Religion & Philosophy For Gaming Dummies
The Escapist's weekly magazine of crazy clever chaos death is discussing 'religion and philosophy in games', and while that may sound like it's going to make your head hurt, it turns out that there a few interesting contributions.
Probably one of the funnest is 'Why Christian Games Are Doomed To Fail' by Lara Crigger, which shouts to the top: "So many contemporary Christian games are unintentional self-parodies. By embracing Evangelical culture so indulgently and completely, these games are nothing but interactive stereotypes."
The gnashing continues! "Take the above-mentioned Eternal Forces. Rock stars as the messengers of the Antichrist? A faux-Pope, decked out in snazzy Catholic cardinal robes, acting as the right-hand man of evil? You can't be serious. Anyone who willingly plays this cringe-inducing balderdash should rend her PC in shame. Worse, Eternal Forces is far from alone in its self-indulgence and supercilious attitude toward its "built-in" audience. Many Christian titles address their consumers as both simpletons and suckers: Because our game includes crucifixes, you'll overlook its contrived, outrageous plotlines." Good, if inflammatory piece.
Comments
Yet Christian games find an audience anyway, because the people who buy them feel they cannot let themselves play anything else.
These are people who are desperate, generally, to participate in the culture, but have been told practically since birth that most of it is evil. Thus, when a specialty version of (music genre|thriller novel|video game) comes out that's approved by the media gatekeepers they look to, they are quick to jump on.
Posted by: John H. | April 5, 2007 1:15 AM
Maybe I'm just not that combustible, but I didn't find Lara's piece all that inflammatory. LBEF is such an easy stupid target that mocking it for its content is standard fare.
The piece really gets good when she goes into the role of doubt in faith and how this is missing from much contemporary Evangelical thinking and, by extension, Christian games.
Posted by: Troy Goodfellow | April 5, 2007 8:36 AM
I think the most inflammatory part of the article was the subtitle. Overall, it actually gave some solid constructive criticism and analysis.
(But maybe I'm just saying that because seeing a well-written look at the book of Job appear in a gaming publication is a very welcome surprise.)
Posted by: josh g. | April 5, 2007 4:03 PM
The article does make a lot of good points, which can also be extended to the majority of modern Christian fiction novels and music. To me, the biggest problem is that the Christian worldview is awkardly tacked on to a story where it doesn't fit.
Case in point: a Christian spy novel about WWII. Suddenly, every helpful character the heros come across, even the German resistance, are Christians. It gets kind of silly.
Maybe the way to do a good (as in fun and enjoyable) Christian game is to take a few lessons from John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress, or C.S. Lewis's novels. The Christian worldview is the heart of the novels, but they're built around them. It's not writing a novel and then slapping a "Christian" layer on top.
Is this even possible in a video game? I don't know. I'd like to think it is, and just remember that for every Bunyan or Lewis, there are a hundred other authors whose works are deserving of the obscurity they languish in.
Posted by: Aaron G. | April 6, 2007 2:02 PM