Hi everyone,
I'm a gamer, first and foremost, and I wanted to say that lately most games seem to feature themes that persecute Christianity or Christians or our shared values, not through PG13 advisories for drinking, mature content, and so forth, but on a religious framework, and are getting rewarded for it! In fact, it seems the gaming industry is on a binge to knock down any Christian anything while hailing anything that goes against it in an effort to, I suppose, seem that they are being neutral? I don't know, I just find that too many games lately that I play, seem to be a slam towards Christianity.
Let's take some for example, so I can illustrate my point a little better.
I bought Assassin's Creed I AND II while it was on sale for 50% off on Steam, I thought great, awesome. The trailers all showed a beat-em up set in Renaissance Italy and even mentioned having Leonardo Davinci as a friend and mentor throughout the game!
What do I get to play instead? I fire up Assassin's Creed 2, and immediately it fires off a 'religious disclaimer', stating that Ubisoft Montreal was made up of 'various religions and cultures'. What? Again, weird thing to read the first time you play a game. Anyway, I brushed it off, and in comes the cutscene. Futuristic, you are not really in Italy but you're experiencing flashbacks and the whole game involves this in order to find certain "artifacts" that a certain group called "The Templars" want to control so that they control the future, or something. In practice, it's like playing the official gaming version of The Davinci Code. Really, I was so upset of spending my limited gaming budget on something that I don't ascribe to, as a theme. Apparently the entire series are like that, and I really have to wonder why, I mean since when did games become this vehicle for religious propaganda?
I could not play through the whole game, but it basically calls miracles as done by machines, and references events without any care as to why there is fighting in the first place. Why would I wanna play something like that? Gosh, sounds more like a nightmare than a game.
I just wish someone had told ME that these games aren't as advertised, so that I could get the idea out of my head of playing in some Italian Renaissance intrigue plot as a perhaps misunderstood, orphaned, and hopelessly guilt ridden assassin, or whatever. Didn't happen.
So, next up, I find the newest edition of King's Bounty: Warriors of the North, and I think, great. I always wanted to play a Viking warrior in the gaming style of Heroes of Might and Magic. So I play it, and everything is great, the setting is great, the action, is pretty fun, until I get to the second island...
There, you meet as part of the main quest, an alchemist called Marrek, and he is referenced as wearing a turban. Well, you can ask him about the turban, and then the character starts referencing it being a gift from the "Sultan", where he worked as his alchemist, and refers to him as a "great warrior", along with the land having a "harem" where every man has two or three wives. I was basically given an Islamic history lesson from a video game about Vikings and Valhalla. What?!
It wasn't even remotely hinted at, you basically to get to that character, get out of your Viking longboat, land on a snowy shore, fight some fantasy dragonflies, and then knock-knock on his door, and you get that, whether the setting allows for it or not. If I wanted to play some quasi-ambiguous "fantasy" game where this is the 'soup de jour', I would have been back playing Assassin's Creed II! So, I'm really starting to wonder what has happened to games, they used to be a break from our everyday lives where we deal with this sort of "thing" if you can call it that, and just relax, have fun, pretend you're somewhere else. When did they become a vehicle to spread religious propaganda?
The worst thing about it, is not only that it was included, but in the manner in which it was depicted, as this honorable thing on par with the Vikings. Again, I wish someone had told ME about such content, so that I would not BUY it. I really would not, I refuse to play a game in which I am put at odds with my principles. It has gotten so bad, that it needs its own sticker on the PG13 and up ratings.
Game companies are not going to care, but if we refuse to partake in that sort of thing by voting with our wallets, they will have to pay better attention or care more about whether or not they include religious topics that may offend, or use particular religious connotations that have such an association with them that they are bound to offend because that is literally what the words "Sultan", "harem", mean. It is not open to interpretation, as other themes in the game are. These are specific connotations related to the rise of Islam. It does not belong in a fantasy game, and if you plan to include it, then put a "religious disclaimer", like Assassin's Creed. Don't do pop-up quiz Islamic history in a fantasy game about giant spiders in a wholly nordic theme.
