Wednesday, 25th May 2005 Playing With God Word of a Christian Game Developers Conference and the recent news that Australian's MicroForte will be developing a "Christian game" for consoles has been ruffling the edges of the games industry for a while now. MF have even managed to snag the front page of the CGDC's modest site with an announcement of their new Christian game franchise (a term which, worringly, intimates money more than content). Most would not have noticed, and of those who did most would not have cared enough to react beyond a derisive guffaw. But for those of us who do care, there are some concerns with the idea of a separate Christian industry.

It's no surprise that the idea has been floated. Much of the game industry's stubborn obession with violence, the occult, and licentious sexuality is a problem for many who watch and play games, not just Christians. Others are appalled by the way money and publishing conglomerates have come to dominate the industry and turned the initial burst of creativity into a mush of rehashed mediocrity. It's not unreasonable to want a clear alternative - in fact it's inevitable smaller independent industries will emerge to offer one, and they already are. There are very good reasons to object to the current state of the games industry. But attempting to create a sub-industry based upon a purely spiritual agenda is, I believe, a mistake. It's a mistake that has been made before, and in the same way, and for the same reasons.

The Christian Music Industry is now big business. It didn't start off that way. It began as a scattered group of passionate and talented musicians who wanted to share their faith through their art (Keith Green, Randy Stonehill, Phil Keaggy, Chuck Gerard, Larry Normal et al). It was naive, and awkward, and pure, and during the first years created some of it's most powerful music. Gradually the suits took over, and now it's big business to the tune of many hundreds of millons of dollars a year. The major difference between it and the secular industry is no longer simply content. That is, afterall, a matter of demographics, marketing and social politics. The major difference is that the money makers in the Christian industry couch their activities in spiritual rhetoric. To use a Biblical metaphor, the money changers are in the temple and this time there doesn't seem to be anyone chasing them out.

There is no such thing as a Christian song, any more than there is a Buddhist song. People are Christians, not songs. Songs are either good or bad or indifferent based upon their artistic merit (unless you are Miles Davis, in which case there is only good or bad), but they are not religious entities. A song may have persuasive spiritual influence in the way all good art can (witness the simple power behind Amazing Grace, or the uplifting grandeur of Bach), but that only happens when it is good art first.

In the same way, there is no such thing as a Christian game or a Christian industry. The term is an absurdity. There may be Christianized content, but the game will be either good or bad as determined by how much fun it is to play, how eloquent its design, and how absorbing its narrative. Wrapping it in pedantic Christian symbolism or cheezy, forced themes will inevitably start it at the bad end of the spectrum and do a disservice to the medium.

The industry needs contrary voices to offer meaningful resistance to the monolithic capitalism and baseness which has stifled it. Maybe that does mean creating alternative industries. But those alternatives must be created on the basis of the quality and integrity of the games made, not as a hijacked forum for narrow evangelistic messages. If all the CGDA does is to offer yet another sacred/secular split, it will have failed before it succeeds. And don't laugh, it probably will succeed, no matter how dismal the first games seem. The music industry has already proven the viability of bland Christian content in the Western market place, and along with it the inevitable enshrinement of mediocrity that so plagues the secular industry - but with the added horror of pre-packaged, luke warm spirituality. That stuff is more dangerous than any virtual violence or smut.

All a separate Christian Games Industry stands to achieve is to create a new market for the same general content as is already available, but at a lower standard and with an agreed upon script. In doing so, just like the Christian music industry, it will fail the sincere motivations of its pioneers anyway. But it's deeper legacy will be much worse - it will further confuse and devalue an already obscured message.

More, with pros and cons...http://levelling.bigkid.com.au/2005/05/25/playing-with-god/