Page 88 - Pure Life 11

Playing the Gospel of Video Games /87

In this paper I want to point out the link between
religious education and video games. Also i want to show
that video games started decades ago to replace traditons
and cultures and tries to supply the human’s spiritual needs.

What are Video Games?
A simple Google search brings up the definition: “a game played
by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer
1
program on a television screen or other display screen.”
Popular website, Wikipedia, describes video games as
“an electronic game that involves human interaction with
a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video
device such as a TV screen or computer monitor.”
2
So a video game is a set of stimulating images that are
manipulated by a user via some form of computer
program. Usually these image manipulation has a goal to
achieve, which revolves around a plot or story.
Many of the early video games, like Pong, were devoid of
religion. In fact, none of them had any detailed narratives and
complex actions. The earliest of games were found in the
arcade, and were extremely limited by the technology of the
time, and presupposition that video games were a secular,
leisure activity for children. When the market opened up for
computer and more complicated console games, the narratives
and actions of the characters became more complex, as the
3
designers were not as limited by the technology.
In time games moved from two to three dimensional,
the stories became deeper and longer in duration, also
with completing the game the player learn some moral or
religious lessons. Eventually from a single story path,

1. Google: what are video games?
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game, September 10, 2017.
3. Boren, 2016, p. 18.