Category: Video Games

Our Need For Stories

What in us drives us to create stories? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have my own section at TheologyWeb.com and I invite you to check it out. A few days ago, I made a post about the problem of good vampires. What I am finding amazing about this is that there is a real discussion going on. Sometimes, it’s incredible to see what people comment on.

Just now I was watching The Big Bang Theory with one character asking about zombies. What happens if they don’t get human flesh to eat? They can’t starve to death because they’re already dead. I’m also going through Smallville again. This is my favorite series and started with two guys saying “Let’s tell an origins story of Superman.”

Comic books are well-known for creating massive universes as well and how many times have we had movies about the origin of Batman? These stories have so many installments to them that fans debate amongst themselves for each franchise what is and isn’t canon. You can have contradictory things happen in the stories so much so that DC created the Multiverse which led to several of its own problems.

In the gaming world, I am listening to the audiobook The Greatest Stories Every Played. Talk to some of my fellow gamers and what do we remember about a lot of our favorite games? The story behind them. Would that I could have my memory wiped and go through Final Fantasy IV again for the first time.

Why do we do this? Why do we debate about things that we all know don’t exist? People debating the Legend of Zelda franchise or Marvel comics or vampires aren’t doing so because they believe these exist. Despite that, they debate them and the debates can get awfully heated. Philosophy papers can easily be written on these topics. Indeed, if you want to see some of this, just go to Amazon and type in Pop Culture and Philosophy and see all the books that come up.

As far as I am aware, we are the only species that creates stories. Do we really do that for survival? Doubtful. It is possible to survive without stories, though most of us would consider that an impoverished life. You don’t need to read fiction, but many of us spend our time investing in a world of fiction. How many people can tell you every facet of The Lord of the Rings, for instance?

Lord of the Rings also led to popular role-playing games, including Dungeons and Dragons. Why do we play these? Because we like to use our imaginations and tell stories, but not only that, we want to be in on the story ourselves sometimes. We want to think about what we would do if we were in that situation. It’s easy to watch a movie or TV show or read a book and say to the character from the comfort of our homes, “Don’t go there! Don’t open that door! Don’t trust that guy!” Role-playing games can sometimes be the closest we get to making the choice ourselves and in the case of a game like D&D, if we’re playing with friends and not an electronic version, we can’t think of what we did the last time we played the game. Every time is new.

Today, I was telling another student about my research into video games and Christianity and how I think I am going to focus on stories and quests. Most people who are gamers like myself, we enjoy our hobby, but we also want more. We want real-life adventures more. I suspect this is why men watch the movies we do. We want to be the Avengers or we want to be James Bond.

Here’s another reason I suspect we make stories, which have been going on as long as we know of. Deep down, I think we all know that there is more than just this world. We do make some stories to explain reality, like the Just So stories, but we also make stories to tell for a longing that we have that reality is greater than what we see. A materialistic world is boring. We want a world of life.

I wonder if this could be behind the end-times hysteria many people have. Could it be we so much want to be a part of a greater story that we are convinced we are living in the last generation, even though numerous generations before us said that? Surely we must play a part in this? Could it also be why the belief is so prevalent that God speaks to us individually regularly? Surely I must play a part in all of this! Surely God has something for me and I need to find out what it is.

We can say social media contributes to this by making so many of us narcissists, but social media doesn’t create the idea. It just gives it a place to shine more prevalently. Social media too often just reveals who we really already are. Why do many of us do and say things that we wouldn’t do in person? Because on social media, it’s easy to put on a mask.

Everyone already has a story. I have said before that I think you could make a major motion picture of anyone’s life, and if you have a good director and cast, it would be a major hit. It’s incredible to think how much we are spending every year making games and movies and TV shows all because people love stories!

So I will be watching the debate on vampires and the discussion back and forth and enjoying it. I will continue playing some great new stories waiting to see what happens. However, I hope to continue living out my story and remembering that the story is not about me. It’s really His story. I just play a small part in His story, but I hope it’s a contribution that will make it better.

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

Gaming and Community

Do these two go together? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am listening on Audible to Reality is Broken. It’s a book about the importance of gaming in our world and how gaming can help fix problems outside of the game. Over the weekend, I am listening to the book and I hear two statements that I think go together and are worth writing about.

