Category: Video Games

What Do We Learn From Games?

What life lessons are learned? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I recently did a research paper on the allegedly link between video games and school shootings. My conclusion is it does not exist. That being said, I was thinking about this recently some more. Right now, I am going through Persona 5 Royal and I am left thinking about relationships a lot. In Persona 5, my character gets special abilities the more he builds relationships with people.

I got the bad ending the first time I went through the game because I had built up level, personas, weapons, etc., but I had not built up relationships like that. Now I know I need to do differently. I find that by choosing what I want to say back and see the reaction I get, I am learning more as a man on the spectrum about what other people would think if I said XYZ. I am also looking more at my relationships and thinking about the benefit of building my relationships that exist in the real world.

I have the view that many times, games of all sorts build us up in ways outside of the games. My parents never had to sit down with me and teach me the value of money, but I think in playing games involving money, I learned what it meant to work hard, save up, and buy something I wanted. I knew what it meant to go and find a deal and I knew what it meant to conserve what I had.

While I have said this is largely the case with video games, we know that this happens in other games as well. How many times do we hear something about sports and hear about life lessons learned for on and off the field? As I pondered that, I considered how differently we treat such ideas. The idea given is that video games will teach you how to shoot people easily. Sports will help you build character. Strangely, no one seems to get the idea that football will teach you to tackle someone if they have something you want, even though that is an integral part of the game.

It’s as if sports are to be celebrated because they teach good things while video games are condemned because they teach wicked things.

In reality, it all depends on the person. By and large, school shootings I find do not come from games instilling a love of violence, but because students are angry and no one is helping them when it comes to bullying at schools. A suicide and a school shooting in response to bullying are highly similar events. The suicide is the student taking the anger and pushing it inward on himself. The school shooting is him pushing it outward on the world.

Yet how many athletes do we see that are actually horrible role models for young people? How many times do we see a city when a major sports title and the people go out and loot and ransack the town? Do I blame sports for these? No. I blame human stupidity. These are problems that need to be dealt with, but banning sports is not the answer.

What is best is to realize that there are good and bad things that can be learned in most any situation. In a perfect world, everything would only teach good, but we do not live in that world. The best solution is to have parents start teaching virtue at home. Also, get rid of the idea of self-esteem. It turns us more into narcissists than anything else. More often than not, good families will produce good kids. There are bad kids that come from good families and good kids that come from bad families, but this is a generality.

When that is there, good lessons can be found anywhere. They can be found in a student learning lessons kicking a ball across a field. They can be found in someone like me exploring mental worlds in Persona 5.

And those lessons work on and off the field and on and off the console.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

NOBTS Class of 2024

What happened this weekend? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

After my divorce, I found myself living with my parents again and wondering what to do with myself. A friend of mine suggested I go back to school and get my Master’s. My pastor suggested I go to a Southern Baptist seminary where I would get a discount on tuition. I asked him for a list and saw on there New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I had been there to speak years before so I knew several people there already and had loved the campus so my choice was easy to make.

I moved down here in August of 2022 and quickly got a job at the seminary Post Office. I got my tuition covered through the Caskey Scholarship. I was a hard worker in my classes and often got the syllabi for my classes before the semester started so I could be doing the reading in advance. Generally, I have several books with me and I read a chapter of each a day and no, they’re not all schoolwork. I do a lot of reading independent of my schooling.

This past Friday, my hard work paid off. It can now be officially said that I have a Master’s of Arts in philosophy.

My parents flew down for the event and it was the first time my mother had ever flown on a plane. She was terrified and now she thinks it’s a wonderful experience. My pastor and his wife took us out to lunch and I was spoken of at the end of the service and asked to do the benediction.

My parents got to meet my seminary president and several of my professors and all of them spoke highly. They found firsthand that I have a community where I am admired and welcomed. I consider that a relief that they know they don’t really have to worry about me as much here.

I have already been accepted for the PhD program and yes, I already have the syllabi for my first two classes and yes, I have already ordered the books and started doing the reading. My planned dissertation this time is to study video games and Christianity and the idea that mankind comes with a built-in need for a story, a quest, and a purpose. I got the idea in my first semester in systematic theology when the professor mentioned someone else who did their PhD in this sort of field as well. I also had thought that there are several topics everyone else has studied, but what can I do that fits into my niche?

This doesn’t mean my interest in apologetics has died off. Far from it. It does mean it is becoming more specialized as I am hoping to use this to equip the next generation for the cause of ministry in serving Christ. I still thoroughly enjoy a good debate. My gaming time comes at the end of the day after I have done my reading.

That being said, I have applied for financial aid for the PhD path. I hope to get it, but there are no guarantees. If you would like to become a partner on this journey, which will also help me as I work on a YouTube ministry in my area, you can find on my blog the Patreon to help out, but here is a direct link. Please consider becoming a partner with me. Even a small amount to you will help a large amount to me.

On to the PhD!

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

A Response To Kilted Cajun On Censorship

Can the religious right speak on issues of culture? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I watch a lot of gaming videos on YouTube being the Gaming Theologian on there. (Looking for a video editor by the way, if you’re interested.) One of the channels I watch is the Kilted Cajun as I love it when the DEI nonsense is exposed. However, recently I watched a video I agreed with on some levels, but my disagreements were quite serious, so I left him a reply and told him I would be writing this.

So at the start, KC (As I will call him for short) says that he one hundred percent opposes censorship. For the most part, I agree. I say that as someone who also detests the porn industry. I want to see them defeated because people have their hearts changed. (And not Phantom Thief style per Persona, but because they come to their own conclusions about pornography)

He then talks about a game where a lady’s posterior is clearly shown. Now it was nothing that really got me riled up as I agree with KC that I could also see that across most any beach in America from a woman in a tight bikini. At the same time, I know many of my readers might object to seeing such, so I won’t show any pictures, but know that this is what has started this whole discussion.

