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Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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Holy games

by Gonzalo Frasca August 5, 2005

categories: Religious Games

Wired reports from the Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland, Oregon. I find particularly interesting that the article is so concerned about the violence or lack of it in these Christian games. Why would Christian games need to be non-violent? Has anybody read the Bible lately? I mean, the book has tons of extremely violent content (God kills little children when he gets mad, remember?) Tons of violence on the book and none on the games? Come on! Certainly the Old Testament is more bloody than the New, but if you have seen Mel Gibson's opus it should not surprise you that there is a bit of violence in the New Testament, too. I am puzzled, really. The Bible is a fantastic book and, as such, a great source of inspiration for new creations, especially videogames. However, assuming that just because Christianity preaches peace the games have to be peaceful, that's a bit problematic to me, especially if you happen to have read their Holy Book.

Comments (8)

Yeah, why doesn't someone make an Old Testament RTS? (It's gotta be at least five hundred thousand billion times better than a Left Behind one. Speaking with pure objectivity of course.)

josh g. on August 5, 2005 11:08 PM

Perhaps because the Bible stories illustrate the consequence of violence which is not so fun and easily overlooked in games & history.

Even David who killed Goliath is call a "man of blood" by God because of how involved he was in the violence and he was not allowed to build a Temple because of it. No "Sim-Temple" building for him. Several "David & Goliath" games out there, not too many "David gets run out of town and almost killed by his son's army" or "David not allow to fulfill life long building dream" or "David loses illegitimate baby at birth" games out there.

Today's warriors find children who are trained to be warriors in a culture of war too scary as well. The Bible has insulated the western world from that concept but many other cultures dont see that our way. Do a search for today's "child warriors". God kills little children you forgot what their life was like before a better way was shown. Those children were being burnt to their idols by their parents.

Romans kill Christ representative democracy and senate doesn't insulate you from evil leaders.

D. Clarke on August 9, 2005 10:04 PM

So if that is the case, then why not make a game based on peacefulness, rather than Christianity. Yes, the bible is a violent book. Lets not make a game based on Christianity then, lets make a game based on the main aspect that Christianity preaches, peace. There, that solves that problem.

Christiangamer on August 11, 2005 6:52 PM

Some of the current games available do have violence, others still present fun games without having it. See:

http://ChristianGamesNOW.com

Tim on August 23, 2005 10:38 PM

The problem that half of Christianity believes the Bible is divinely revealed kind of throws out a consensus of what a Christian game would be. People should stop trying to label games or music with 'Christian.' It is not a genre. Were the early poets and writers Christian genre? No, but they wrote about God.

Since there is no consensus, then labeling a game Christian is a self-presumption stamp that the person has done something great or a good marketing strategy to the people who love consuming religion and materialism.

Stephan Puff on May 8, 2006 7:52 PM

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gaylord on July 19, 2006 2:18 PM

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gaylord on July 19, 2006 2:18 PM

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gaylord on July 19, 2006 2:19 PM