I came across some interesting gaming stories. I am not much of a gamer--not since college. Now I am strictly a Minesweeper and Solitaire player. I thought that I would leave these quirky stories with you over the weekend.
The first is about a gamer who died from a gaming overdose. Check it out here.
The second story is about the growing role that Jesus is playing in video games. No kidding. "I play a lot of Christian video games," Tolin said. "They don't have fights. You just have to follow Jesus and pick up little crosses for points."
The Christian game industry is hoping to break into a large untapped market of Christian gamers. Although the task is daunting they claim that the Christian music industry wasn't made overnight.
Is it just me or is anyone else tired of the building and maintaining of a Christian culture that attempts to parallel 'mainstream' culture? Doesn't this add to the 'us/them' mentality? Doesn't this add to the degree of separation between a Christian and the rest of the world? This article gave me flashbacks of the movie 'Saved.'
Am I being overly critical of the Christian gaming industry or do we really need to pick up little crosses for points? You can read this article here.
4 comments:
the following jesus and retrieving crosses is, i think, inspired from the simpsons. In one episode rod and todd are playing with bart.
that's sad that the Simpsons inspired a 'christian' video game.
brett - want to come over and play my new game
I for one am not offended by this new idea of "Christian" video games. The games my nephew plays only glorify breaking the law and being violent. Perhaps if these first "Christian" games can find a foothold more choices will be available and kids can learn more useful skills than stealing car, shooting police officers and having sex with random strippers in the back of a van. I cannot imagine that it is healthy for any 16 or 17 year old to play such games even if it is only a game.
judesgirl, I am happy that you comment here. You always bring a good balance to my thoughts.
I agree that we need to give kids more choices...better choices than those presented in games like you mention. I also think that we need to give kids more choices than quoting bible trivia and picking up crosses like the article mention.
I sometimes think that because Christians are not creative enough to discover what is good in the world that they resolve to setting up their own world--a world without anything bad in it...a world with neatly resolved scenarios where those who are the best at following Jesus and picking up crosses win.
These created scenarios are often unrelateable to real life and do a disservice to educating Christian children on how to read the world and understand their faith.
It instead creates a separate (sometimes falsely safe) world in which they may exist. Christians often create a separate identity that is difficult to integrate with real world life. This, I think, is antithetical to the life of Jesus.
cap'n crunch, come on over.
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