There are some people who are complaining and objecting about this. Okay. I get it. At the same time, I also want to hear it. Why? Because that’s how we as a society work. We all come together and express our viewpoints. I want to see the Woke and DEI crowd lose tremendously, but I also want them to say what they really think and do so freely. The left has gotten people to be scared to say what they think lest they be called a name like a racist, bigot, sexist, or any term ending in -phobe.

Generally, my thinking is if my opponent is saying something really stupid, I want to get out of the way. Let him speak. Let him say it. If the woke really think conservatives have all those negative traits, let them speak so it can be apparent to all. Strangely, it doesn’t work that way.

Yet this is the way freedom really works. Freedom means you have the freedom to hold different opinions. I remember a debate on TheologyWeb years ago where someone claimed bigotry is not a right and the response was “Yes it is.” Yes. You are free to be a bigot if you want to. You are free to hold any negative opinion you want to. If you think people like myself are idiot Christians who should have no place in society, then you are absolutely 100% free to have that opinion.

I have had times where my Dad has called me before. I am a man in my 40’s, but I still keep in close contact with my parents. (They’re here this week for me getting my Master’s.) My Dad has called to talk about things like a satanic statue being built or a service from them or a church building from them.

My response is “Okay. And?”

Our Constitution in America guarantees freedom of religion in America and not just freedom of the religion I hold. If I say “Christians are free to build churches, but Muslims are not free to build mosques, then I do not really hold to freedom of religion. I only hold to it if it benefits me. If I accept freedom, I have to accept people will use it in ways that I do not like.

As we go along in the video though he asks why decency is being brought up about a woman’s butt being shown and says “are you judging people’s morals based on your own personal morals” about the person complaining about it.

The answer to that one is “yes”, but that’s because who else’s morals are you going to judge them based on? We all do this every day. We agree with behavior X because of our moral beliefs and we disagree with Y because of our moral beliefs. KC opposes censorship, which I also happen to oppose, but that is a moral belief. To say “censorship is wrong” is a moral belief. That doesn’t mean it’s false, nor does it mean it’s true. We can only know if a belief is true if it corresponds with reality, if there are really objective moral principles out there that we all are to follow. If there is no objective morality, then it’s just personal tastes. If there is, then one of us is right and one of us is wrong.

Note in saying this I am not saying KC is a moral relativist. I have no reason to think he is and all the reason to think he is not. I am saying his viewpoint relies on moral objectivity.

This would apply in other areas as well. In science, did man evolve from lesser animals or not? He either did or he didn’t. It’s not both. Having a belief on one side or the other doesn’t make it right or wrong. It is whether or not that belief matches with reality.

Did Jesus rise from the dead? I say yes. An atheist says no. Both of us can freely have our belief. What matters is reality and that is where we must look. We can’t just say “That’s our belief.”

So when it comes to moral judgments, that is what we judge behaviors on. We judge them by our own personal beliefs and those could be right or wrong. Let’s suppose I was sent an advance demo copy of the game in question. To be fair, I decided to play through it and let’s suppose I really liked it and I enjoyed a story with it. Here is something I would say and I say this as someone who I think is viewed as a Christian leader.

“Game X is a really fun game with a great story that really draws you in. (Describe some bits of the story without spoiling it.) I do want parents to know though that it does have XYZ in it. (Statements about the butt in question) Then add “Make your own decisions when it comes to you and your children.” Some people might say “I am not bothered by that, and I really want to experience the story so I will buy that.” I also know that since I think I have a position of trust with parents, I don’t want to violate that. I don’t want to have a parent come to me and say “I bought this for my 11 year-old child and I had no idea this was in it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I really don’t think KC would have a problem with that. That would be me just saying let the buyer beware in a sense. If you don’t like this in your games, don’t buy it. If you live with children and you don’t want them to see this or see you playing it, then don’t buy it. All of this is assuming the game is good. If it’s awful, I will tell you that it’s awful outright, but if you want to subject yourself to it, be warned also about XYZ.

I might make statements on more extreme cases. If I saw something in a game that I considered blasphemous towards Jesus, I could say “I really encourage you to not buy this game.” I know that I can’t make that decision for you. You decide for yourself.

KC then goes on to say that the reviewer, Dread Roberts, is pushing his views on others. We don’t want the left doing that and we don’t want the right doing it either. The problem is that first off, Dread Roberts is not doing that. He is stating his belief.

The second problem though is that KC in saying this is doing what he condemns. He is saying “It is my moral belief that you shouldn’t push your moral beliefs on other people.” He can hold that, but as soon as he says that DR is wrong for pushing his views on others, then KC is implicitly pushing a view that you shouldn’t push views.

I propose a better way to look at it. I think KC would be better saying “Thank you for your opinion on what should be allowed and not allowed. I 100% disagree and here is why.” The thing with freedom of speech is it applies to everyone and that includes hearing moral opinions I do not like. At the same time, when they are shared, I want them expressed in the best way possible. I don’t want to tell my opponent not to share them. I want false beliefs shared so I can publicly show them to be wrong.

KC then points out that DR says that this is not where the future of gaming should be heading. KC says that it’s not up for DR to decide but for the market to decide. The problem is both of those statements could be true. Hypothetically, let’s suppose DR is right. He has full freedom to express that opinion, but at the same time, he’s not saying to hijack the market, which is impossible anyway, and make it be that no one can buy the game. I don’t think DR is being asked to be a gaming csar to get to decide what is and isn’t released. He is simply saying what he wants to see. He doesn’t want to see games with this material in it and thinks it would be bad for gaming. Fine. That’s his view. He is not calling for it to be a federal crime or something of that sort. I do agree. It’s up to the market to decide. It’s like an election. I never liked it when Obama won, but it was up to the electorate to decide. I didn’t want anyone to vote for him, but I would completely defend their freedom to vote for him.

DR then says that he thinks people who say they want to save gaming really don’t. With this, I disagree with DR. I want to give the benefit of the doubt. I agree 100% with KC that wokeness and DEI is bad for games. At the same time, I want producers of games to have the freedom to put as much wokeness and DEI in a game as possible. Let it fail at the marketplace. While saying that, it doesn’t mean everything is beneficial for gaming. Companies can be free to put into their games things that I thoroughly disagree with that I too think can be bad for gaming, but again, that is what freedom means.

