over 63 million copies. And Christian Rock is growing more and more popular. But the video game industry has so far ignored the topic of religion. CNN/Money's Game Over column talked with game developers (including id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead and Diablo co-creator Bill Roper) about the reasons behind this - and asked them what sort of game they would make if they were creating one with a religious theme. The answers ranged from a Moses RPG to a faith-based MMO."

Comments

Games and religion?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Already been done.

Re:Games and religion?

[Arctic Dragon]

Religious video games have been around since the 8bit NES days.

Re:Games and religion?

[Wylfing]

Yeah, here's one of my favorite examples of a game with plenty of religion in it.

What? Oh, my mistake. You're not talking about games with religion. You're talking about games that evangelize American Protestant Christianity. Well, no, I don't want to play a game that is trying to convert me or get me "fired up for Christ!" or any of that. It's nothing to do with the fact that it's religious. PETA likes to produce "activities" that evangelize their viewpoint, and I don't want that junk either.

I will go out on a limb and suggest that the only people who want a game that promotes a moral viewpoint are the ones who are already zealots.

Passion of the Christ, the videogame

[elrous0]

I'm not even a Christian, but I would BUY that game!

Choose Your side!! Christian or Pagan, the Choice is Yours!!

-Eric

Makes total sense.

[grub]

Both games and religion are make-believe, it only makes sense that they merge. Jesus with a BFG-900 taking on a 50M tall Ganesh with glowing laser-tusks could be fun.

hmm

[hobotron]

:lvl 53 Judas LFG!
:guyss??
:plx i need grp
:i wont tk guys rly

Re:Xenosaga

[Pluvius]

By "but the video game industry has so far ignored the topic of religion," the submitter obviously meant "but the video game industry has so far ignored the topic of serious Christianity (as opposed to the silliness found in Xenogears et al.)." And of course that's incorrect too, if you consider such examples as Wisdom Tree (which was actually mentioned in the article).

Rob

Re:Games haven't ignored it

[Gulthek]

Did...did you just say that Christian rock and the Left Behind series are higher quality? Granted, mainstream isn't too high a target but I still have trouble seeing this.

I guess things have come a long way since Carmen and Chicks comics. Or maybe they seem higher quality to those with ears for the faith orientation; but to my impartial eyes and ears the lyrics and books seem trite, the emotions forced and self-serving, and the "faith" monetary based.

But don't just say "Christian" games go nowhere; I challenge you to find any real world religion well represented by fictional book, music, or video game. Where's my video game that simulates the Buddhist wheel of life and my character's struggle to wake up from it and break the chains that bind? Of course the realtime lifelong meditation would be tricky to gamify, but I'm sure it could be done. :-)

The best religious videogame I can think of is Ultima IV and that wasn't even a real religion (nice concepts though).

Give me a Bioware RPG (with the good and evil possibilities that implies) set in Biblical times and I'd be all over that game. How cool would it be to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt...or betray them for a rich reward.

Homeworld

[Unordained]

The religion gets stripped out, but if you look at the Homeworld RTS games, they're pulling pretty strongly from middle-eastern religious themes (and music) -- the jewish diaspora, the hebrew/arab relationship, the trinity (christianity thrown in?), the struggle to find a home ... but it's not really approached from a religious perspective. It's much more "the story of the jews, but without god, and in space".

Besides -- you don't 'game' religion. Nothing about religion is predictable from a scientific point of view. If it were, people would be using prayer tactically to their advantage. Coding a game in which no results are ever guaranteed, nor even terribly predictable (don't even want to introduce the concept of probability that your prayer will be answered vs. the cost of praying) ... there's just nothing left. Random background noise, probability-wise? You can't "play" that -- there's no technique, no challenge. If anything, the game would teach you that you can do just fine without religion helping you. Oops.

So it winds up always being story-oriented. And you're not very free to change the story. So you wind up with games like "go find the animals for Noah's ark" ... which really isn't about religion, it's more like slapping a theme pack on top of a game like Tetris -- the artwork can be religious, but the game isn't.

Re:Games haven't ignored it

[SocialEngineer]

I listen to and write Christian-influenced music (not Christian rock, or Christian pop, mind you - I have a solo Industrial project, and I also write classical and neo-classical music - almost all of my music is instrumental). Granted, most Christian music in my favorite genres.. well.. suck. If you are into electronic/industrial, check out Juggernautz - they definately rival their secular peers.

I'd play a Christian game if it was good. Thats the point - Love it or hate it because its good or not, to you. People play those stupid deer avenger games, or the Extreme Paintbrawl games, and they are awful by most gamer's standards.

Look at classical music - Handel's "Messiah", Vivaldi's "Gloria", Brahm's German Requiem - all regarded highly among classical music fans. Why? Because they are all good.

The first step is not to preach.

[nunchux]

For a Christian game to be successful, the first two thing it should NOT do is preach. The second thing it shouldn't do is educate. Kids will sense both of these coming a mile away and run in the opposite direction.

And that's the biggest problem with most Christian entertainment, a total lack of subtlety. It doesn't have to be about hitting you over the head with the message. IMHO the best Christians live by setting an example, not by brow-beating you into submission.

Depends on how it's done.

[Rimbo]

Take Peanuts by Charles M Schulz and BC, for example. Both artists are/were extremely devout Christians. In the former comic, Schulz focused on making the comic funny first, and he uses his beliefs as a springboard towards a joke or a humorous situation, such as one comic where Charlie Brown's baseball teammates are babbling theology while Charlie Brown himself is standing on the mound, physically above them all, mentally below them, and with a "good grief" expression more accurately saying, "Uhm... can we get back to baseball?"

In the latter case, you see the comic used as a podium for lectures, for example a recent comic where Wiley's writing under his tree and writes how Darwin "made monkeys out of you and me."

Now in games, I think we've already seen religion done right: Ultima IV. Being "moral" within the game is not just context, but the end of the game itself, and in that case, it made for a better, more interesting and (most vitally) more fun game than its hack-n-slash predecessors in which the goal was to defeat the murderous villain by being more murderous than him/her. Its religion is not specifically Christian, but the Ultima series shows the general principle that you can make a fun game based on religion. Making a game fun for a different set of beliefs is just applying the Ultima IV-VI design principles to different specific dogmas.

Of course, it's all easier said than done, but that's why good designers make the big bucks.