Christian Game Developers Conference Plans Gathering

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?

[Mr. Darl McBride]

Well-made? Do Christians use different standards of judging craft than non-Christians? Asked another way, have you ever tried to read any of the Tim Lahaye books? If you seriously consider any of the books in the 'Left Behind' series to be well-made, that I can't wait to see some of the games that come out of this conference.

The books are pretty horrible. The movies are considerably better. Not top shelf stuff, but better than most TV specials.

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 ...

[ninewands]

I haven't seen "The Passion of the Christ" nor do I intend to ... but to see the "Left Behind" series mentioned in a sentence stating that Bible-based products do well in the market "if they are well-made" ... GIVE ME A BREAK!

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...

[a whoabot]

Commodotising ideas into consumer products for the mass market does just that: initiates them into the mass. The mass purely consumes. This won't help the actual influence of any ideas they're trying to put forth, it will have a negative effect if any. It's as quicksand.

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

[Quill_28]

Why Christians games?

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"

[Strange Ranger]

WRONG. It proves that good story based products , good music, and good film will do well regardless of whether they're Bible based or not. Good art / good media is NOT PREACHY.

"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...

[Anonymous Coward]

...So that Jesus will be properly rendered as being black.

Re:Well-made?

[Wylfing]

I'm sky-high on karma and wearing my flameproof underwear today.

"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

[StocDred]

Yet it takes a leap of faith to believe that there is no God.

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?

[nacturation]

Isn't that a bit like judging L. Ron Hubbard's material by units sold? Sure, Dianetics may be a best seller but how does it rank when you subtract sales (often multiple copies [google.com]) to Scientologists? If it's still a mega-bestseller, then the book has been fairly judged. But if the book sells very few copies outside of the choir it's preaching to, what does that say about the quality?

Re:Well-made?

[tolldog]

Actually there is a large problem in the Christian market to produce crap, slap a Christian label on it and try to sell it because its Christian.

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?

[Avallach]

There's an old article I remember reading by a gentleman named John Fischer which talked about his efforts as a child to begin a Christian painting company. Things went very well until they knocked on the door of a lady who asked a very pertinent question: "Can you paint?"

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

[egomaniac]

Faith is a belief that lacks evidence to support it. To this extent, atheism is a faith just as much as Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

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

[zelphior]

How can you prove that there is no God? The Tooth Fairy can be proved to not exist, ask any parent and they will tell you that it is them, not the tooth fairy who places money under a pillow. I disproved Santa Clause as a child when I caught my parents in the act of placing preasants under the tree. However, I have not yet seen one good proof that there is no God. In fact, observation of the world and universe around me lead me to believe that there must be some higher being who brought all this into existence. If not, it's an awefully big coincidence, and leads to the conclusion that all of life is a big accident, and my existance is purely meaningless. This is a very depressing thought. Thus, I chose to believe that there is a God, not for a rational reason that can be proved, but because I chose to. BTW, faith is by definition believing something which cannot be proved. Since God operates outside of our existance, and therefore cannot be proved or disproved, belief in his existance or non-existance must be an act of faith. Pure logic cannot dictate the existance or non-existance of a supernatural being. Only personal belief and experiences.

Re:Well-made?

[Anonymous Coward]

And just to drive the point home, the annual religious material publishing industry grosses $1.25 billion a year in sales. Cocaine sales gross $40 billion a year in sales in the US alone. According to you, cocaine is 32 times better than all published religious material combined.

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....

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Deuteronomy. In most cases, you rape someone and you get stoned. Only when the chick isn't pledged to be married do you avoid a stoning, and you get the bonus that you can marry the rapee and you can't get divorced.

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"

[Pvt_Waldo]

Kinda bothers me how many people are on here being total Trolls. Me? I'm no fan of the right, of fanatical believes, etc. But I am a fan of being open minded, and being open to let others enjoy their beliefs without ridicule, as long as those beliefs allow for others.

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

[zelphior]

I've never understood why people think that no creator means life is meaningless, so maybe you can explain it further. It seems to me that atheists, who (generally) believe that this is the only life we get, would see this life as more significant than would christians, who think that it's just the blink of an eye compared to the eternal life that follows.

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.