KC goes on to say that players should have the choice to buy what they want and play what they want and see what they want. I agree. If anything, I think something like DR’s post could lead to the Barbara Streisand Effect. I would have recommended had he wanted to post on this to say “Yeah. This is just something in the game and I want you to make a fully-informed decision, especially if you’re a parent, and let’s move on.” After all, it was when people started talking about “Hot Coffee” in a Grand Theft Auto game that sales started to soar and the scene wasn’t even easy to find in regular gameplay and I think you needed a special code for it. KC even says that you have to go out of your way to make this option available for this female character and if that’s true, and I have no reason to think otherwise, then yes, DR is promoting the Barbara Streisand effect and will likely see more sales of the game.

Now let’s briefly say something about female characters in video games. They are usually made to be beautiful and at times, this can mean what seem to be exaggerated proportions, especially in the butts and the breasts of these characters. Think of the original Lara Croft and the original Tifa Lockhart. I never played the Tomb Raider games, but I did play Final Fantasy VII that had Tifa in it. When I heard the remake was coming out, I was thankful that Tifa was not flattened in it. Because I am a perv? No. Because that is the way the original character looked and I did not want to see game producers bend a knee to this ideology that says women cannot be beautiful lest the male gaze come along. Women are made to be beautiful.

That being said, it is up to the man watching Tifa what he does with her. If you are someone who struggles with that kind of thing and says “I just don’t want to play that because my mind will go places I don’t want it to go”, then you do you. I don’t have a problem with that. That is you properly using self-control. We do no service to women if we make them purposely unattractive to men. Women are meant to be beautiful and that is part of their glory.

I also agree with KC 100% when he says that mostly, all we want is fun games. Yes. Of course, in my fun games, I like a lot more as well which I think is well in line with what KC is saying. I am thoroughly enjoying Persona 5 Royal because of the story and the mix of the real world with the metaverse. As someone on the spectrum also, I am watching what I say to other characters and getting to see when I gave what the game says is an appropriate answer, showing empathy. It has me looking at my relationships outside of the game and thinking “What bonds am I building with my fellow man?” I am actually going through a second time because I got a bad ending the first time because I did not build bonds properly thinking that the best route to go was power up my character as much as possible. I really learned something from that.

KC says he has no problem with what DR believes, but with him pushing it on other people who don’t want to hear it. The problem is, if sharing a belief is the same as pushing it, then KC is pushing his belief that you shouldn’t push a belief. Maybe some people don’t want to hear what KC says. Okay. He has a right to say it. It’s the same with scrolling through Facebook or X. I see people saying stupid things on there. Okay. They say them. I disagree, but I want them to be free to say them. That’s why it’s called the marketplace of ideas. We all share our ideas and debate which ideas are right and which are wrong.

He then refers to Melanie Mac who shows up in the comments. I really like Melanie and why wouldn’t I? A Christian girl who loves to play video games? Awesome. Anyway, she says she wouldn’t want to play such a game with nudity thrust in her face. KC says then don’t buy it. That’s fine. Vote with your wallet like everyone else does. I agree with KC here. MM has her opinion and she’s free to share it and she’s free to vote with her wallet. The marketplace of ideas and freedom allows for everything.

MM goes on to say that she would feel like a loser playing a character like that. KC goes on to say that that’s a sort of passive-aggressive slap to everyone who wants to play a character like that, but is it? MM is saying “She would feel like a loser.” Okay. That’s her opinion. We couldn’t say she was wrong. That would be like me saying “I feel sad” and you say “You don’t feel sad! You feel great!” You could think I shouldn’t feel sad and think of a thousand reasons why I should feel great, but you could not deny that I feel sad.

KC then asks how MM could do such a thing and she should keep her religious views out of it. The problem is this is actually censorship of a kind. I don’t care if someone expresses an opinion if their views come from religion or not. Suppose someone says “I think murder is wrong because the Ten Commandments forbid it.” That’s a religious view, but it is also one I think is right. I could give you plenty of reasons outside of the Bible that I think marriage should be between one man and one woman, but what matters is if that belief is true. The fact that it is also a view backed by religion doesn’t matter. If that was the case, then we should eliminate laws against murder because religions also view murder as wrong. KC is implicitly saying “Religious views should be kept to yourself, but secular views can be shared everywhere.” That’s not what freedom is. Let all views be expressed and let the best case win.

KC then refers to Bible Thumpers. It is not clear what this means. Would I be a Bible thumper even though I am entirely open to evolution, don’t believe in Young-Earth creationism, am not a dispensationalism at all, etc.? I fully hold to many of the orthodox creeds and can easily sign an orthodox statement of faith.

He goes on to say that the right were the ones that raised the outcry about games like Dungeons and Dragons and the satanic panic. Yep. The satanic panic went way too far and many criticisms of D&D and video games and anime and many other things do not really understand them. I have done a lot of reading on the satanic panic and I consider it ridiculous. While I do think real Satanism exists, I also am quite hesitant to call something satanic. Make it too all encompassing and you then include things like Tolkien and Lewis.

I also do think that you can enjoy a series even if you disagree with the moral viewpoints. Star Trek is highly secularist. Star Wars was made with New Age and Buddhist thinking in mind. I have several friends who are devout Christians who enjoy both. I personally don’t, but not for those reasons. I just never got into them. I can freely enjoy a James Bond movie even though I think Bond is doing something wrong in the way he casually sleeps with other women. You take the good and you spit out the bad.

So in the end, I fully agree with KC that I do not want to see censorship. That being said, I think his way of approaching MM and DR is itself leaning into censorship. Let us come together and say “I think this is good for gaming and here’s why” or “I think this is bad for gaming and here’s why.” Let the cases present themselves and let the marketplace of ideas decide when they go to the marketplace of gaming.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Why I Am Enjoying Persona 5 Royal Edition

What makes this game so appealing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A short while back, a friend of mine gave me a $30 gift card to the Nintendo Eshop. (Anyone wanting to repeat his gift is welcome to!) One of the games I bought was Persona 5 Royal that was on sale. I have come to know it as a popular RPG series so I wanted to give it a shot.