The first is one that I’ve thought for a long time. Kids born after 1980 are generally more miserable than kids that were born before. Why? Because there was an emphasis on the self-esteem movement and self-fulfillment. Look within yourself to find your value and goodness.

That movement failed. Today, one of the supposedly most important things you can learn is to not hurt someone’s feelings. It’s as if this is the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person. It’s not. I am not saying to be needlessly cruel, of course, but too often we are walking on eggshells.

The second lesson is that those who are kind to others in gaming worlds are more prone to be kind to others in real life, even total strangers. Why should this not be? Being kind to a stranger in a virtual world can easily equate to being kind to strangers outside since after all, those people in the virtual world are strangers.

Many readers know I play Final Fantasy XIV. At one time, I remember being a character who was a miner trying to get some goodies from rocks in the field when another player comes by. He sees my equipment and says “You need something better. Wait here.” I do and a few minutes later, he returns with equipment he has bought or acquired through some other means (Though most likely bought) and just gives it to me. I couldn’t even tell you their name, but I remember it.

Another time, I had finished a dungeon raid with some other players and one of them stays after and works to tell us strategies that we could do to improve our gameplay. Again, I don’t remember who it is. I can’t even tell you what the strategies were. I can tell you that kindness was shown.

How do these two work together? Because if you try to look inside yourself constantly to find joy, you will be miserable. If you seek to do what you can to help others, you will often find greater joy. It’s almost as if that guy was right several centuries ago who said “It is better to give than to receive.”

“Yes, but if you’re going to say gaming kindness leads to real-world kindness, does the same apply to violence?” I don’t think so because first off, the literature I have read leads me to conclude that doesn’t happen. The second is because we all have within ourselves somewhere still a moral revulsion to certain actions. That can be overridden by many, but not all will do that.

We don’t come with a moral revulsion to helping others, though some of us do convince ourselves of one. If we can teach ourselves that that is good virtually, we will be more prone to doing that non-virtually. Not only that, but even virtually, if we are playing with real people, we are still helping strangers.

The self-esteem movement failed because it did the exact opposite of what we are to do. It told us to look within, but our own selves are a fragile foundation for joy. What does bring joy is community and knowing we have brought other people joy. So what about the idea though that many of us who are gamers are loners?

Also not really true. If anything, this is a societal problem. I live on a campus and I know that many of us just come home and stay in our own places and don’t really visit neighbors too much. Like many people though, if I meet a fellow gamer, we can connect instantly in talking about games like Zelda or Final Fantasy. Can that happen in many other fields? Of course, but there’s a special delight for us still when we meet someone with the same interests and can bond, especially helpful for someone on the spectrum.

If you have kids today, don’t raise them on self-esteem nonsense. It doesn’t work. Raise them to love their neighbor as themselves. That will give them true joy.

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

Quests Matter

Do we need something to do? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I don’t know if school was like this for you, but for the most part for me it was. I was the kind of student who did all my work in class, came home and played video games and other such things. Most reading I did was things like Peanuts, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc. Of course, I did read the Bible. I had that read for the first time in middle school.

Do I remember a lot of things I studied in school? Nope.

I thought about this listening to Timcast yesterday where Vivek Ramaswamy was on a livecast and discussing his philosophy. He did talk about the God-shaped hole, but he also applied it to purpose. Man needs a purpose in his life. Man needs something to do.

Question. Why is it that when a child gets home from school, things like video games and playing sports with friends matters more than the schoolwork does? Why is it that can still be the way today? If you don’t want to go with video games, go with something else. How many guys know more about their favorite sports team than their jobs? How about their favorite TV shows?

In these cases, we’re getting involved in something greater than ourselves. Reading a good fictional book can get you into a story that is different from your own and if you get caught up in it, you can literally lose track of the world around you. I have read many a mystery when I go to bed at night and I am still working out trying to figure out who it is. I remember reading Odd Billy Todd and when the story ended, felt disappointed because now I knew my interaction with these people I had read about was all done.

