Oh dear, looks like a Bible game is in development...

Sounds like this game will be right up there with Postal.

 

what? are sure about this?
I know they are doing an FPS.. but I didn't think it would be about that...

 

One has to love how the market can be flooded with thousands of games glorifying war and death, not to mention a growing amount that include adult content, but everyone gets their panties in a twist should a religious-themed game be released for any console. I think I can smell the rotting scent of hypocricy...

Also, is it truely blackmail for a game to rely on it's religious status in hopes that it won't be sued for being unlicensed? Or is it actually some sort of discrimination - "Okay, we've got the first person future shooters, the first person war sims, the gangster simulations with three varieties of hooker, the bloody ancient Greek-inspired platformer - WHOA! Who put these Christian games in here? No, no, those don't get licensed, not at all."

Open-minded tolerance indeed.

 

Well it turns out they wont officially unveil it but they will be in a demo show of this Agea thing and a level from the game with its characters will be in that demo to show off novodex physics.

Here's a picture:

http://artificialstudios.com/screenshot.php?pic=a3.jpg

http://artificialstudios.com/screenshot.php?pic=achar.jpg

^^^
Thats the antichrist character.

 

yeah I've seen those.. but it thought it would be something in the style of halo... with some ugly spacecreatures to shot down

 

I would consider it blackmail, mister GreatSaintLouis. (I was confusing you with someone else... Sorry, going blind, man)
The wargames that flood the market are licensed, even if they do glorify violence. I'm more afraid of the games that glorify consumerism - today's false idol.
If you are to make a religious game, you MUST get the license (like this PS2 thing is trying to, I hope) and then it's okay, it's a free country.

However, if you're unlicensed but think they can't do anything to you because you'll generate a stink about "religious freedom" - that's serious blackmail. And it's also using the word of (deity) here in vain, and disrespecting him/her/it by using the religious power vested upon humans to just obtain petty revenue.

Also, I'm very against lots of the contents in those Wisdom Tree religious games, being that they enforced homophobia and discrimination. EVEN if they were licensed, that was a bit unfair. Contents that would be offensive to their target audience was, after all, removed from secular games - but religious games were free to offend secular audiences?
Not cool.

Now, I'm the last guy against this bible game as long as it doesn't cram discriminative interpretations of the word of (insert boss's name here) and "religious" politics down the audience's throat. I respect everyone's religious beliefs, and I expect to have mine, and my lifestyle respected the same way. The bible is, after all, a pretty cool epic with lots of really significant lessons to be learnt, as long as people are left to read, interpret, and learn from it without there being someone to manipulate them.

I also get VERY offended when I go to Catholic mass down here and the priest "interprets" the word of (deity) to favour himself, his institution's gain, or political institutions. Don't know if it happens in the States, but with the prominent role religion has taken in the media (now, videogames as well, it seems), it's a serious risk. Here, the church almost decides elections sometimes. They have their space in the media and use it to further increase the rift between their altruistic role and their petty actions

I myself come from a no longer practicing Catholic family (we've divorced ourselves from institutionalized religion, and I have since become an agnostic, that sides with "liberation theology"). My significant other is a VERY practicing Catholic, she goes to mass like 4 times a week. My brother goes to a Jesuit-run university, and I envy him - I'd rather have gone there than to my "business-oriented", hypocritically minded, supposedly non-religious school.

I respect religion and I find (son of the big boss, who was nailed to that wooden object) to be a very cool fictional character many of us should learn a lot from, so I had to put that much in clear before anyone calls me religiously intolerant or anything.

I am just very depresed about the fact that people would use religion to sell, or their roles as religious leaders to pressure companies.

 

have you ever read the bible? religious videogames dont upset me, religious people trying to ban videogames that contain mature content upsets me.

again i ask...have you read the bible?

there is more adult content more glorifying of war and death in the bible than any other book i have ever read (or movie or videogame for that matter)...if the bible was literally translated into a movie/videogame/comicbook it would recieve at the very least an X/adult/ao rating and more likely the case: it would be banned.

if the bible was written with any other name it would probably be banned. shit

 

XerdoPwerko:
My point again: Tengen's war with Nintendo was hailed by many as an underdog trying to fight the draconian licensing restrictions placed upon NES games by Nintendo. Wisdom Tree was those damn religious people trying to muscle their way into the market.

In fact, I'd actually like to see some sort of documentation stating that Wisdom Tree (or any other developers of those unlicensed games) was deliberately looking for litigation against them to play the poor martyr card. And there's been really little news about the new PS2/GBA game at all, so to even assume they might be trying to blackmail ANYONE merely by being a religious game is an erroneous argument.

