Christian Game Developers Conference Plans Gathering 237
Thanks to GamerFeed for its story noting the Christian Game Developers Conference has announced its third annual gathering, to be held in Portland, Oregon on July 30th-31st. The official CGDC site has more information on the expo, which "officially expands to include card, board and paper game developers alongside interactive electronic entertainment." There's also word from conference organizer Tim Emmerich of GraceWorks Interactive: "We... plan to examine the variety of games currently on the market and successes in other media such as 'The Passion of The Christ' and the 'Left Behind' series, which proved that Bible-based products can do well in the market if they are well made."
Re:Well-made? (Score:1, Insightful)
That said, pretty much every Christian movie that does well deals with the rapture. I'm not sure how many movies and games you can make out of that...
The Passion pretty much did well because somebody finally managed to get a snuff film into the theaters. It was dead boring apart from that.
You have GOT to be putting me on ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The "Left Behind" series of alleged Christian sci-fi books" is, not to put too fine a point on it, hackneyed crap. The fact that they do well in the market is more a result of tightly targeting them on the large evangelical Christian demographic group than the quality of the writing.
Little do they know, or maybe they do... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, they probably do know this, and it's just an attempt to get money for something or someone(s), somwhere. One must admit, that wouldn't be out of line with the actions of "religious" groups in the past.
Some people don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite simply the more games mature the more "adult" they become.
They same has happened with books, movies, and music.
Christian music is not what it is today because it has Christian lyrics, it was started as a clean alternative to the music of the day.
If mainstream music stayed "clean", Christian music would never have become so popular it may never have even been a seperate category.
The same will happen will books, movies, and computer games over time.
Computer games have slowly "matured" where it is not uncommon to have swearing, adult topics, etc, etc.
Christians don't desire to have "Christians" games(or any other type of media) so much as games that don't go against their moral beliefs.
Sorry for the disjointed post.
"proved that Bible-based products can do well" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Christian Rock"
"Christian Books"
"Christian Film"
and now "Christian Games". These usually turn out awful because
A:They're more concerned with evangelizing the audience than with telling a good story or being entertaining. And
B:The people making them are Christians first and producers of art/media/content second. It usually comes out like it was produced in a church basement by people with left over bake-sale cookies and a very inflated sense of relevance.
Sure they'll tell you that "OF COURSE we're Christians first above all else." But we all have rolls to play in life. You don't see any Christian Football Players. No, you see Football players who happen to be Christian.
If you want to build "Christian Games" then first concentrate on the game, the message comes second (or forget it). If you build Christian morality into something like for instance the Sims (community, teamwork, tolerance, sharing, caring generosity, etc.) then you'll have a great Christian game that's for everyone and teaches Christian values to the masses. So much better than a preachy Christian game for Christians that re-cements their already well indoctrinated beliefs.
Feel free to replace "games" with "music", "books", etc. above.
Be sure to update your video card drivers... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Well-made? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Left Behind" is Shakesphere
Shakesphere? Sheesh. But poor spelling aside, how is this post Insightful or Informative? Are you out of your fucking mind? Left Behind doesn't measure up to a good issue of Spider-Man, let alone Shakespeare. And this comparison is utterly asinine in the first place. Star Wars Episode I made more money than all the Shakespeare productions worldwide for all time have ever made. By this poster's logic, George Lucas is the greatest author to ever live.
Re:Atheism a faith like any other (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it require a leap of faith to believe that there is no flying purple people eater? Or the Tooth Fairy?
No, common sense and the sum real-life experiences of the entire world will tell you that neither exist. Same with "god", sorry to tell you.
This 'atheism is a faith too!' argument has cropped up lately as a pathetic meanns for christians to counter atheism. Doesn't work.
Re:Well-made? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well-made? (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many places try to blur the lines between business and religion and use the sentiments of the buyer to out way the quality of the product. It is something I get frustrated with in all forms of Christian media.
What the real kicker is is when something starts getting popular and is being produced so that it can compete in the secular market, it is often looked at as selling out... and may get shunned until it gets picked up by the secular market as the next best thing, then, it gets pulled back in and its shown as a great example of Christians producing popular stuff.
I have never seen a group so backwards and in a bubble as Christian entertainment.
-Tim
Yeah, but can you paint? (Score:2, Insightful)
Quite frankly, the problem with most Christian software is that it's not fun or well made. The problem with most Christian novels is that they're poorly written, and (dare I say...) the problem with most Christian music is that it's just not good music. (I say this having encountered and continuing to encounter a great deal of the material in question...)
Art and entertainment with an idealogical basis behind them (or theological) sets itself up for one of two fates. Either it accomplishes its attempts to communicate the transcendant and becomes truly great, or, more often, it fails miserably. Very rarely does it seem to be "just art" or "just entertainment." The art gains the hearing for the message, but only provided the art is of sufficient quality.
If Christians wish to use games/music/books/software/whatever as a means to share their faith, the first step in doing so *must* be to be one of the very best designer/artist/author/programmers out there. Simply being a "Christian programmer" is not enough. One must be a very good programmer who is also a Christian.
Re:Atheism a faith like any other (Score:2, Insightful)
Nonsense. Do you believe in fairies? The Easter Bunny? Is there an invisible, bloodthirsty unicorn hiding behind you right now, waiting to pounce?
I certainly hope the answer to those three questions is "no". It does not require "faith" to believe that there is no Easter Bunny. It is simply that there is no evidence to suggest that the Easter Bunny actually exists, therefore it is more logical to believe that there is no Easter Bunny.
Non-belief in God is a matter of logic and Occam's Razor, not faith.
Re:Atheism a faith like any other (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well-made? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey, religion may be an opiate for the masses but I guess there's still some things the secular world will always do better.
Re:I don't exactly want to get involved.... (Score:1, Insightful)
You're right about the Babel story. My mistake. I must have been thinking of something else entirely.
You know, I can pick various other scriptures and watch the bible bash itself. Like numerous "nobody has ever seen God and lived" compared with "Moses spoke with God face to face, as a man talks to his friend". 100% contradiction. The Bible is full of them. What about all those promises God gave but never fulfilled? I don't agree with all of these (many are subject to how you interpret them, but many more aren't) but check them out yourself [skepticsan...dbible.com].
And, if you're in the reading mood, compare Buddha and Jesus [geocities.com]. Buddha lived some 800 years before Jesus. Funny, then, that Jesus has a life story almost 100% identical to Buddha and taught almost identical teachings! If I didn't know any better, I'd be tempted to say that Jesus copied everything Buddha did!
Wish I had 50 mod points for "troll" (Score:3, Insightful)
I guaruntee you that for every pompous putdown and ridicule based rant here you'll find another in some "religeous right" forum that you'd gleefully quote as to say, "See what jerks these guys are?". So who's the "deluded fool" then I gotta wonder? Who's more closed minded?
Re:Atheism a faith like any other (Score:2, Insightful)
However, for an athiest, it would seem that there is no purpose in life. A person could do whatever they wanted to do to make themself feel good. It means that morals are pointless except as a means of maintaining order within society. However, order within society may not be something which everyone wants. What's wrong with someone like the Unabomber trying to tear down society? I think that the natural conclusion of athieism leads to an anarchist mindset, wherin individuals strive to break apart existing social and economic structures to rise up themselves and take a position of power while everyone else flounders in the wake of the disaster. Similar to the mentality of Anarchy99 from the movie XXX. There is no one to say that this sort of mentality is "bad" without some absolute external standard of good and evil.