This can happen when you watch a movie or a TV show. To this day, I remember the first time I watched Smallville (Spoiler alert coming) and I got to season 5 and saw the death of Jonathan Kent. That was painful for me when I saw it. I respected that man so much he was like another father to me. I’m sure many of you can think of a similar case.

And as a gamer, when I play a game, I find myself getting caught in a story and I want the story to succeed and I want to be the best that I can be at the story. I want to learn what I need to learn to bring about the best outcome in the story. All of these get us caught in something greater than ourselves and from the world of gaming, I call them quests.

I remember talking to a professor here who told me thinks tests are the best way to have students learn something. I disagreed. Any student can spend all night cramming and memorizing the information and then ace the test and just a bit later, forget it all. It was not learned to succeed outside the classroom. It was learned to succeed at the class.

However, what classes can you be interested in? Ones where you see something that is immediately relevant to your life outside of the classroom. If you enjoy philosophy and history, you will readily learn those and really, the tests won’t matter to you. Instilling a love of the subject and seeing its relevance helps you learn it.

Now what about Christianity? I have often written about a major problem we have in the church is we make evangelism being all about going to Heaven. Why do you get saved? So you can go to Heaven. Why do you repent? So you can go to Heaven.

What if we make it about something else? What if we say Christianity is the story of good conquering evil. Peter Kreeft once said about apologetics that it’s the closest you get to saving the world. That’s a statement I remember. What if Christianity was not about you? What if it was about your role in a story greater than yourself?

What if you learned this stuff from the Bible not just so you could know it, but so you could apply it in the battle? What if it was not just about being a good person, but being a heroic person? What if it was depicted as a battle to win the souls of the lost and stop the spread of evil in the world?

This is one reason my PhD research at this point is set to be on video games and Christianity, with an emphasis on the importance of quests. Games draw us in because we get drawn into something greater than ourselves. Hopefully, we will do the same with Christianity.

And in the end, maybe that could help our evangelism.

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

 

Should Christians Play Diablo?

Is this the devil’s game? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A really good friend of mine shared with me yesterday about someone complaining about KFC because they are teaming up with Diablo for a promotion. Now some of you who know about Diablo being put out by Activision might wonder why I’m commenting on this seeing as I came out against Activision in yesterday’s post. I still stand by that, but for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that this game was made by a different company. I want to just look at the game as a game.

I went to the KFC page and saw several people talking about how demonic this game was. Evidence they gave of that? It just was. One lady who I replied to messaged me and decided to show me this picture as clear evidence that the game is demonic.

Sorry. That doesn’t cut it for me. Depicting an evil being as something that looks evil is actually being accurate. If you look at descriptions of the devil in something like, say, Dante’s Inferno, it’s nothing pretty.

If we were to take the book of Revelation and turn it into a full movie along the lines of Left Behind, a series I definitely don’t agree with, the devil would come out looking pretty awful. Can you imagine what the Beast would look like if he was pictured literalistically?

I was also told to look at the horns on this creature. The horns! Well that clinches it!

Except when you look at Revelation 5, you see horns on the Lamb. That lamb is Jesus, so if horns on something make it evil, then I guess you have a problem with Jesus. If anything, I think the devil would be upset as being depicted as a villain in a video game that an adventurer can defeat. (I understand the story is about defeating the mother-in-law of the devil, something I don’t think really flatters the devil.)

Naturally, satanism was also thrown about. Real satanism doesn’t have anything to do with satan. Satan is more seen as a symbol as being a rebel against society. It’s essentially humanism. If you go with the whole self-esteem movement, you’re a lot closer to satanism that way.

Now keep in mind in saying this I’m not saying everyone should play this. If you still don’t think it would be right for you to play, that’s fine. What I am concerned about is the jumping into panic mode immediately. I am much more concerned about the philosophy at Activision than I am about this game. When I say I wouldn’t play this game, it’s not because it’s Diablo, but because it comes from Activision. Now I might not play on other grounds such as I just don’t normally care for games that are M rated.

However, that’s another point. Someone else did tell me that this game is M rated because of all the blood and gore. Okay. That’s why it’s left to mature adults to make their own call, but if we went that route, go look at the Parents guide for Schindler’s List in IMDB. Much of the material is severe. There is full graphic nudity and there is extreme blood and gore.