I’m quite glad I did.

So firstly, with RPG styles, it’s one of my favorites. Turn-based. I get to think out my strategy and see how everything works together. That being said, it has to be more than just a turn-based game to get my notice and to get to this blog.

So some minor spoilers, but it’s just for the first level. You start out in a point in the story that I have yet to get to, and then the game is a flashback of when you arrived at an academy in Japan with a reputation, apparently undeserved, of a delinquent. As you are at your school though, you find yourself in a different world of sorts.

It is like a castle and the king is of all people, the volleyball coach at the school. You meet a character in the castle who becomes an ally and soon meet others who wind up in the castle with you. What you learn is that these are worlds that are based on the cognitive perceptions of people with really distorted views of the world and especially themselves.

Turns out, this volleyball coach is actually abusive to the students and likes to take advantage of the female students. Yes. This is really deep stuff going on. The first mission then is to go into his palace, which is the name of the cognitive dwellings these people have, and steal his treasure, which should lead to him confessing his sins in the real world.

The psychological side of it all is quite fascinating and I understand it borrows a lot from Jung. I haven’t read Jung, but I did just find his complete works on Kindle for less than a dollar so I’m going to take care of that. The game involves characters facing up to reality as it is and embracing their “personas”. Your main character is the only one who can embrace multiple personas and switch between them and even fuse and sacrifice them later on for different effects, including all-new personas.

The battle is not the only part that matters. As I am going through the game, I have to build up other attributes, namely guts, kindness, charm, proficiency, and knowledge. Not only that, I have to build up relationships with various people in the world and the more I do that, the more my skills in the “metaverse”, as the cognitive world is called, and other such places improves.

As someone on the spectrum, I am finding this fascinating as a prompt will pop up asking what I want to say at a certain time and I am given various options. It’s a really easy way to learn to converse seeing as I have all the time in the world to think. I have to try to think how each person I talk to will respond to what I say. The goal is to build up the relationships after all.

I have yet to finish so if you have, please do not give me spoilers on it. I am quite enjoying it now and that is leaving me thinking about my own relationships in the real world. I can see the people I know in my own life and think about improving my bonds with them. Odds are whenever I finish reading the work of Jung, I will come back and visit this some more as well.

So if you like RPGs and you want something with a psychological and philosophical style to it, give the Persona series a try. You also don’t have to play previous games to understand later ones. This one is the first I have played and I am understanding it just fine.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Make It Engaging First

Does our material really connect? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I recently started reading Kevin J. Vanhoozer’s Mere Christian Hermeneutics. This is actually the first time I have ever read a book by him and I did not know what to expect. As I started going through, I found myself quite enjoying what I was reading.

There seems to be a hidden assumption among academics that their writings must be as dry and boring as possible. Yes. There is a tendency to think “Just the Facts” in Joe Friday style, but the prophets used vibrant language at times and the life of Jesus was put into the form of a story.

Consider these quotes from Vanhoozer:

“There are more things in discourse and text than are dreamed of in critical theory.” (p. 4)

An avid reader will recognize an allusion to Shakespeare immediately. Vanhoozer makes the point about how lacking critical theory is to the reading of Scripture, but does so in a way that sticks with the reader. The reader sees that and with a bit of bemusement goes on, but remembering the point.

Also on that same page:

“Consequently, we need not only to “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1) but also to test the hermeneutics. We need to conduct an experiment in criticism.”

Readers will here note a reference to Scripture, but others will note a reference to a work by C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, in a book that is also itself a reference to Lewis in title, a take-off on Mere Christianity.

Things like this show up regularly in the work. The point is the reader feels engaged with then. If the reader is engaged in the material, they are more likely to remember the material and apply it.

About a year or so ago, I had Switch Online at the time on my Nintendo Switch and sat down and went through the first and second quests of the original The Legend of Zelda and then went through A Link to the Past. I could still do everything and find everything. Had I ever taken a test on these games? No. Was it even a necessity to find everything? No. You can finish the games without doing so. Had I been regularly reading material on those games to make sure I remembered where everything was? No.

I just engaged with the material and I learned it.

Quick. Try to think of two words that can be used to describe a long and boring talk. Two that I can easily think of and the ones you might have are sermon and lecture. If you go to a church on Sunday, what is the message often called? A sermon. If you go to your college or seminary classroom what do you get? A lecture. Quiz time. How much do you learn from those? If you’re like me, not much. Most of us the next day can’t remember what the pastor preached on yesterday. Some people can’t even remember a few hours later.

I watch a lot of gaming news and I am particularly interested in how my culture is responding to DEI. One such channel is the Kilted Cajun. I am going to use a slogan of his in talking about making good games and that is “Make it fun first.” I am modifying that a bit to say “Make it engaging first.”

We often have made this mistake in Christian media. How many of you have ever got together with non-Christian friends to go see something like a superhero movie? Sure. Most everyone wants to see those. How many of you have ever got together with some non-Christian friends to go see a Christian movie? Right. When was the last time you had people excited about a new Christian movie coming out?

The only one I can think of is something from The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis was a master of this. Lewis was engaging. In Christianity, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox all like to read Lewis. Atheists enjoy reading Lewis. I recall the account of one atheist who was stunned years later when she realized that Aslan was meant to picture Jesus. How many times had she been reading those books and unbeknownst to her, she was learning Christianity at the same time?

In the gaming field, this is the big mistake that the DEI crowd is making. They are forcing DEI into everything so that it’s artificial. To refer to another YouTuber, they are all about doing whatever they can to get in “The Message.”

Consider the case of Concord. This was a game that Sony spent at least $100 million on. Some places say as much as $400 million. It was at least eight years in the making. It was hoped to produce a major franchise.

Most FPS franchises nowadays are free to play and buy with the money coming from in-game purchases. That was the first strike against Concord. The major problem seems to be that the game was incredibly woke pushing things like pronouns.

