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Playing the Gospel of Video Games /113

Many computer games deal with World War II.
Interestingly, as far as we know, the only games that
explore the Holocaust are underground pro-Nazi
videogames.
These games, while not extremely popular, receive
sporadic media attention as they emerge, from their
hideaways in the Internet. In one game in particular,
which was available in many European BBS during the
early nineties, the player was offered to take the role of a
concentration camp administrator and had to coordinate
1
mass murders.
Does Playing Video Games Affect our Relationship to God?
Video games fashion online sacred-space communities for
its followers based on a set of shared system of beliefs and
rituals in the same way that a religion does. Also video
games provide people a subconscious spiritual outlet.
Some scholars think the reason why is a decline in the
number of people who subscribe to organized religion,
especially in America may be because people fulfill their
spiritual desires through religious placeholders in the form
2
of video games.
“Digital games are not a superficial phenomenon
peculiar to an uncharacteristic cultural activity. Rather,
digital games are an important site into the exploration of
the intersection of religion and contemporary culture that
help us understand what religion is, does, and means in a
3
changing contemporary society.”

1. Gonzalo, 2000, p. 172.
2. Boren, 2016.
3. http://www.statista.com/statistics/246892/value-of-the-video-game-market-
in-the-us, September 16, 2017.