Yet everyone should see that movie at least once.

Christians. If you go with simplistic arguments, you will come across these kinds of problems. The world will also look at it and tell you you are being hypocrites, and they will be right. If you don’t want to play something because it depicts a demon like this, but you have no problem with Lord of the Rings with the balrog, then the issue is not the being in it. If the presence of such a creature is the problem, it doesn’t get a free pass because, hey, a Christian made it.

Not only that, but we are fighting the battles in the wrong spot. The real threat to watch out for in a movie or anything like that is the worldview that is presented. There are a lot of cute cartoons and movies that parents will let their children watch that have a horrible worldview to them. Star Wars will give you a very pantheistic worldview. Star Trek is humanism. Am I saying to avoid those? No. However, we must be discerning in all that we watch, read, play, etc.

Learn to discern. That’s the bottom line. Don’t fall into panic. Go for what seems like an obvious threat to you and you’ll miss the real underlying ones.

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

Leave The Children Alone

Is there a problem with leaving the children alone? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many of you reading this are not gamers, and so when I tell you there’s a big debate going on in the gaming community, you might be tempted to dismiss it. Don’t. This actually is relevant to you. If you have children in the school system, you need to pay attention to this. If you care about what the LGBT group is doing, you need to watch this.

It all started with someone complaining about the Armenian parents protesting their school considering more Pride material and the parents didn’t want this. An altercation took place and no one knows for sure who started it. One streamer posted about it and said we’re in a dark place and we should just let people love who they want.

A streamer who goes by NickMercs replied with saying that they should just leave the children out of it. That’s the real issue. You can see the tweet here.

NickMercs had made a bundle collaboration with the Call of Duty game series put out by Activision. After he said this in response, the bundle was removed from the store. The response by the fans was immediate.

They aren’t happy.

Here is what Call of Duty said themselves.

One other major streamer known as Dr. Disrespect decided that that was enough. He made a livestream video of him removing the game from his library. There is language in this if you don’t want your children to watch.

Now many of these guys would really see no problem with the LGBT community. They’re in many cases for “equal rights.” However, they do not want to see children being targeted and in comments sections are often tagging the FBI to alert them about groomers and pedophiles. (Personally, I don’t think we should say pedophiles as Philia is just friendship. Pederasts is a much more accurate term.) Many of these guys grew up playing games and are not parents themselves.

Some of these people are now saying that the community as is is a cult. If you say one thing that goes out of line against them, then they shut you down. Note that this is not saying that all people who are LGBT are cultists, but there is a mindset.

And let’s consider this still. What was the supposed statement made that went against pride? Leave the children alone.

So if you are making a statement about leaving children alone, you are opposed to pride and you are anti-LGBTQ?

That says a lot, doesn’t it?

I already shared a post about what is going on here and another one recently here. However, the gaming community has found another video and are letting others know what is going on. I urge you to go to around 5:40 in this video, although if you want to watch the whole and hear more about the “controversy”, feel free. Please do not watch this with small children around.

The LGBT group is now making it clear that their goal is to get the children. Our president has also now draped the White House in the rainbow flags so you know what side he is going to fall on. The big battle of our generation is going to be for the safety of our children.

The gamer community could have been one of the worst to go after. These are people who play games where they often have to plan out strategies, get all the information they can, and work as a team. Many of them also want to pass their hobby on down to their children so you can expect they want to have a good relationship with them.

There is an active movement going on to boycott Activision and Call of Duty. It’s odd that Activision has chosen to jump on Nickmercs immediately when they themselves have a less than glamourous history. They ignore repeated complaints from gamers about their games, but they jumped right on this one. Also, it’s worth pointing out that in America, many of their games have pride flags in the games, but for some reason, if you’re in the Middle East you don’t get those. Really standing with the LGBT community. Right?

If you’re a non-gamer and you made it this far, I hope you now see that this is relevant to you. They are coming for your children and if you stand against them, you are the enemy. There is no community they will not try to get a foothold in. If you are a non-gamer, speak out against Activision and Call of Duty anyway. While I don’t play Call of Duty, I am a gamer and I am taking this very seriously. I have spent much of this weekend watching the videos on this gathering more and more information.