DEI is so bad that there has even been a website set up to warn people about games that have DEI in them. I used to play Pokemon Go regularly, until they had a developer come in who remade the avatars and pretty much erased male and female from them. All the bodies had to look exactly the same.

There was recently a remake released of Dragon Quest III. I loved the original game, but I am not getting the remake. Why? Woke is in it. Instead of male and female for your character, you have type A and type B. Nothing uplifts women like referring to their bodies as Type B.

Why is this ruining games? Same reason. The material is not engaging. The message comes first and then they try to strap a narrative or a game on top of that. No one wants it. It would be interesting for a company like Square Enix to release another version of the Dragon Quest III Remake and have it be one without the woke stuff in it and see if it sells better. Prediction. It would.

In all of this, I am not at all suggesting that we lower the importance of facts and data. I am saying we need to consider how the material is coming across. We can have the best material in the world, but if no one wants to engage with the material, no one will get it. No one will learn it.

A teacher can have the best information, but if his students aren’t engaged when he teaches, then they won’t remember it long-term. They can study and learn it for a test, but they will forget it after. A preacher can work hard on a sermon, but if the audience does not feel engaged, they will not recall it or practice it. How this is done is up to the speaker and producer of whatever material is there, but it needs to be done.

We have a long history of bad media being made because we focused on message instead of the packaging. Now the woke are making the same material and we can see what we were doing for years. Let’s learn from our mistakes and their mistakes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Opening Thoughts on School Shootings

What causes school shootings? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have been doing a research paper for class on the alleged link between video games and violence and what better place to look than what people always point to, school shootings. I have read a number of books on the topic and plan to until I finish the paper. Right now, I want to share the conclusions I have come to thus far.

First off, too often, we make our solutions way too simplistic. Violence has always been a part of mankind. It’s not going anywhere until Jesus returns. Also, the genie can’t be put back in the bottle. Whatever we might think of things like video games, television, movies, and social media, they are here at least for the long term.

It’s foolish to think “If we eliminate XYZ, then there will be no more school shootings.” No. That’s just looking for a scapegoat. I also think there’s no hard and fast rule in these cases. People are different and you can’t push XYZ buttons and guarantee that someone is going to be a school shooter. Kids can grow up in the same household and turn out radically different.

Getting to my thinking on this, I have discussed this with professors here including the counseling one who thinks this is quite valid. My theory is that there are three levels of interaction. If you don’t have level 1, 2 and 3 are more likely to affect you. If you don’t have 1 and 2, 3 is more likely to affect you.

Level 1 is the family and worldview unit a kid grows up with. Note a kid can have seemingly good parents and still have a problem if he thinks his parents don’t understand him. (I use he, but it’s interesting to point out that these shooters have been male consistently anyway.) On the other hand, a broken family unit is a problem. Mitchell, one of the Jonesboro shooters, had a biological father who was horrible.

This will also include the worldview that students grow up with. No. Bringing them to church every Sunday is no guarantee. Michael, who did his shooting at Heath High School in Paducah was apparently a churchgoing boy with his family. Mental illness was found to be a factor in that shooting later on, but there were other signs that were missed. (Read the book Rampage on this end.)

Kids don’t just need to be raised in the church, but have Christianity lived out with them and explained why it matters. There is a gold mine of information to help children with holy living if they will just see to it. We can’t just say it’s the responsibility of the pastor and youth pastor.

That is level 1.

Level 2 is the kid’s outside community. This includes what he goes through at school and how his peers and teachers see him. A common theme in some shootings has been that athletes in schools often get special treatment, something I wrote about as a journalist for my high school newspaper.

This includes bullying as well. A major problem I find with the stop bullying approach is we focus on the bullies. The best place to focus is on building up the good children since the bad ones don’t care about breaking the rules anyway. I also do not mean the self-esteem movement. I consider that by and large garbage. The best way for Christian kids to see themselves is to learn to embrace their identity in Christ.

There is a downside kids today have that many of us didn’t. Normally, bullying ended at school. Now with social media, it can last much longer. Parents. Please do not get young children on social media. Also, watch what they are doing.

Level 2 doesn’t just include the school. It can include church life as well as life in the community. Do your neighbors know your children? What about their friends’ parents?

Finally, we get to level 3 and this is individual media they consume. Frankly, if violent media were the problem, there would be a whole lot more violence in the world than there is. Not only that, it would be ridiculous to blanket condemn all violence. Not all violence is wrong. Kids need stories where evil gets defeated in the end. The Bible itself has a lot of violence in it.

If a child has a good understanding on levels 1 and 2, then there will be far less cause for worry on level 3. Also parents, as a gamer, I suspect your children if they are like I was would absolutely love it if you played a game with them. If you want to understand their games, really seek to understand them. If a child thinks their parents are really interested in their hobbies, it will build up a greater connection with them.

Notice in this I have also said nothing about things like gun control. I personally don’t think more laws will fix the problem. I also think another contributor that is far more influential is that the media bombards us with information about school shootings. This can easily generate fame for the shooters and the next one will want to be even more destructive for even more fame. I personally think we shouldn’t even share the names of school shooters and if we have to name them something, give them some embarrassing name. When we call a mysterious mass murderer the Zodiac Killer, that sounds mysterious. Give them a shameful name of some sort. Give a name that makes people laugh at them.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. Now I open it up to you. What do you think about school shootings and what can be done about them?

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Game Plunge: Legend of Zelda — Echoes of Wisdom

Is the new Zelda worth it? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Seeing as I have a YouTube channel called Gaming Theologian (And I’m looking for a video editor if anyone’s interested) and seeing as my planned PhD route is the study of video games and Christianity, I figured I would write on the newest Zelda. So is it fun? Is it worth it?

I have played the Zelda franchise from the beginning. I got the original Legend of Zelda back in 1988 for Christmas and I have played the overwhelming majority of games in the series. (I have missed some of the handheld ones) Link was always a hero of mine growing up. Interestingly, there’s a lot of Christian symbolism in the games and even a picture you can find of Link kneeling before a cross.

