Gamers Matter

[Apologiaphoenix]

How should we view gamers today?

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Are we too dismissive of gamers? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.



In the past, gamers were people who were very solitary. To an extent, many of us still are, but gaming is mainstream. How many people are playing Wordle every day? Words With Friends? Farmville? Raid Shadow Legends? Note that none of those games I have mentioned are console games.

Plenty of people are interested in professional sports. What are those? For the most part, games. We talk about football, baseball, and basketball games. Millions of Americans follow their teams religiously and we have talk shows discussing sports and sports makes the nightly news.

So why bring this up?

Christian apologist Doug Groothuis recently had on his Facebook a statement about the New York Times Book Review reviewing a video game. I take it this was meant to be something lamentable, but I was the first to respond with a simple question.

Which game?

I wasn’t the only one. Plenty of other people asked as well. The question was never answered by Groothuis, but the answer was found by someone. It’s a game called The Stanley Parable.

I have never played this one. I wouldn’t mind it, but I just haven’t. However, I have seen videos talking about it and it looks to be built around a guy who has a regular cubicle job and starts exploring his office for whatever reason with a voice narrating all that is happening.

In the past, video games were pretty straightforward. Get to the castle, drop Bowser in the pit, rescue the princess. Go in the dungeons and gather the pieces of the Triforce and defeat Ganon and rescue the princess. (Always princesses for some reason.) Get the frog across the street safely. Eat all the dots in the area without being hit by a ghost.

Those games are still around today and still classics, but games are much more in-depth now.

Role-playing games are some of the best at this. I view Final Fantasy IV as a tale of resurrection and redemption. You can look at FF VI as a consequence of Nihilism. I have a friend who swears that Nier:Automata is a look at Shintoism. The Kingdom Hearts games are based on Disney movies, but you would need a PhD in philosophy to understand them and even then I doubt you could do it.

Games are also much more communal now. I regularly play Final Fantasy XIV which is a multi-man online role-playing game. (Those are knowns as MMORPGs) I am online playing with several people and buying and exchanging items with them as well. Pokemon Go is a smartphone game that largely has a communal aspect of working with other players.

Video games are also art. Just take a look at the music and cinematic scenes in many of these games. It’s art. It’s a craft.

So how many people play games? The most recent article I could find was this one. A lot of those people in America are likely Christians, but a lot of them aren’t. What does that mean? That’s a market to reach, not to be dismissed.

If you start talking about a lot of games, you can find some rich intellectual discussion there. There is a series of books on pop culture and philosophy with philosophers writing a chapter in a book called X and philosophy with X being the pop culture icon. How many are related to gaming?

Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy.

Pokemon and Philosophy. (Also a great gift suggestion for the blogging apologist gamer in your life.)

Dark Souls and Philosophy.

Bioshock and Philosophy.

The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy (Another great gift idea)

Final Fantasy and Philosophy. (Owned and Read)

There could be others and there will be more coming. Gamers are asking deep questions many times. We’re not people wanting to just goof off and waste our time. One of the best things you can do with a gamer is just talk with them about their games and ask them why they like the games that they like and why they play them.

Some might think we have hit a low point in culture to see a video game reviewed. I disagree. I think it’s showing more aspects of the culture interacting together.

Gamers matter. Most of us nowadays are gamers. Some of us were part of the original group who were gamers when gaming wasn’t cool. Here’s something else that all gamers have in common. They all need the gospel.

Also, one good way to do this is to have Christians get in the field and start making good games. Five Nights At Freddy’s was made by a Christian. Usually, Christian movies, TV shows, and video games are great at reaching their target audience, other Christians. One exception to this was the movie The Case for Christ. We don’t need to just make games. We need to make games people will want to play and enjoy playing and by the way, most games are not “In your face” with their worldview. Christians media doesn’t need to be either.

Again, gamers matter. Let’s do what we can to reach them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

[rogue06]

Again, gamers matter. Let’s do what we can to reach them.

I cannot believe you overlooked the opportunity to end with "Gotta catch 'em all" or save 'em all.




Don't worry. I can show myself out.

I'm not proud of what I did here.

[Cerebrum123]

Role-playing games are some of the best at this. I view Final Fantasy IV as a tale of resurrection and redemption. You can look at FF VI as a consequence of Nihilism. I have a friend who swears that Nier:Automata is a look at Shintoism. The Kingdom Hearts games are based on Disney movies, but you would need a PhD in philosophy to understand them and even then I doubt you could do it.

If you haven't read it yet you might want to look into The Philosophy of Final Fantasy. I haven't gotten to read it yet, but I've seen a bit of a summary for FFVII. That game is heavily influenced by Kabbalah and Gaia Theory. I haven't gotten to play very many of the other games, so I don't know as much about them. I also recommend the YouTube channel Max Derrat he's an autistic YouTuber who often talks about the philosophical underpinnings of various video games. His videos are how I first started to notice the traits in myself.

I don't have a PhD in anything, but I can see multiple influences in Kingdom Hearts, which does complicate things a bit. You've got Norse mythology with the Master of Masters who sacrifices his eye for knowledge like Odin. You have characters with Norse names like Skuld. The different worlds isn't too different from the concept of the 9 realms of Yggdrasil, and the World Tree does have some imagery and themes in Scala Ad Caelum, and Radiant Garden/Hollow Bastion. There might be some Jungian influence with the Heartless being something like an allegory for Jungian Shadows, which the most basic type of Heartless is called a Shadow. If a person is overcome by the darkness in their heart they become a Heartless. If they have a strong enough will they will retain their body, and memories*, but their emotions are lost. However, over time they can recover their emotions if they are around people that are good for them. This could be an allegory for those who have not come to terms with their Shadow, and are emotionally stunted because of it. The numbers 7 and 13 are very important, especially after the first game. There is also some possible Taoism influence in that light and dark can't exist without each other. There is probably more I'm missing, but yeah there is a lot going on.

As for some other games and their philosophical roots. Chrono Trigger and Existentialism, Persona and Jungian psychology and by extension Gnosticism, Xenoblade Chronicles is even more dense with religious and philosophical references than Kingdom Hearts, Bioshock and it's themes regarding anarcho-capitalism. The list is pretty much endless at this point.

*Well, Roxas and Namine didn't keep the memories of the body they were from, but they are a special case.