Parents. Please step up now. They don’t want to leave your children alone.

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

 

 

Book Plunge: Play More Games

What do I think of Matt Larson and Mark Krupa’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For those following me on YouTube, there have been some difficulties, but I have not given up Gaming Theologian at all. I’m still doing a lot of the research, which includes this book. I saw it during Amazon browsing and kept waiting for the Kindle price to drop some, but no. I went on and got it. It’s not wildly expensive, but I was still going through another book at the time so there was no rush.

But I did get it and I found myself enjoying the book. Most of the chapters are really short and can be read one at a time. The author is an avid gamer himself who has three boys who are also gamers. The whole family is Christian.

I don’t understand the title as there’s really no reason given to play more games. It’s more like understanding game playing. Why do people play games? How should parents handle matters? How should grandparents? What do kids want their parents to know?

Yes. That last one comes up. There are chapters where the sons are interviewed and give their answers to questions about gaming. These are definitely chapters parents need to read.

There was even a chapter interviewing the grandmother about her grandson’s interest. Nothing was left unturned. This shows not only an outsider perspective, but it also demonstrates the importance of family in all of this.

One of my favorite looks was finding couples who game together. Ah. The dream. Whenever I hear about couples like this, it gives me a little bit of hope again. It would be great to find a devout Christian girl who loves to play her games as well.

One of the most important parts though is a look at life in the Czech Republic. Here, one of the authors comes as a missionary and works with the people there and gaming has been an inroads to help with the church. For those who don’t know, gaming is a very close-knit community. I don’t know much about GamerGate, but from what I have heard, the gamers all came and worked together to accomplish goals regardless of political or religious views.

As the missionary sought to set up a community and used gaming events to do so, non-Christians would come and help out and explain the best ways to bring about such an event. If you’re wondering, yes, there were non-Christians who came to Christ through the love of a Christian gaming community. Right now, I am trying to do what I can here on my own campus to help us reach gamers in the area.

This book is a very enjoyable read and like I said, it’s short. You will also laugh at several times, particularly a chapter that I loved the opening where Larson talks about the things his children say when they are watching him gaming, and he’s not doing well at all. If you want to understand the world of gaming and how it works with Christianity, try this one out.

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

Book Plunge for Fun: Armada

What do I think of Ernest Cline’s novel? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have been trying to read more fiction lately. I have going through two of the three books in the New Arcadia series, but I’m waiting for the third and final one to come out before I write about that series. I do know it’s going to be the last since I emailed the author.

I saw this book by Ernest Cline and decided to get it. Cline is the one behind books like Ready Player One which was turned into a movie. So far, all of his books seem to be related to the world of gaming. I will try to avoid giving any major spoilers.

Anyway, in this book, Zack Lightman is in class when he thinks he sees out the window an alien spacecraft. Not only that, but it looks like one from one of his favorite video games. At this, he thinks he must be going crazy. After all, didn’t that happen to his Dad? His father, who died long ago, believed that the gaming industry and the movie industry worked together on games and movies involving aliens in order to prepare us for an alien invasion.

The reader can tell that Zack is not going crazy though knowing the nature of a book. There really is an alien invasion that is coming and it really is connected with Zack’s favorite game. What happens after all of this? At this point, I choose to remain silent, but I do have some observations to share.

Technology seems to be a strange beast. On the one hand, we talk about all the great goods that it gives us. On the other hand, we talk about how it can lead us to an early grave. In this one it’s kind of mixed in that we have technology and we depend on it to some extent, but at the same time, can it be a sufficient savior? If our technology is what we are dependent on, what would happen if a race ever showed up that had better technology?

Along those lines, there are times that Christianity is shown in the novel. There is a character who is a skeptic of it and one who is a firm believer and another who it is not known their position, but they sure can quote Scripture. I do not know the beliefs of Cline, but I thought this was a good way to treat the topic in his novel. After all, if an alien invasion took place, there will be people who will be turning to God.

