The Christian Developers Network Forum

This is just a question I want to ask everyone. I am a Christian and I am not trying to bash in any way...so read the question as is.

Why do you think that Christian based video games do so poorly?

Do you think that Christian based games could actually sell well?

What quick ideas do you have that would sell in the video game market today that could be Christian based?


I personally think the reason why Christian based video games do so poorly is that it seems way to focused on being "dumbed" down so that kids can play it. It does not satisfy any of the hardcore gamers needs. The design of most Christian games also seems to be very one sided, such as the game "Left Behind" is such a one thought proccess game that it holds the game itself back. The idea that if you are either praying and being a good guy or carrying a gun and your a bad guy. Its as if your saying that you can't be a Christian unless you promote no violence what-so-ever and if you do become violent you are no longer a Christian...it would seem. Then the rest of the games follow the same idea. It seems as if the developers are so concerned with pleasing the mothers of the children playing Christian based games they loose focus on what makes a game fun.

Christian based games are poorly marketed, they seem to be only marketed in Christian based media.

I think Christian based games could sell well if it was executed properally. I think that the game should be just like every other game (for the most part) and have strong "UNDER LINING" Christian themes. I dont think the "main" selling point of the game should be that its a Christian game, its like shooting yourself in the foot before a race. That it what i believe is the quick easy fix to making Christian based games more profitable. Forget the moms, little kids and focus on what people actually want to play or at least make it a very fun game.

- Toast

On top of that the game's don't usually have good gameplay, unless you play The Antagonist of course, that is the greatest Christian RPG of all time.

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Development Videos
Rebel Planet Website

Because Christian Video Games typically = Poor Games.

First of all, many of the games that are Christian are so "family friendly" that 3 year olds get bored with them, Axys raptures their attention, but Adventures in Oddysey? Second, they make a terrible name for themselves... Left Behind is a great example, horrible gameplay, stereotype bashing = Bad Game, no cookie for the wookiee. Third, budget is usually bad and its rare to see a christian make up for that lack up budget with drive.

There's a few gems like:
Axys
probably Eternal War, but I haven't played it beyond the demo...
Donutman

That's about all I can think of...

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M^2 out-
The Deut strikes back!
Its time to get Terminal!
Have I mentioned I love BLIDE?
New Creation Games

Welcome to CDN.


Yes.


Poor gameplay, poor presentation, poor marketing - the developers have a lot of passion, but for a lot of the games something gets lost during the development process.

My recommended list:

Axys:
http://www.therebelplanet.com/

Light Rangers:
http://www.brethren-et.com/LRWebsite/index.html

Timothy and Titus:
http://www.whiteknightgames.com/wk_tt_home.html

Christian Games! Now! has a large list of games as well, I'd check out Walls of Jericho and Unity (card game)
http://cgnow.com/

and Sparkling just released Chariots last month:
http://www.chariotsgame.com/


I understand your underlying message here, but I'll touch on the top one first. We need quality Christian games no matter what the target audience is, either it be kids, teens or adults. Each demographic I believe needs quality entertainment and I'd love to see a 'cradle to grave' program for Christian games where players graduate to a different level of Christian games as they get older.

There's a couple developers here on the forum that are making more older audience centered Christian games, including myself. My website is: http://www.xrucifix.com/ - we've been developing our new game just over a year now and while fun is subjective to the person, we hope to make it extremely enjoyable for players.

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Ideas are a dime a dozen, drive and execution are far more rare.

I could't have said it better. We're trying to do just that with our games: Strong underlying themes in a well-made game that falls under a fun game genre.


The tricky part is getting something people want to play and then finding a good christian theme to build the game around.

Oh yes, welcome to the forums!

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Toastie!
(done with MK references for now)

Anyway, Christians are the worst and so are their games! There is more gameplay then GTA so why is it so difficult to make memorable and addictive gameplay?? Why????