We, as Christians, have to start saying "NO", to this sort of lambasted movement which is not welcomed. It is not welcomed in a public setting so why should it be welcomed and promoted by the games that we play? Don't they have to conform to some standards, which is greater than alcoholic use or mature content stickers? My goodness, it is not welcomed in spare time activity, and those who do wish to engage in that dialogue do so on their own. In games, you are mostly playing on a company's "good sense", and most of the time, at least lately, this seems to be closer to pro-Islamic connotations as if they are paid to do this. I say NO, and encourage you guys to do the same, and vote with your wallets.
Tell your friends NOT TO BUY these kinds of games, so that they are not continuously made, and each version more lambasted than the predecessor.
There should be a collective awareness of objectionable titles, so that we as consumers, can make an informed decision about our purchases without constantly falling into the same trap. If this is the wrong forum to do so, then I apologize but I feel it is an escalating issue, and as a gamer, and a Christian gamer at that, who doesn't thump their Christianity over the heads of anyone, I and others who don't wish to "lead the charge" so to speak, deserve the same respect in return, without having to ask for it. Yet here we are... We have to demand that we not be persecuted for our morals/beliefs/principles in the games we play, and leave "that stuff" out of our games.
Let "the world" deal with it, but don't make someone's decision for them, whether they want to listen to that or not, and then also rob them of their money to play something else, perhaps with more respect to an individual's sensibilities.
Lastly, another game that deserves the last mention in the category of "Islaming it whether you like it or not", is Shogun 2: Total War. In this game, you cannot be gifted with a richer game tapestry in which to craft your game, and a war game at that! So what do Creative Assembly end up doing? Well, you don't notice it at first, until you get to the sea routes they introduced. Every port you trade with out of Japan, is a "Sultanate this" or a "Sultanate that" I mean EVERY port, you know, forget that whole trading with the Dutch or the Portuguese thing they had in the original game. Islam it up! Say no to this kind of stuff.
Didn't you know? Apparently in feudal Japan, you couldn't even buy incense without trading with a "Sultanate". Forget that whole anti thing they had about foreigners. Apparently Japan couldn't even make their own incense, forget that they are a self sustained society and culture and all that.
And then say an even bigger NO with your wallets.
(Sorry if this ends up as a double post, the original took me too long to write, and ended up 'hanging' without any other information screen, so I have no idea if it went through or not. Hopefully not.)
I'm a gamer, first and foremost, and I wanted to say that lately most games seem to feature themes that persecute Christianity or Christians or our shared values, not through PG13 advisories for drinking, mature content, and so forth, but on a religious framework, and are getting rewarded for it! In fact, it seems the gaming industry is on a binge to knock down any Christian anything while hailing anything that goes against it in an effort to, I suppose, seem that they are being neutral? I don't know, I just find that too many games lately that I play, seem to be a slam towards Christianity.
Let's take some for example, so I can illustrate my point a little better.
I bought Assassin's Creed I AND II while it was on sale for 50% off on Steam, I thought great, awesome. The trailers all showed a beat-em up set in Renaissance Italy and even mentioned having Leonardo Davinci as a friend and mentor throughout the game!
What do I get to play instead? I fire up Assassin's Creed 2, and immediately it fires off a 'religious disclaimer', stating that Ubisoft Montreal was made up of 'various religions and cultures'. What? Again, weird thing to read the first time you play a game. Anyway, I brushed it off, and in comes the cutscene. Futuristic, you are not really in Italy but you're experiencing flashbacks and the whole game involves this in order to find certain "artifacts" that a certain group called "The Templars" want to control so that they control the future, or something. In practice, it's like playing the official gaming version of The Davinci Code. Really, I was so upset of spending my limited gaming budget on something that I don't ascribe to, as a theme. Apparently the entire series are like that, and I really have to wonder why, I mean since when did games become this vehicle for religious propaganda?
I could not play through the whole game, but it basically calls miracles as done by machines, and references events without any care as to why there is fighting in the first place. Why would I wanna play something like that? Gosh, sounds more like a nightmare than a game.
I just wish someone had told ME that these games aren't as advertised, so that I could get the idea out of my head of playing in some Italian Renaissance intrigue plot as a perhaps misunderstood, orphaned, and hopelessly guilt ridden assassin, or whatever. Didn't happen.
So, next up, I find the newest edition of King's Bounty: Warriors of the North, and I think, great. I always wanted to play a Viking warrior in the gaming style of Heroes of Might and Magic. So I play it, and everything is great, the setting is great, the action, is pretty fun, until I get to the second island...