I saw some reviewers say they thought the novel was predictable. There were some parts I was guessing, but overall, no. I tended to read a chapter a day but there were many times I was tempted to skip ahead, not because I wanted to get it done with, but because I really wanted to know what happened. I never did, but that temptation was there.

If you enjoy gaming or movies like Star Wars or the Star Trek series or anything of that sort in the realm of science-fiction, this is a good one to give a try.

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

Of Mario and Bud Light

What can we learn from both of these? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Well, there’s two things you probably never thought would be teamed up. I did go and see the Mario movie Saturday and I definitely enjoyed it. For someone who has been playing video games and been involved with Nintendo for most of my life, I saw so much that I recognized and thought that most importantly, the movie stayed true to the game series.

Not only that, but this movie is setting records and giving Disney competition. Critics are slamming it also while audiences love it, something that again tells us that critics are out of touch with America. Many of the reviews I have heard or seen slamming the movie are completely out of touch, such as asking “How does Bowser wanting to kidnap Peach and force her to marry him work with MeToo?”

Well, for one thing, Bowser is a villain….

I have heard one commentator on this say that Illumination studios did want to put some “progressive” elements in the movie, but Nintendo put their foot down and said no. Nintendo has generally tried to avoid politics. They made it clear that Mario is to be the hero of this movie. Good call, Nintendo. The critics may be laughing at the movie, but Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank.

And they have plenty more franchises that they can make movies out of. Let’s face it. We know the Legend of Zelda movie is coming.

Meanwhile, Bud Light is tanking. They have been silent on social media. Why? Because they got a fake trans activist to sponsor their beer and the consumers did not like it. Now I don’t drink alcohol, but I also don’t forbid anyone drinking it either.

Disney also had movies like Lightyear and Strange World go down. Why? Because Disney has ceased to be family-friendly and if your emphasis of your movie is “Woke”, then families are less likely to go and see it. Families did go see Mario because it was friendly to family and the generation that has families now grew up playing Mario. It was just as much for them as it was for the kids. The older generation like myself can go and see it and get great joy out of it, but there’s enough the younger generation would recognize.

Now we can sit back and say that people don’t want to see “Woke” movies, but you know what other movies they don’t want to see? Christian movies. Frankly, I don’t blame them. The only reason many of us see Christian movies is that they are Christian movies. Non-Christians don’t see them.

Why? The same reason that many of us don’t see “Woke” movies. The emphasis is on the “Woke” in those movies. They mainly want to point out that we have a gay or a trans character. Isn’t that awesome? How many people do you know say “I want to go see a movie. Which movie has a gay or trans character in it?” I remember going to see the latest Power Rangers movie, which had a character on the spectrum in it. I did not go see it because of that. I saw it because it was Power Rangers.

Let’s take this to my own specialty area of video games. There have been Christian video games. Most of us don’t know about them for good reason. They sucked for the most part. Now I did enjoy the original Wisdom Tree trilogy, but the only reason I think I picked it up was it was a Bible game. Turn it into anything else and I won’t. There was a remake of a kind of Wolfenstein game that was Noah’s Ark with him capturing animals, but if you had a choice between that or Wolfenstein, who will play the former? Only someone who already cares about the Bible. The non-Christian will go to the former every time.

A few months ago I watched a video on the history of Christianity and video games. I left a comment pointing out that the original Legend of Zelda had religious references, such as the magic book was called a Bible. Nintendo didn’t really want religious imagery, yet Link’s shield does still have a cross on it. (There is imagery in Japan that indicates Link could be a Christian.)

So let me show you some of the comments from this video and I will be removing names.

“I’m not Religious but if they actually made a bible game that was like Bayonetta, God of war or hell even something like skyrim or Breath of the wild, I’d play it”

“My dream Bible centric game: It just needs to be a reskinned Fallout New Vegas or Witcher 3 but I want Easter Eggs and Bible references out the wazoo.  So your character Ezra will be walking through the marketplace on his way to offer a sacrifice at the Temple. Off to the side are a group of men with one donkey. One of the men will be swearing up and down,” I TELL YOU THE TRUTH! THIS DONKEY SPOKE TO ME!!!” He’ll just be met with jeering and accusations of lunacy. “Balaam you’re going crazy!” Later, you’ll be traveling to the next town and you’ll encounter this Balaam and he’ll be arguing with his donkey. You’d even witness the donkey talk back and make snarky remarks. Because you’re the protagonist, the odd pair will speak freely with you. Because Balaam was a prophet, he’ll have good fortune telling abilities and maybe he’ll join your party. The main thing, the Bible has so many great stories but they’re strung along thousands of years so timelines will have to be compressed immensely.”