</end rant>
<Start waiting for Eternal War 2>

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http://jestermax.wordpress.com/

Aside from all of the poor gameplay and whatnot, I'd like to note that we live in a generation that loves shiny things, and why play something like, say, Axys when you could have, say, Assassin's Creed, Crysis, etc?

I know graphics aren't everything, but not everyone thinks this way, including all the ADD children and teenagers who want pretty explosions... LIKE ME

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If grammar is for squares...

...call me a cube.

That.....Is where Orion comes in

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[Blog= http://zidev.wordpress.com/]

To sum it up in a word. Polish. (not the language )

Like others have mentioned gameplay is not always the best. I know most of the games I've created are missing the fun factor. But I think it goes a bit deeper on this issue. Most, if not all, Christian games are self-published titles without the backing/funding of a large corporation. This limits advertising and product placement in game stores.

Also, and I may be totally off, it seems that most Christian developers do not have adequate QA staff. If testing is only done at the end of the development process then a lot of the gameplay problems will be shipped with the game. It also helps to reach out to a larger user base to demo the product.

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Matt Tuttle
Lead Developer at Frozen Orange, Inc.

The sausage? delicious.


I'll agree with you on this one. I don't see extensive beta periods for christian games (to the best of my knowlege.)
Frankly, it's expensive to keep games in development for long periods of time.
But this does create a lack of "polish" to the game. Some things just need to be tweaked a little more.
Not just to find bugs, but to balance gameplay elements. Maybe keep a consistency to the graphics, make it a big more immersive, suspend disbelief and such.
It always struck me, how come the trees in WoW looked so natural to the world, and in other games, they look so obtrusive and out of place?

To be fair, this is epidemic to far more than just the christian gaming industry, but that does not diminish how radically important it is.

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Q.E.D.

what if a Christan is in a communist government? that's not family friendly. But the game could turn unbelievers into believers. At the end of the day, that's all that really matters.

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“at the end of the day, something comes from nothing” whether your an evolutionist or a creationist the statement is true.

Here are some reasons I think Christian video games aren't doing too well.

• Lack of innovation
• They are sometimes made by well meaning, but less than capable, teams
• Small teams and budgets
• Christian videogames cater to the minority of gamers.
• Christian video games generally choose game mechanics built for violent games, and give them a non-violent context. This doesn't work well.
• Christian video games try to teach a message through cutscenes/dialogue rather than gameplay (from my experience)
• We rip off other concepts, and it doesn't look good to anyone except Christians, giving Christian video games a bad name.

(My apologies if any of the developers for Guitar Praise are reading this)

We are in a continual state of catch-up with the rest of the industry, and are not exploring new and creative gameplay concepts. We need to decide whether we are game creators who are developing fun, religious games, or whether we are aggressively and incorrectly pushing a message under the facade of a game.

This is our chance, too. With games like Mirror's Edge, Portal, and Braid getting positive reception, it's obvious that people are getting a little tired of space-marine carnage. A simple, fun, and innovative title made by a Christian company could catch on like wildfire, and turn all this negativism towards Christian video games around.

My 2 cents

I agree from what I see in 1 - although I don't get why - I have always found my relationship with my creator makes me more creative.

"Christian video games generally choose game mechanics built for violent games, and give them a non-violent context. This doesn't work well."

very interesting point - which is why when I am working on a Christian freindly RPG I choose super heros which is much less fatalistic than a midevil fantasy compaign.

There is alot to all your points though.

I wrote a lengthy blog post explaining my thoughts a bit more...

http://clean3d.wordpress.com/2008/09/22 ... s-are-bad/

The problem is that Christians don't believe in evolution, or the survival of the fittest. In the world of video games, only the strong survive. If you coddle a bad game idea, that isn't fun, possibly offensive to everyone, and full of bugs all the way to the market, it's going to fail miserably. I think Left Behind Games illustrated this perfectly.

Christian games also suffer one of two delusions:
1. Christian games offer a great niche market for games.
- Wrong, Christians prefer games that are fun, over games that have Christian themes.
2. The world will like my Christian game because it is fun.
- Wrong again, the world is wary of any kind of media that proselytizes, or at least appears to.

