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Opinion: Guitar Hero Praise - What’s Wrong With The ‘Christian’ Video Game?
by Simon Parkin
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September 2, 2008
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[In a provocative opinion piece, British game producer and journalist Simon Parkin takes a look at the state of Christian gaming, probing exactly what people are objecting to when they criticize games such as the newly announced Guitar Praise.]
Earlier this week gaming news outlets and blogs caught wind of a forthcoming, independent gaming release from hitherto little-known developer, Digital Praise.
Appropriating the form and function of Harmonix’s Guitar Hero series (itself perhaps inspired by Konami’s Guitar Freaks games) Guitar Praise offers the faithful - at least, those of the affluent, American, evangelical variety - the chance to play along with their favourite pulpit-rock acts, just as Jesus would have wanted.
In the game’s press release Digital Praise promise players that, once they lay down the $99.95 entry fee, they’ll soon be “rockin' with the best while praising the Lord!”
The gaming community greeted the story with exactly the kind of all-caps, spluttering incredulity one might expect. One droll commentator at Boing Boing quipped, “The game refuses to boot on Sunday mornings, so I hear.”
The story gained widespread coverage because, while there have been Christian-targeted videogames before, including such titles as 1992’s Joshua: Battle of Jericho for the NES, 1994’s Spiritual Warfare for the Gameboy and 1995’s Bible Adventures on the Genesis, such releases are still unusual enough to be ‘newsworthy’ when they do crop up.
The Evolution Of Games For Diverse Audiences
In part this type of coverage is a sign of gaming’s relative immaturity. Since the scales fell from Hollywood’s eyes following the financial success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, studios have been clawing over themselves to sign up blockbuster-size Biblical-themed projects in search of the Christian dollar.
But the older movie industry has always been adept at serving a diverse range of audiences, tastes and interests. Gaming is only just beginning to diversify in similar ways and we are unused to our hobby being appropriated by (or targeted at) minority groups as a way of spreading their word, exploring their history, espousing their worldview or promoting their agenda.
So when that does happen the news is reported in a way that the announcement of, for example, another Buena Vista Narnia film will never be.
It’s important to note that the seizure of cultural forms by minority groups, (be they Christians, homosexuals or even international terrorist groups) signals the maturation and diversification of a medium, not its stagnation or a scarcity of ideas.
But why should a game like this attract such widespread scorn and derision from the wider gaming community? Digital Praise has shown only the smallest amount of game footage on its site but what’s on display already raises concerns. Konami and Harmonix appear to own patents on many of the systems that the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series employ (such as music staves that travel into the screen along the Z-axis rather than across the flat horizontal or vertical ones).
Has the developer put an infringing foot wrong in their interpretation of these fiercely-guarded mechanisms, they will likely feel the full force of litigious publishers already eager to protect their in-vogue investments from copycat imitators.
As a more immediate problem, the game looks technically and graphically simplistic (there are no 3D models to represent the musicians in the game, for example).
Perhaps it’s unfair to judge an independent rhythm action title designed as a PC/ Mac game (which by definition won’t have undergone any of the stringent TCRs or quality testing that games for the core consoles must adhere to) by the same measures we use for Rock Band et al, but gaming’s consumers are rarely so understanding.
The Zoo Race Precedent
Take, for example, the merciless reaction to YouTube videos of Christian publisher Cougar Interactive’s Noah-themed game, Zoo Race, unveiled at the beginning of the year. A technical mess, Zoo Race showcased poor 3D modeling, patchwork animation, drab coloring, inexcusable texture pop in and ruinous voice acting.
But far from being mean-spirited gamers understood that Zoo Race was not the homebrew product of a young churchgoer sitting at home learning how to code, but rather a bona fide, commercial project. Whenever a creation shifts from amateur interest to money-making product, the rules of conversation change and as such Zoo Race deserved all of the razor-sharp criticism it received.
But is the existence of products such as Zoo Race and Guitar Praise really such an issue? Surely they just service their niche in a harmless and lawful way, borrowing ideas from the mainstream and re-cloaking them in the language and vocabulary of their intended audience?
And if that is the case, then why on earth should the gaming community at large have such a strong reaction to their existence? Isn’t it gaming for Christians just another curio niche like Hannah Montana’s is to 9-year-old girls, Singstar is to drunken students or Real Time Strategy games are to beardy, studious men?
Perhaps then what people object to, whether they realize it or not, is an ideological and theological issue with religious gaming, rather than any particular distaste as the idea Christian gamers might simply want games that explore their faith and service their community.
What Christian Gaming Might Mean
The word Christian is, in the strict sense, a noun. It literally means somebody who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. People get themselves in all manner of trouble when they turn the noun into an adjective to describe their work, community, bookshop, painting, tee shirt, video game or song.
A book or song cannot ‘follow Christ’. As an adjective the word is, in essence, a term of marketing targeting a product specifically at Christian people. As a result it is an objectionable label to have applied to a music video game which self-evidently cannot be Christian. Indeed, the terms use infers that the real Guitar Hero and its ilk are, in turn, somehow ‘Unchristian’.