“I like how thia video helps evolve the meme-like concept that Christian games are bad to be more of a understanding of the approach these games are made with. They arent there to make a game; they’re there to convert…”

“I am a Christian myself but totally get that you can’t label everything in the popular media with a belief system…music, movies, AND video games, too! This is one of those videos where even reading the comments are fun! I can’t tell you the number of folks I’ve run across that make you feel like an unbeliever when you’re not also signed up for all this additional stuff. I’ve never played one of these video games–never knew they existed!–but I am thinking they stink as much as most Christian music. You just can’t force yourself to like something that you…just…don’t.”

“Would love to see an open world rpg set in the pre flood antedeluvian world that gives you free will choices.”

“I think if christians tried making a good game instead of trying too hard to make it “holy” then they could do it. Im christian and I know there are tons of themes for video games. I mean look at a game like fable. That was an amazing series that could have similar elements to an open world rpg. Like living in the days after noah when the tower of babel is being constructed and living in the harsh middle east. Christians or at that time Yahwists would have still needed to defend themselves from bandits and the like. We live in a much safer society today. Having spiritual beings influence npcs and having the main player set an area right from the influence of principalities would be cool”

Okay. I don’t want to overwhelm you. There’s plenty more. Here’s something else I notice looking through the comments. I don’t really see arguing or bickering and this is a video about Christianity! I see people coming together in agreement.

Ultimately, what’s the secret? What makes Mario a success in the movies? Why did Bud Light bomb?

Because fun should be fun. When people want to do something fun, they generally don’t want a political or religious message thrust upon them. There’s a reason a lecture is referred to as “preaching.” Preaching is in a sense synonymous with boring.

Nintendo followed a simple concept. They made the movie fun. They made it something people will want to see and tell their friends to see and take their own families too.

And notice something from the comments Christians. If we made games and movies that were fun and not just thrusting Christianity down peoples’ throats, they would play it. It doesn’t matter if it’s Bible-based or not. What matters to a gamer is “Is the game fun?”

Now I happen to like playing games that touch on philosophical issues and I like movies and TV shows like that too, but I won’t keep watching something or playing something if it is boring. My ministry partner does this in his videos. Sure. I can watch a video again if I want to go back and get his take on an idea, but I watch them for another reason. They’re fun.

What do we need to learn from this? Make media and make it Christian, but also make it fun. Make it something people will want to watch. If we don’t do that, we’re just as guilty as the “woke” crowd. When the message drowns out any enjoyment, people aren’t interested. It doesn’t matter if it’s “woke” or Christian or anything else.

Thus, i encourage us to start a revolution in this area. Make sure our content is good. If the product is good, people will be interested. If Bud Light wanted to up the sales, the way to do that was not to politicize that. The way to do that was to improve the product. Make a good product and people will buy it. Make good media and people will use it.

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

 

A Question on Violence and Gaming

How do I answer an objection like this? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Since I have a YouTube channel dedicated to gaming and theology, a niche I saw very few people addressing, it’s not to be a surprise when someone shoots me a question. A husband and wife I am good friends with wanted to ask me one. It goes as follows and I am quoting:

So I was wondering something based on your work with video games. I have an acquaintance from a Christian group who has a Twitch account streaming video games. (This person prides himself on being a conservative Christian and has been on his wife for being too theologically liberal). He invited some of us to tune in and I checked it out. He was playing a game I’d never heard of called “Resident Evil”. Within 30 seconds, I heard over the top vulgar language and saw a character being tortured to death. Is this the kind of game that’s common among the Christian gaming community?

Good question.

