BBC NEWS | Americas | Christians purge video game demons

I'm not going to comment on the effects of violence in video games because that has seriously been done to death. And rather than attempt to fight a rearguard action on this issue, parents and schools should be doing their job better. Heck, how about gun control eh?

*Mr Fluffy denounces all attempts to purge video games of violence, gore and sex. He claims that since parents and schools and government don't seem to want to teach children the proper moral values, this thankless task has fallen to poor games developers. *

*Mr Fluffy also wants to know which games will provide the youth with the necessary reflexes, military, strategic and killing skills that will be consumingly important once the brain-sucking mind flayers from the Planet Nebula X comes to invade our home planet! Mr Fluffy proclaims that when that day comes, the horde of teenage playing CS and Halo 2 will come to our rescue.*

Seriously though I feel sorry for the game developers who simply want to provide games that appeal to a certain demographic that ought to be able to think for themselves and don't need any more mothering and nannying from anyone else i.e. the 15 and above age group. Anything younger and you need to wonder why parents are letting them play these games in the first place. *Mr Fluffy thinks maybe they are the only ones whose heart won't give out while playing games like Silent Hill 4 and Fatal Frame 2 even in the brightest day with all the lights on in the midst of a group of people i.e. the most non-scary scenario possible.* I confess that I dislike those games mostly because I don't have the necessary reflexes i.e. I suck at them. I much prefer Role Playing Games or puzzle games.

But more than that though, it's going to be a huge mistake attempting to create games like Catechumen i.e. 'Doom without the gore' and I fear the venture capitalist supporting them will regret it. Because in the history of 'Christian Games' none have been successful for one very simple reason. THEY ARE NOT FUN!!!! Which is the very reason why these firms are mostly niche firms providing games to Churches etc.

Even in the wholly unlikely event that they are keep their moralising and properganda out of the game, you're still going to appeal to a small small sub section of society. I'm willing to wager that no kid is going to want to buy it and the only portion of the populace that will are those religious right type who will buy it for their kids simply because it has the word Christian on it. But these are the same types who would buy anything with that word on it. In which case, the logical business plan would be to produce any sort of game and market it aggressively as a Christian Game produced by Christian Game Developers.

And this is an important consideration because these developers are not simply removing violence from games. If a non-violent game is what you want, may I suggest sports, puzzles, simulations or even RPGs (oops it has magic in it so these parents are not likely to buy them)

Peace!