Book Plunge: Play More Games

[Apologiaphoenix]

Let the games begin

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What do I think of Matt Larson and Mark Krupa's book? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For those following me on YouTube, there have been some difficulties, but I have not given up Gaming Theologian at all. I'm still doing a lot of the research, which includes this book. I saw it during Amazon browsing and kept waiting for the Kindle price to drop some, but no. I went on and got it. It's not wildly expensive, but I was still going through another book at the time so there was no rush.

But I did get it and I found myself enjoying the book. Most of the chapters are really short and can be read one at a time. The author is an avid gamer himself who has three boys who are also gamers. The whole family is Christian.

I don't understand the title as there's really no reason given to play more games. It's more like understanding game playing. Why do people play games? How should parents handle matters? How should grandparents? What do kids want their parents to know?

Yes. That last one comes up. There are chapters where the sons are interviewed and give their answers to questions about gaming. These are definitely chapters parents need to read.

There was even a chapter interviewing the grandmother about her grandson's interest. Nothing was left unturned. This shows not only an outsider perspective, but it also demonstrates the importance of family in all of this.

One of my favorite looks was finding couples who game together. Ah. The dream. Whenever I hear about couples like this, it gives me a little bit of hope again. It would be great to find a devout Christian girl who loves to play her games as well.

One of the most important parts though is a look at life in the Czech Republic. Here, one of the authors comes as a missionary and works with the people there and gaming has been an inroads to help with the church. For those who don't know, gaming is a very close-knit community. I don't know much about GamerGate, but from what I have heard, the gamers all came and worked together to accomplish goals regardless of political or religious views.

As the missionary sought to set up a community and used gaming events to do so, non-Christians would come and help out and explain the best ways to bring about such an event. If you're wondering, yes, there were non-Christians who came to Christ through the love of a Christian gaming community. Right now, I am trying to do what I can here on my own campus to help us reach gamers in the area.

This book is a very enjoyable read and like I said, it's short. You will also laugh at several times, particularly a chapter that I loved the opening where Larson talks about the things his children say when they are watching him gaming, and he's not doing well at all. If you want to understand the world of gaming and how it works with Christianity, try this one out.

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

[Cerebrum123]

If you ask any mainstream news source you will hear that Gamergate was just more proof of how gamers are racist, sexist, homophobic*, etc. What they don't tell you is that the "inclusive" side was lying about video games, gamers, and how many people were really just standing up against being slandered. Unfortunately, some people who were pro-Gamergate did engage in very unethical practices which includes slander and death threats**. The extremes on both sides aided the polarization of our culture.

*One of the primary people who led to Gamergate happening was Anita Sarkeesian. She's infamous for her statement "Cause, like, when you start learning about systems, everything is sexist, everything is racist, everything is homophobic, and you have to point it all out to everyone all the time". She admits that she was obnoxiously doing that for a year and now she "picks her battles" now but she still employs that same mentality. She was pushing for DEI(Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in games and when that was implemented she said "I’m not here to tell you that DEI is broken; I’m here to tell you that DEI is working as intended and that that’s the problem".

**IIRC both sides did stuff like this and still do just no longer about Gamergate specifically. Cancel Culture is the left's nutjobs most recent incarnation and the Alt-Right is the right's nutjobs most recent incarnation.