Problematically people ascribe deeper, ideological significance to an object when it is prefixed by the adjective ‘Christian’. They might (quite reasonably) expect that, for example, a Christian book promote the teachings, moral stance or ethical position of Christ.
However, in many of cases this is simply not true or, at least, the product promotes only a very particular reading of those teachings. A ‘Christian Book’ is instead a book that is being marketed to a particular demographic. ‘Christian’ as an adjective is a label of marketing dressed up as a label of message, identity or instruction: something that the American market in particular has difficulty being honest about.
The problem is exacerbated when the Christian adjective is ascribed to more abstract, aesthetic and non-instructional things such as music, art or video games. Contemporary theologian Rob Bell explains it like so:
“Something can be labeled ‘Christian’ and not be true or good… It is possible for music to be labeled ‘Christian’ and be terrible music. It could lack creativity and inspiration. The lyrics could be recycled clichés. That ‘Christian’ band could actually be giving Jesus a bad name because they aren’t a great band. It is possible for a movie to be a ‘Christian’ movie and to be a terrible movie. It may actually desecrate the art form in its quality and storytelling and craft.
“Just because it is a ‘Christian’ book by a ‘Christian’ author and it was purchased in a ‘Christian’ bookstore doesn’t mean it is all true or good or beautiful. A ‘Christian’ political group puts me in an awkward position: What if I disagree with them? Am I less of a Christian? What if I’m convinced the ‘Christian’ thing to do is to vote the exact opposite? Christian is a great noun and a poor adjective.”
This problem is not peculiar to Christianity. ‘Gay’ is a noun in the strict sense signifying a homosexual person. However, it’s increasingly used as an adjective in order to sell product to that specific niche, again a kind of marketing malapropism. So we have gay bars, gay car insurance companies and gay holidays.
Some Christians, like some gays, for all of their insistence they be accepted and integrated in seamlessly into society, still want to feel distinct and part of a subculture. And there’s always money to be made in providing content that explicitly appeals to that subculture with a simple and mostly meaningless marketing label.
Conclusion: Suitable Games For Everyone
When religions engage in this kind of spin it always feels a little insidious and it’s this that the wider world objects to when they hear of products such as Guitar Praise and Zoo Race. Indeed, the following text, used at the end of the Zoo Race shareware demo, demonstrates just this:
“Buy the fun game that the big name publishers refused to finance or even show you. Why wait? You can do it, because you are a fun loving creation of God.”
Post Passion of the Christ, big name publishers are only too happy to publish and promote ‘Christian’-targeted content if there's enough money to be made. In the case of Zoo Race big name publishers refuse to finance it not on ideological grounds but simply because it’s awful.
As games writer Kieron Gillen pointed out at the time: “F**king big name publishers. We hate those guys too. Clearly, it couldn’t have anything to do with the glitchy animation, complete lack of physics, my-first-Quake-level geometry and the fact the whole thing is completely batshit insane.”
Christians should not be demanding video games prefixed with a faith label, as if that cheap and easy classification provides some kind of invisible moral safety net for their and their children’s media consumption.
Rather, believers should simply be demanding good and beautiful games that delight in creativity, make people happy, present or explore the world in interesting ways and maybe, just maybe enable us to catch a glimpse of their God, from whom all good things are claimed to flow.
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Thanks for this article.
There are a lot of concepts out there that would appeal to adult Christians as well as other gamers, if publishers would be willing to take a risk.
Even by removing the word Christians from the sentence above, its still a true statement. Where are games that explore things like...
cost of individual freedom to secure the nation
class struggle
religious freedom
marital issues
family issues
relationships between adult/child
etc.
I realize most people want a game as an escape, but in cinema there are the normal escape movies, but then there are also historical dramas, family dramas, comedies, and all sorts of "art house" movies that don't really fit any mold. And yes, there are even Christian movies, both of the fiction and documentary variety.
Until we expand our subject matter, we're going to always be pinned in the "swords and sorcery", or "shoot 'em up" categories.
I actually have met Randall (the guy who wrote Zoo Race), and he is, in fact, a churchgoer sitting at home learning how to code. He was entirely self-funded, working on his own in the evenings like any other indie game developer, and he released a shareware title. It was not an externally-funded product, and he was indeed learning to code on the project.
So yeah, you lost me a bit using that as an example of a well-funded title. There haven't been many well-funded attempts at "Christian" games lately -- the biggest recently was Left Behind: Eternal Forces -- that would have been a much better example than your story. Zoo Race was a very small project done by a single learning developer on his home computer.
Other than that, it was a reasonably good article -- my favorite section was definitely "What Christian Gaming Might Mean" -- the Rob Bell quote was very apropos.
What is interesting here is that the existence of Guitar Praise is more of a slap to Harmonix than it is to Digital Praise (the guys releasing GP). People have been asking for custom tracks for years -- how many times has Tycho ranted about this on Penny Arcade? It's a no-brainer that not all parents want their kids listening to AC/DC scream about the Highway to Hell while animated punk-rockers with dyed hair and fishnet stockings dance around on the screen. Harmonix has been completely ignoring the family market for a long time -- they have been releasing a game that is laser-beam targeted, and so the innovation that Digital Praise has done here is in marketing, not in technical things or art.