Now at the start, I have never played Resident Evil, though I am trying to get into Bioshock because of the rich philosophical themes, not because I just enjoy first-person shooters. However, I did really enjoy Goldeneye back in the day. Everyone did.

That doesn’t mean I don’t know about Resident Evil and have never seen gameplay about it. However, when I hear at the start that there was torture and vulgar language, I don’t stop immediately. It’s easy to make a hard and fast rule, but two things give me pause.

As I told them, when I was in high school, I remember being in English and the teacher showed us a movie. We had to watch it in more than one class as it was a long movie, but I do remember we saw full nudity in women. You could see a woman in a bed completely topless. I remember there was a lot of violence. People were being killed constantly. There were then scenes with several women totally nude. Keep in mind I didn’t grow up in a liberal area. I grew up in the Bible belt.

However, I bet most children in the class that if they went home and said they had watched this movie, their parents would not be concerned. They would ask what they thought. It would lead to a good discussion. I’ll go further. If I ever get blessed with children, I will want them to watch this movie one time at least when they are old enough.

The movie was Schindler’s List.

If you have a hard and fast rule against anything like what was described in the question above, you will be prone to miss this movie, and yet it is a classic. It points to a great period of evil in our history and something we need to talk about. If you look at the women who are nude and just think about sex, you have a serious problem.

Lately also, I have seen people saying that if we object to Drag Queens and certain books in our schools, then we should object to the statue of David. After all, he is fully nude. The difference here is that the intent of David is not to be sexual, but to show the glory of the human body. It is not to sexualize David. The intent of porn and many of these books is to sexualize.

Another reason this gives me pause is because I think of what skeptics say, especially about the book of Judges. Consider Judges 19 where you have a gang rape take place and then the body of the victim is cut into pieces and sent to the tribes of Israel. Skeptics ask how something this awful can be included in the Bible.

Yet this whole section is also about how wicked Israel was at the time and the consequences of living in an ungodly society when there was no godly king. It is not to celebrate the time. It is to say “Don’t be like this time!”

Thus, when it comes to these games, I make no hard and fast rule for the most part. If it leads you to sin, don’t do it. If it doesn’t, then the only thing to really consider is how other people might see it. That should be kept in mind.

Some people might play Resident Evil (RE) because they enjoy the gameplay and they enjoy the puzzle solving and the skill involved in playing a shooter game. That doesn’t mean that these people will become mass shooters.

Some people will point to school shooters, but many of these actually did not play video games. An example of this is the shooting at Virginia Tech where the student was known for not playing games. It could be this made him an outsider to the culture of people who were gamers and thus could actually be a warning sign.

If first-person shooter games were the cause of these kinds of violent outbreaks, then we would expect that there would be far more outbreaks than there are. There aren’t. The overwhelming majority of people who play these games will never kill anyone with a gun in real life.

I read a book on audio recently that talked about a lady named Daphne Maurer who was doing research on vision and at the university was looking for some guinea pigs for the tests. The only people there were the video gamers in the computer lab because, well, nerds hang out at the university. These people were playing first-person shooters and when given the vision tests, they aced them incredibly.

What Maurer found over time was that people who played these games consistently tend to have better vision. After all, you have to survey a whole area and watch for any movement and know it well and you have to be able to get a shot in quickly if a target shows up and quickly identify if they are a friend or a foe. These people learned how to do that.

Ultimately, and this said in light of the very recent school shooting in Nashville, the problem is actually not the guns. The old saying is true. Guns don’t kill people. People do. They will use any weapon whatsoever. At the start of Bioshock, your main weapon is a wrench. The largest mass killings done in America were done with planes and with trucks with fertilizer.

The problem is us. We are sinful people. The sexual revolution has especially raised the breakdown of the family where those good moral beliefs were supposed to be taught. Many of us who are gamers like myself want to avoid real-life violence. I will break to avoid hitting a squirrel while driving. If anything, a lot of us want to overcome evil. Edward Snowden even said his exposing of government surveillance came from playing video games.

There are plenty of good books on this. I recommend Moral Kombat: Why The War On Violent Video Games is Wrong and Grand Theft Childhood. I ultimately contend that the best solution is to restore the value of human life and to restore the family and undo the sexual revolution.

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