And sorry to be an ass about this, but way to go with jumping on the "religious beliefs concerning homosexuality are homophobic and discriminatory" bandwagon. I'm not going to waste my time with the usual speal about how disagreeing with a practice is not the same as condoning discrimination or violence towards it, but I'm afraid the words would most likely fall upon deaf ears. Again with the point I made above - those most adamant about tolerance are often the least willing to practice it.

This post is most likely going to brand me as some sort of religious freak or something, but if anyone truely does draw that conclusion they've completely missed the point - which is, again, that just because organized religion in any form doesn't mesh with what you believe or how you live is no justification for slinging around loaded words like "discriminatory", "bigoted", "homophobic" or anything else. It falls back on - at the risk of being redundant, I repeat - having respect for all viewpoints and walks of life. When the Christian games have the player slaughtering Muslims or executing homosexuals or destroying fellow humans who are 'living in sin', that is indeed a severe problem, but as far as the normal doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam go, it is far more bigoted to accuse them of intolerance.

As an aside and offtopic, I'm sorry to hear the local Catholic church in your area is so corrupt, but I should hope you'd have the grace to consider that it isn't like that elsewhere, nor is a corrupt branch of an organization nessicarily representative of the organization as a whole, but that's really not a relevant issue I should broach here.

Socialdrone: You're missing the entire point of the book, I fear, with such a ridiculous interpretation as it being something that only glorifies war or death. Either way, it's probably not a discussion that really needs to take place here. Besides, who said anything about banning games with mature content?

 

Oh, I don't know guys. Religious games traditionally have been pretty harmless (Noah's Ark for Snes for instance.) That one in the article sounds like a gameshow; So unless there's a question like "Which group of sinners will go to hell first?" (A) Homosexuals (B) Infidel Muslims (C) Women who get abortions (D) People who play violent videogames and don't tithe " I don't see how offensive it could possibly be.

As for that "Armageddon" game, a game for nuts, made by nuts, and will problably be as fun as licking my nuts. You get to fight the Antichrist. I'm already bored. Plus ten to one I bet it never comes out.

My friend John is a youth pastor, and the favorite game in his household is Halo 2. So it appears that Jesus and Master Chief have joined forces.

One last thing, the thing I find most ironic about religious themed games is that they're taking a medium that is usually relegated to escapist fantasy (videogames) and adapting a subject that they supposedly hold to be truth (religion.) So I go to the store and see a copy of "New testement adventures" right next to Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. In a sense, not only is it religious institutions whoreing out the faith of thier constituients to make money (what else is new,) it's proof that those institutions know the whole thing is fanstasy in the first place. That's why I can never take religious movies seriously too. The Passion of the Christ looks a little reduced on my shelf right next to Jurrasic Park.

I guess what I'm saying is if you really beleived in it then you wouldn't need a game or a movie about it. So to see religious games, movies, action figures, etc. makes me think those people don't really beleive in it either. Just an observation.

 

Hawanja makes a very good point: aside from one of the Wisdom Tree games that involved slinging rocks at animals and was reasonably amusing to a 10-year old, the religious-themed games that have come before have been, at best, lackluster.
Although religious institutions whoring out their faith is a bit of a misleading statement (I have yet to see a game bear the "Licensed By The Vatican" seal or a "Patriarch Of Constantinople Approved!" sticker), I think the driving force behind them is either companies trying to tap what could possibly (but not likely) be a rather lucrative niche market, or companies trying to create entertainment aimed towards followers of religious faiths (whichever sounds better for your level of consumer cynicism.) But yes, an entertainment founded on principles such as "Destroy them all!" and religions embracing the theme of "Love thy neighbor" seem to be pretty mutually exclusive in their ideas - shoddy programming and unlicensed status aside, it's pretty clear why the Wisdom Tree and other religious games never caught on.

 

GSL - I'm not making all religions to be Homophobic. However, I found the content in Spiritual Warfare homophobic and discriminative, and fear new religious games could take the same vein. It would be very bad for audiences, and very bad for the legitimation of religion.

Let's just see what happens when, and if, this game comes out, and we'll be able to further analyse the subject then.

 

Well yeah, that's what I'm talking about. It seems to me that if you really had a message you wanted people to hear then "money" would not be an issue when it came to distributing said message. So to make a videogame takes time and resources and somebody has to pay, but there are ways of distributing them that don't involve $50 at Best Buy. If you really beleived that your movie, game, or music alblum was going to change people's lives it seems only theologically consistant to sell it at cost then give it away free at the first opportunity.