There, you meet as part of the main quest, an alchemist called Marrek, and he is referenced as wearing a turban. Well, you can ask him about the turban, and then the character starts referencing it being a gift from the "Sultan", where he worked as his alchemist, and refers to him as a "great warrior", along with the land having a "harem" where every man has two or three wives. I was basically given an Islamic history lesson from a video game about Vikings and Valhalla. What?!
It wasn't even remotely hinted at, you basically to get to that character, get out of your Viking longboat, land on a snowy shore, fight some fantasy dragonflies, and then knock-knock on his door, and you get that, whether the setting allows for it or not. If I wanted to play some quasi-ambiguous "fantasy" game where this is the 'soup de jour', I would have been back playing Assassin's Creed II! So, I'm really starting to wonder what has happened to games, they used to be a break from our everyday lives where we deal with this sort of "thing" if you can call it that, and just relax, have fun, pretend you're somewhere else. When did they become a vehicle to spread religious propaganda?
The worst thing about it, is not only that it was included, but in the manner in which it was depicted, as this honorable thing on par with the Vikings. Again, I wish someone had told ME about such content, so that I would not BUY it. I really would not, I refuse to play a game in which I am put at odds with my principles. It has gotten so bad, that it needs its own sticker on the PG13 and up ratings.
Game companies are not going to care, but if we refuse to partake in that sort of thing by voting with our wallets, they will have to pay better attention or care more about whether or not they include religious topics that may offend, or use particular religious connotations that have such an association with them that they are bound to offend because that is literally what the words "Sultan", "harem", mean. It is not open to interpretation, as other themes in the game are. These are specific connotations related to the rise of Islam. It does not belong in a fantasy game, and if you plan to include it, then put a "religious disclaimer", like Assassin's Creed. Don't do pop-up quiz Islamic history in a fantasy game about giant spiders in a wholly nordic theme.
We, as Christians, have to start saying "NO", to this sort of lambasted movement which is not welcomed. It is not welcomed in a public setting so why should it be welcomed and promoted by the games that we play? Don't they have to conform to some standards, which is greater than alcoholic use or mature content stickers? My goodness, it is not welcomed in spare time activity, and those who do wish to engage in that dialogue do so on their own. In games, you are mostly playing on a company's "good sense", and most of the time, at least lately, this seems to be closer to pro-Islamic connotations as if they are paid to do this. I say NO, and encourage you guys to do the same, and vote with your wallets.
Tell your friends NOT TO BUY these kinds of games, so that they are not continuously made, and each version more lambasted than the predecessor.
There should be a collective awareness of objectionable titles, so that we as consumers, can make an informed decision about our purchases without constantly falling into the same trap. If this is the wrong forum to do so, then I apologize but I feel it is an escalating issue, and as a gamer, and a Christian gamer at that, who doesn't thump their Christianity over the heads of anyone, I and others who don't wish to "lead the charge" so to speak, deserve the same respect in return, without having to ask for it. Yet here we are... We have to demand that we not be persecuted for our morals/beliefs/principles in the games we play, and leave "that stuff" out of our games.
Let "the world" deal with it, but don't make someone's decision for them, whether they want to listen to that or not, and then also rob them of their money to play something else, perhaps with more respect to an individual's sensibilities.
Lastly, another game that deserves the last mention in the category of "Islaming it whether you like it or not", is Shogun 2: Total War. In this game, you cannot be gifted with a richer game tapestry in which to craft your game, and a war game at that! So what do Creative Assembly end up doing? Well, you don't notice it at first, until you get to the sea routes they introduced. Every port you trade with out of Japan, is a "Sultanate this" or a "Sultanate that" I mean EVERY port, you know, forget that whole trading with the Dutch or the Portuguese thing they had in the original game. Islam it up! Say no to this kind of stuff.
Didn't you know? Apparently in feudal Japan, you couldn't even buy incense without trading with a "Sultanate". Forget that whole anti thing they had about foreigners. Apparently Japan couldn't even make their own incense, forget that they are a self sustained society and culture and all that.
And then say an even bigger NO with your wallets.
(Sorry if this ends up as a double post, the original took me too long to write, and ended up 'hanging' without any other information screen, so I have no idea if it went through or not. Hopefully not.)
.
. I have not played either game but I'm quite certain I know of far, far, far worse games to avoid and get upset over. There is a 
