1 reply to this topic

[opus]

God's PR Problem: The Role of Religion in Videogames:

Quote

Writing about videogames is not generally the stuff of Woodward and Bernstein. Occasionally, a hostile public relations manager will make your life difficult, or you'll lose a scoop to a rival publication. Trying to get a good interview while a game's in development can be challenging, especially if that game isn't in its official PR swing yet. But for the most part, this is the entertainment industry: The consumers want to read about it, the producers want to talk about it, and the rest is just details.

So it was with some surprise that I encountered a wall of fear and paranoia when I called around, asking developers to talk about religion in gaming. What I found is a small handful of people who think about the issues a lot, and wanted desperately to be part of the conversation...and a vast, silent majority who didn't want to touch the topic with the proverbial 10-foot pole.

This article reminded me of a conversation I had with several co-workers concerning Dragon Age: Origins, which has a fairly substantial amount of religion-related content, including a very thought-out organized religion. I think they found it surprising, or maybe just amusing, that there's a game in which characters will suddenly launch into debates about the existence of God (or the Maker, to use the game's parlance).

Edited by opus, 17 January 2010 - 01:22 PM.

[KShaw]

A blog post on 'theology after Playstation' voices some fundamental questions.