But, these people don't do that; It's an industry like you said, selling to a "market." That's the part that confuses me. That's why I can't take Christain rock bands seriously either. They're supposed to be the alternative that young innocent minds can turn to instead of Gangsta rap or Death Metal, but thier industry runs the exact same way, they sell CDs, tickets, T-Shrts, Books, go on tour, etc. If it was really about saving people's souls the concerts would be free (which is possible with advertising sopnsorship,) the CDs would be free or sold at cost, the books and T-Shirts would be something you get when you join the chruch or organization or whatever, the industry would be run to the effect of getting the message out and not exploiting the artsit. But it isn't, it's the same old baloney as the rest of the music industry, artists getting ripped off, music getting censored, ticket prices skyrocketing, CDs still costing $20 even though the technology has been around for thrity years, the whole industry trying to cripple downloading, etc. It's all about money. It's bullshit.

I just don't see how anyone who makes excessvie profit in the "business" of saving souls can look at themselves in the morning.

 

I get what you mean about it being odd that spiritual messages are being sold, but think of it this way - the programmers for the games, or the musicians for the bands, or the writers of the books, no matter how devoted they are to the faith they are trying to spread, are still people with real needs, like rent or groceries or bills, hence why things reflect similar prices to the 'normal' industry. It's true that, especially on the music side of things, business as usual can tend to mirror the more secular world, but at the end of the day, the little guy still needs to eat. And until they start showing the latest Christian rock star's 35-acre mansion on MTV Cribs, something tells me these guys probably aren't getting filthy rich off of their efforts.

But since you brought this point up - why should musicians (and remember, these are individuals acting on their on free will, no sponsored by any church or other organization) with a religious message distribute their CDs and other things essentially for free or at cost, with no profit? Shouldn't it be the same for secular bands trying to inspire or change people's lives? Take Linkin Park as a quick example - they've stated many times in their interviews that they wanted to be a band that listeners could relate to, to give every angst-ridden teen a feeling that they are not alone. That could be a similar sort of inspiration, yet nobody's expecting them to do their stuff for free or for cost.
I know the idea of people making money on religious ideas is probably a little odd, but nothing can be had for free - your recording studio is not free, your programmers are not free, your church upkeep is not free, and most importantly, the human beings that drive your organizations can't live off of nothing.

 

You are right, GSL.

But religion is not a profession. It's not supposed to mix with business or politics, yet it does.
You want to make money to support your way of thinking? Get a job. Tell some people about it - without the pressure of the conversion. It's easy to sell (Deity Name) to the masses. It's called "emotional blackmail", and it works like a charm. I wonder if it does anything to really promote his word, but rich televangelists and religious-industrials are probably not seeking that.

Religious institutions are growing to be too powerful, and there's a really fine line between just paying for upkeep and help, and becoming a business based on preying upon people's need for meaning and guidance.
Today, selling religion is selling ideology. Together with the fact that many religious people try to either convert everybody to their way of thinking, or meddle in the state's tasks in order to control divergent thought, this really brings us a slippery slope of sorts.
We do not need televangelists, we do not need propaganda on the media, we do not need gilded altars in the Vatican.
We, as humans, need to find meaning - not to be pressured into buying pseudo-meanings approved by the powerful.
I guess I'd be much less cynical about religion if the Church wouldn't have been linked with state opression in the middle ages and the twentieth century in Latin America, and if "Faith Based" initiatives didn't seem to always concur with the way of life that supports capitalist predatory tactics, and the increment of the gap between rich and poor.

Then again, that's just me - and I ain't gonna sell any records praising Marx and Horkheimer and telling all "capitalist pigs" to "repent or face the revolution" or any such nonsense.
The practice of profit from religion is very questionable, and, in that big book, even (long haired dude with the very influential father) did whip the merchants away from church, did he not?

 

Is this the Armageddon game? looks interesting...

 

Yep. It will be a massive multiplayer game if I was told correctly.

 

Halo had a religious style story, Imo, and I don't think there was much stink about it.
The Covenant
The Flood
HALO!!!
Come on.

 

There's a lot of religion in games

The robots in ZOE are egyptian deities.
You want Judeochristian? Well, there's always Xenogears and Xenosaga.
Lunar and Lunar 2 have exactly opposite stances on religion, and Pentagulia is very Vaticanish.

SPOILER

And in Grandia II you get to fight the pope!

/SPOILER

What else do we need?

 

Halo's was more Christian, Imo.

 

no the halo world was just ripped from the Ring World book series.

but story wise , i don´t know since i think it was boring.