So yeah, it could be canonical that Link is a Christian.

This is the first game in the series where Zelda is the protagonist. On the timeline, it looks as if this could be the first game in the series as your character and the kingdom doesn’t seem to know who the hero wearing the green tunic is. He does get captured and Zelda sets out to rescue him.

I don’t consider it woke to say that a female is the hero. This has been part of a long tradition of characters like Samus Aran and Lara Croft. That being said, I am also pleased that nothing in the game indicated a “girl boss” persona. There was no indication that Zelda was an incredible character simply because she was a female. There was nothing to indicate Link was a complete moron because he’s a male. As it turns out, Link is still a hero in many ways through the game, but I won’t say how it all works out because spoilers.

This is refreshing because Nintendo could have easily gone the whole DEI route and I’m pleased that they didn’t. Zelda also has a unique style in that she doesn’t fight directly. She’s joined by a companion called Tri who enables her to create echoes of things she has seen and enemies she has defeated, starting with easy enemies beaten by throwing rocks, and then learning to summon those to beat greater enemies.

Hence, the game focuses much more on strategy than it does on combat. There are plenty of puzzles that Zelda has to solve and a wide variety of echoes she can use on her journey meaning the player has much to think through. I strived to use as little of the internet as I could and I only looked up one thing the whole time.

Is it fun? Definitely. There are plenty of side quests and other adventures you can go on and plenty of characters you can meet that will remind you of other games in the series. This one seems to me most similar to Link to the Past. I also saw some events happened that got me considering ties to the sequel to that, A Link Between Worlds.

So if you’re planning on getting it for your “kids” for Christmas, go ahead. I’m sure they’ll enjoy it. Oh. Make sure that they do get a chance to play it and it’s not just you the whole time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Is DEI about to DIE?

Is it in its last days? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

With the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, he has passed being in the bullseye, but DEI has not. Suppose you have been living under a rock somewhere. In that case, DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, which means focusing on every single minority group out there to exclude the majority in virtue signaling. It also means ignoring minor details for jobs like, oh, ability, experience, and other little stuff like that. Do you help fulfill the quota for sex, sexual orientation, and race? Welcome aboard!

A lot of it was going on with the Secret Service at the attempt being publicly seen to have huge problems and a lot of it was with what people saw the women doing who were part of the Secret Service. This isn’t just men who have been saying this. Women have been saying it too. One woman couldn’t reholster her pistol and the women were asking what they were doing and where they were going. (See here.)

This is not to say that women can’t do this job. I’m sure some could. There are some women out there who are great shots with guns. However, Donald Trump is a big man and if you are going to shield him, you need to be as big as he is. If you also don’t know what to do in a situation like this, you are more of a liability than you are an asset at that point.

The director of the Secret Service has come under fire for wanting a quota of 30% women by 2030 and for also remarks about the dangers of a sloped roof. We also know the assassin was in sight for thirty minutes before anything happened. Why wasn’t anything done?

It might not be any coincidence that shortly after this, Microsoft decides to axe an entire DEI team. At this, I rejoice. Loyal readers know I am deeply interested in the gaming community and nowadays, many of us are dreading new games coming out. Why? Because of DEI. We’re not getting games. We’re getting a political lecture.

Consider also the case of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. The Assassin’s Creed games have been known for historical accuracy in the past. Some people thought it could be used to rebuild Notre Dame after the fire. Now this new game is the first one set in Japan and who is upset about it the most?

The Japanese.

They even have a petition out demanding Ubisoft desist in making the game immediately. A lot of it centers around the character Yasuke. Now he is a real historical figure, but he is being made out to be much more than he was. He was an attendant to Nobunaga, but he was not officially a samurai.

There were plenty of Japanese figures that could be chosen, but Ubisoft decided to ignore all of those. Why? DEI. Oh. This black man who the Jesuits brought over is also supposed to be capable of being LGBTQ+. Yep. That makes sense.

Besides, in the game, the assassin is supposed to be able to blend into the crowd. Kill the target, then hide immediately before people realize what has happened. How will this go in Japan? “So the guy who stabbed the victim? Anything distinguishing about him that sets him apart from everyone else?”

Japan says this is a misunderstanding of Japanese culture and the role of the samurai. They also say it will lead to Asian racism. Besides, how do you make a whole game out of a character that we only have a  few scant documents about?

Gamers have been so sick of this that now we have a website set up to deal with this. DEIdetected.com. If your game has the influence of companies like Sweet Baby Inc. involved, we don’t want them. More and more gamers are going to retro games because they can play games without being lectured on politics that way.

The LGBTQ movement is also getting tiresome for gamers. There are plenty of LGBTQ people who just want to live their lives in peace. When you start putting it in everything, everyone gets tired of it. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has been a massive failure and yet they are introducing a new character, Victoria Frias. Who is she? Mrs. Freeze and surprise, surprise, she’s a lesbian.

I watch the videos people make complaining about this. I don’t see anything that indicates to me that these are staunch evangelical Christians. They’re just people who want to play games without politics.

It’s not just games that are having this. Movies that go DEI are not being popular. The usual claim is that many men don’t want to see movies with strong women. Sorry, but I think the Alien franchise and Kill Bill and others did just fine. For the gaming world, there was no uproar when it was discovered that Samus Aran in Metroid was a woman. No one complained about Tomb Raider. (If anything, most men loved Lara Croft. I wonder why….)

Also, consider a TV series like The Acolyte. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a viewer score of 15% (As of the time of this writing). People who are fans of the series tell me that it is completely out of sync with what George Lucas started and dumps all over the franchise. It is simply pushing a woke agenda.

Contrast this with a major motion picture success last year, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. I rarely see movies due to low income now, but I made sure to see this one. I saw in it a love letter to the fans of the game that focused on facets of the game even going all the way back. Spike from Wrecking Crew is even a semi-prominent character in parts of the movie. I even made a video responding to Grace Randolph on it. (I also have someone on campus who is going to teach me about YouTube editing and producing videos so Gaming Theologian should be back soon.)