Rahim:
Just because I don't believe that the world was created by macro-evolution doesn't mean that I don't believe that controlled survival of the fittest can be the ideal government.
You must make your game so fun that it doesn't matter who made it.

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M^2 out-
The Deut strikes back!
Its time to get Terminal!
Have I mentioned I love BLIDE?
New Creation Games

There are actually non-theist creationist theories, and Christians that believe in evolution.

As evolution is a theory to explain why there are lots of species, and survival of the fittest is a theory (that is testable) that explains why species disappear I don't see that as a problem. In fact I see the dominion command in Genisis a challenge for us to prevent survival of the fittest from eliminating species.

I do agree buggy software that tries to make a point is doomed - but don't think that every Christian project has to have that problem.

So Rahim, if you were to go strictly on your own logic, do those who believe in evolution make good games?

Because it was not Darwin (nor Wallace) who started the idea of survival of the fittest, it was a man who had some background on economics named Thomas Malthus who thought of the idea as an answer to the resources vs. survival relation. He did this when trying to figure out why some people were dying. Darwin adapted his own hypothesis *directly* to the ideas of Malthus about species after reading Malthus' work to explain variation and traits.

So Malthus' idea of survival of the fittest had a economic and social perspective, not a biological one. Thus you do not need to believe in evolution to accept survival of the fittest.

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Well quite a few people seem to have summed up most of my thoughts on the subject (and probably in a gentler way that I would have) and some others have said a few things I'd rather not get into.

So for my two cents I'll answer the one question I didn't see anyone else answer.. (could be blind since I skimmed through a lot)



I've got 3 actually.

1: An RTS on spiritual warfare. I know that sounds pretty simplistic but believe me I have a LOT of stuff worked out, but the question says 'quick' so..

Essentially you're playing one side or the other on the spiritual realm. Your actions and victories can influence (but not control) what people do. (Except if you're playing the fallen side in which case you have possessions and whatnot). Resources are based on willpower. When believers pray, good guys gain resource. When anyone sins, evil gains resources.

2: I recently came up a with a concept that, as much as I hate games that almost solely dependant on metaphor I thought this would be cool. A fantasy RPG where you're sent on an epic quest to recover 6 artifacts with special powers, the 'Armor of God' where you the main character become something akin to the Avatar from the Ultima series.

The important thing with this one is that it needs a REAL story that isn't all in christianese. As I've only recently thought of this one I haven't fleshed any of it out yet.

3: Another fantasy/sci-fi RPG (mostly fantasy but sci-fi elements) with a 6 character team, each with some very real issues. Think something akin to Oblivion with a whole lot more character development and personal story elements. Each character has issues they're struggling with and their story is partly in how they deal with it and how God works with them etc. I'm not talking little kid issues either.

Again all very brief. Basically all those kick butt titles we want but with Christian elements.

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I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo

http://www.brentowen.com

To be honest, Christian games are almost always small budget, small team projects, and done while somebody has free time. Large companies simply aren't willing to put down a lot of resources for games that are overtly Christian, so we're left with a community that does it in their free time and with shoestring budgets.

Even when a Christian company like Focus on the Family is involved, it's still not enough. They still don't have the budget for a AAA game, and often the Christian organization has its own ideas what direction the game will take.

. . . and quite frankly, it's easier for them to create games targeted for children, because children are less picky than teens about their games.

Which of course leads to a reputation for "kiddy" games. It's a lot easier to target very young kids, where pretty much everybody agrees that there should be no controversial elements and where the parents usually make the buying decisions.

Sadly, even Christians can't always agree on what level of violence, magic, sex, and other controversial elements should or should not be in a game. Our current secular culture of "everything is acceptable in a game" isn't helping. All too often, Christian publishers just give up and just make a product that is targeted to a younger audience where they can just throw out all of the questionable elements and not deal with the controversy at all.

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Formerly CobraA1