What makes great games and movies and TV shows successful? Simple point. They are fun. We enjoy them. We don’t go to these to get told that we need to celebrate diversity or that white men are the spawn of the devil. We go to them because we want to have fun.

If you do it right, you can still get a message across in a fun story. There are several fandoms of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings today and yet both of these series are teaching a Christian way of the world. However, both writers made sure that they were making good stories. Most Christian media today is “Hi. We have to point out to you that this is a Christian movie explicitly so we have to have one scene with a cross where we spell out the gospel entirely because you might miss it otherwise. Also, every Christian will be a charming and lovely character and every non-Christian is completely evil.” It doesn’t work when the Woke do it either where every LGBTQ or minority character is completely awesome and every cis straight white male is evil. Most people at the beginning of The Acolyte said the villain will be the straight white male.

If you are to have characters that are “diverse” in a game or movie or TV show, it needs to be natural and relevant to the story and not forced or artificial. I think of Barrett from Final Fantasy VII. He was a black man who was certainly very gruff, but he also had a great love for his daughter and would do anything to help her out. Many of us liked the character.

Consider comic book characters as well. There is a push to often take established characters who have had a history of having romances with the opposite sex, and all of a sudden make them same-sex attracted. If you want to have a superhero who is same-sex attracted, knock yourself out, but make your own. Don’t throw out a character’s entire history just because you want to shoehorn an agenda into it.

However, if you want to write that story, what the fans want is not diversity for the sake of diversity. What they want is a good story. Yes. Believe it or not if you aren’t a part of these worlds, people who read comic books and play video games care about good stories. We want narratives that hold together. We want heroes we can love because they’re heroes and villains we can seek to take down because they’re villains. We don’t mind some shades of grey where it’s hard to tell who is a hero and who is a villain and we don’t mind it when we have a hard time deciding what the right moral choice to make is. That makes it more authentic for us in many ways.

What will Microsoft do about DEI in the future? I don’t know, but I have high hopes. I have high hopes the time has come for DEI to D-I-E. It has been a kiss of death to series that it has been in. Get back to making great entertainment again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

The Acolyte vs. Hogwart’s Legacy

What is the difference between these two? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve never been a Star Wars fan.

I know for some of you, that’s automatically blasphemy, but I was not raised in a household where sci-fi was common. I could say the same about video games, but they were just starting out and I was in an elementary school where people were talking about them and my Dad had a Colecovision that I got started on. Either way, the majority of my knowledge of Star Wars came secondhand. My Dad and I never that I recall watched any of the original trilogy together.

I have seen episodes 4 and 5 and I did go with some friends who wanted to see 1. My ex-wife wanted to see 7 and 8 so I took her to see those. Other than that, I don’t have that much experience with the series.

I say that because passion for the franchise cannot be genuine on my part. I cannot begin to just watch the episodes and think that I am up on all the lore behind it like people who have been following the series for decades can. Thus, I haven’t seen an episode of the Acolyte, but I have been watching the controversy over it.

Fans of the series tell me the problem with the Acolyte is that it is essentially dumping all over the lore. Is the series woke? So I am told. Does it make a big deal about diversity? Apparently. Both of those would be problematic enough, but the main thing I hear from people is that it has no real story. You are not invested in the characters.

What many on the side of the woke forget is that they are putting the message as primary and the story as secondary. Do that, and you lose both. Attempts are made to go after the fans and say it’s their fault. If the material was good, the fans would enjoy it. You know what the fans want the most?

A good story.

“Look at how many non-white people we have in this series.”

Fans don’t care.

“Look at how much different marginalized people groups are represented.”

Fans don’t care.

“Look at the movements we are making for LGBTQ people!”

Fans don’t care.

Now fans might think some of those things could be alright, but they don’t want the story sacrificed for those. That’s not the draw. The draw for them of Star Wars has never been the lightsabers and the usage of the force. Those are cool things, but the main draw is the story that resonates from those.

Lightsabers are the medium. The story is what is communicated through the lights and special effects. Fans would rather have a story that was set in a distant past in the Star Wars universe without lightsabers and the force to show how those things came to be than to have an abundance of those and a terrible story.

So now let’s talk about a series I do know something about.

My sister recently gave me a $100 gift card to the Nintendo Eshop. I bought Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, since I knew there was controversy around it and I wanted to see it firsthand. The big thing was one of the characters was supposed to be transgender. The thing is, that’s only said in one paragraph at one point and you could honestly easily miss it if you were going through it. It plays ZERO relevance to the story.

So I had enough left over and Hogwart’s Legacy was on sale so I picked that up.

Hogwart’s Legacy was all set to be game of the year, but what happened? Well, J.K. Rowling said some statements that were deemed to be “transphobic.” In other words, she supported basic biology we should all know. Because of that, even when game sites were reviewing the game, they always thought they had to bring up what Rowling said. People streaming the game when it was brought out were mobbed en masse by angry leftists complaining about them being “transphobes” and there was even a website set up to list who had “streamed that wizarding game.”

But you know what?

Fans didn’t care.

So I turn on this game and what do I see before too long. Well, I am entering into Gringott’s Bank and then going to Hogwart’s and I have a professor named Weasley. I get to put on the sorting hat. (Ravenclaw for me) I go to Hogsmeade and find a shop set up by Ollivander there who has a new one in addition to Diagon Alley. I see Zonko’s Joke Shop.

In other words, I am walking into an established universe.

When I am in Hogsmeade, I go to the tomes shop and before too long, I realize, “Hey. The guy running this is black.” That wasn’t a problem for me. That’s how diversity should go. When diversity is truly there, you don’t have to point it out. It just naturally blends into the society.

Yes, the game has a main story quest to follow, but I am honestly enjoying more now just exploring the world of the game and going on the side quests first. So many aspects I uncover leave me feeling like I am in the world of Hogwarts. That also is the goal of a good game, a good movie, a good book, and a good TV show. It is to leave the people behind with the proper feeling that they should have. Yes. This is one time where feeling is the proper word.

Good stories are meant to draw you in and in that way, the message still comes through loud and clear. Christians often like Christian movies, but non-Christians don’t. They know that they’re being preached to. They don’t like the way non-Christians are depicted as wicked every time and Christians are perfect saints. They don’t like that the makers think you’re so stupid that they have to explicitly spell out the gospel for you every time.

What do gamers want? A good game. What do moviegoers want? A good movie. What do TV watchers want? A good show. What do book lovers want? A good story. All of us want something we can enjoy and if you are not reaching out and giving your fans something they can enjoy, they will never get your message. The only people who get it are the ones who already believe it.

On our side, that means Christian media doesn’t do much good if we want it to reach non-Christians and yet only Christians watch it. If we think the message is primary and sacrifice the story for that, then the audience we want to reach gets neither. We must make the story primary and smuggle the story in under that to get past the watchful dragons Lewis told us about.

Woke material doesn’t do that either. Not only that, but when people don’t like it, the fans are blasted as being bigots, racists, phobes, etc.

So let me deal with some of that.

I love the Metroid games. It was a major shock for fans of the first game when it was revealed the character you’ve played the whole game is a woman. Did that stop fans from playing the series? No. We love the series still.

I remember going to see Wonder Woman. I thought that was an incredible movie. I left the theater wishing there were more movies that were out like that. Having the main character be a woman didn’t matter to me.

I saw Black Panther. I thought it was an alright film. I wasn’t at all bothered that the main character was black.

I like Final Fantasy VII. I don’t mind that Barrett is black. He’s really an awesome character.

Diversity in and of itself is not a problem for us.

When it is a problem is when it is not organic. Diversity needs to blend into the story and not be the story. When you have to point out diversity, that is a problem.

Hogwart’s Legacy is a great game and will go down in history as a great game. I am drawn into the story and I can spend a lot of time wandering around Hogwart’s Castle just exploring without even engaging in combat because of how much I am drawn into the world. The developers respected the lore and they respected the fans.

I don’t know anyone getting drawn into the Star Wars world because of the Acolyte. The developers I understand have not respected the lore and they have not respected the fans.

It’s not hard to guess which of these two is most popular and which of these sells the most.

I suspect some time in the future, many will look back and wonder what our society was thinking by following this woke ideology. Fortunately, great entertainment will still be there waiting for us by the people who care about the material and care about a good story.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Pokemon Go Avatars

What do I think about the recent Pokemon Go update? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Those of you not knowing about this might wonder how this is apologetics related. Trust me. It is. We are in a culture war with a cancerous movement trying to destroy everything it can and now, it has headed for the gaming industry with games trying to be more and more “Woke.” This is also part of the effects of a group known as Sweet Baby Inc.

Fortunately, a web site has been set up so gamers can know when games come out that are infected with DEI standards. Vote with your wallet. You can find that here.

And look what is on the list.

Pokemon Go.

I hate saying that because I loved Pokemon Go and I had been playing it since day one. I was out going to the park with others playing together and walking around my campus regularly. The game was highly beneficial for me.

But then this avatar update came out.

Now before, I didn’t really care about my avatar. Several people did. Some people spent money buying items so their avatar could look a certain way. I don’t really care for that spending, but if you have it and can do it and want to, who am I to say otherwise? I would only put free stuff on mine.

Then one morning recently, everyone woke up to find that their avatars had been changed. #1 group affected? Women.

If you look through the link, you can find pictures of women that have been changed to be more androgynous. Gone is anything that might look curvaceous on a woman. Hips are gone. Chests are flattened. Facial structure is destroyed.

That’s not even the worst of it. You also have avatars that clearly have a weight problem and are, well, revealing. Please do not look at this if you have small children present.

Checking the original file on Pokemon Go from DEI Detected, you might have noticed by now that part of the work they did was with a consulting group called Gaymer X.

No. That is not a typo.

By the way, a few years ago, the CEO had to step down due to reports of sexual misconduct. Who would have thought?

Well, after Matt Conn stepped down as CEO, he was quickly replaced by Toni Rocca and just a few days later, well wouldn’t you know it? The same thing happened again. What are the odds?

Keep in mind right now as DEI Detected says, this is just Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go. This is not Pokemon or Nintendo, but now is the time to send a message to these groups. Pokemon’s last big games, Scarlet and Violet, were not received well and now they face competition from a game called PalWorld. They do not want to lose a company base right now.

So there are several options.

First, Pokemon can remove all rights to their property from Niantic and give the same game to another company that cares about the players and what they want. Pokemon needs to be a family-friendly game. Niantic has done incredible damage to the brand of Pokemon by doing this.

The second option is not likely, but that is for Niantic to undo the changes, sever all ties with Gaymer X permanently, and profusely apologize to the players. They sadly have a history of not listening to their players. We need to show them the consequences of not listening to us are greater than the consequences of working with a company like Gaymer X. I have since this deleted the game from my phone. Until the changes are made, I am not coming back.

That being said, we need to always hold out the opportunity of forgiveness and reward it. We need to let companies know that if you honor the customers, the customers will honor you back. If we say under no circumstances will we change our minds, we are not giving these companies any incentive to change.

All of this matters because this is an erasure of femininity. If you decided to start playing the game now and had to create a new character, you cannot choose male or female. That is gone. You can only choose a body type.

Women were meant to be beautiful and removing beauty from women is an attack on women. Men and women are not interchangeable. We need to recognize and celebrate the distinct differences between the two sexes and the positive contributions both make.

Players. Vote with your wallets. That is the only language that is understood. I really hope this changes because I got a lot of joy out of playing the game and interacting with others. Either the Pokemon Company needs to grant the rights of Pokemon to someone who will actually honor the customers, or Niantic needs to honor the customers themselves. We, the players, must refuse to compromise on this because our opponents are never interested in compromise. We give an inch and they take a mile and it will keep going.

For now, I’m going to be playing other games instead. I wish it could be otherwise, but I would rather have my standards than sell them out to play a game.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)