Just as the Wii innovated by making games that the grandparents can play alongside the kids (and not in any technical or artistic achievements), so too Digital Praise has innovated by opening up new markets that have been been completely ignored by Harmonix up to this point.
I agree. I have been saying that for many years. I feel that the Mature games targeted at adults today are rather juvenile content wise. I want something with a little more depth.
@ Clint.
You are right. The basis for these expansions is there. The ycould set up GH or Rockband to allow for new skins to change the stage and bands. They could tie certian types of music to these skins or not. The ycould add new music packs for Christian Rock, Country, Blues, etc. But they would rather cater to the niche markets they have carved for themselves.
That is the beauty of DLC. It has very minimal risk and would not cost them too much.
It's really about what your target audience wants. People will continually miss what it means to have a Christian "anything" so long as they fail to get the point that this is just a group of people who want something and if someone will give it to them, they will buy it.
The vast majority of Christian video game developers are self-funded indie developers who see a void in the existing game market and are trying to fill it.
The fundamentals of what makes for any good game apply equally to Christian games (or should I say Games for Christians). The content is the only thing that actually differs. And like any other kinds of content, that content molds the design and game play.
The hard part is finding out what this "audience of Christians" want to play.
I'm not Beardy T.T. I just like the competitive atmosphere and the cool animations and large scale carnage. People who are rts players aren't a social niche of people, they are just random people who have an itch every once in a while to play a war game.
You shouldn't assumed everyone who plays a certain type of game is in a social niche. Everyone has their reasons for getting what they enjoy out of their games.
Re: "The hard part is finding out what this "audience of Christians" want to play."
At the moment, I want to play Starcraft II and Spore. :)
The problem is that Christians ourselves are all so different, it's rather silly to target the group as a whole...
Your point that "[Christians are] just a group of people who want something" is flawed, especially when it comes to computer games.
The only market for games that are branded as "Christian" is Old Aunt Doris who knows her nephew is into these "new fangled computer games" but buys the "christian" label so that she know's she's not polluting his mind.
Kind of reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Marge buys Bart a golf game.
I'd be willing to wager that the vast majority of Gamers (who consider themselves Christian) will always judge a game on it's merits... not it's label.
Untapped market? No way! We already buy games...
On the other hand, Aunty Doris _is_ an untapped market :D so I suppose Eric has a point.
P.S. "The vast majority of Christian video game developers are self-funded indie developers who see a void in the existing game market and are trying to fill it."
??
The vast majority of Cristian video game devs are more likely made up of people who work in regular Game Dev studios. :)
You make my point by stating that Christians are a diverse group. But to say that the only definable group out there is the "Aunt Doris" group goes counter to your argument and is just a cynical and dismissive comment that is just typical of people who don't understand this market and its potential.
Offhand, I can define several potential audiences. Aunt Doris is one of them and quite a bit of money has been made from them. Other obvious groups are within the existing Church structures such as children programs, youth groups, Sunday school, or vacation Bible school. Each of these has been marketed to successfully by Christian oriented content specifically tailored to their needs.
An audience is defined by the content it seeks. If for you, you cannot imagine content that is Christian oriented, then you are correct...the market is tapped for you and those that think like you.
However, the argument here is that there is a desire for content that has Christian themes, or is overtly teaching Christian content. That doesn't exist in any significant: quality or quantity.
Christianity is not a monolithic group, as you point out. But that's like saying Americans are not a monolithic group. So what. You don't market to monolithic groups. You market to segments, hopefully segments that can support your product.
And finally, you're right that there are more Christians in non-Christian game sutdios than are in specifically Christian game studios. Of course that isn't what I was saying, but it's true enough.
I'm sure there are more Christians in the non-Christian film industry than in the Christian film industry (or music or books, or whatever else you want to make such a comparison). So what. That's not the point.
You have a potential market segment that's been proven in the film and music industries to exist. I sincerely doubt that the game industry is any different. The question I have is how long it'll take for people to figure out how to exploit it.
Your view comes across much more clearly in your second comment. :)
Yes, my comment about Aunt Doris was cynical and dismissive, if mainly my
knee-jerk reaction to a percieved monolithic market mentality.
Somewhere deep in there I had a point, I believe that it's bad game design
to make a product with the buyer in mind, not the player.
It's good marketing, but bad game design.
It may sell better (disregarding word of mouth), but the game will be unsuited to the player. It will definitely not be "...tailored to their needs".
Great point about the youth programs etc... play is a fantastic way to
learn. It's just that it's not trivial to do in an entertaining way.
Math Attack anyone?
I'm really interested to see a good middle ground
between top entertainment title and "Serious Games"
"there are more Christians in the non-Christian film industry than in the
Christian film industry. ... . So what. That's not the point."
No it wasn't your point, but it was mine... :) Which was reinforced with
the term "non-Christian"
. The vast majority of Game studios have no
religious/spiritual orientation or beliefs, so it's rather devisive to
call one "non-Christian". The article itself points out that this is as
non-sensical as calling a company a "Cristian" company.
(I happen to agree with the artice... especially the "[using] a noun as an adjective" part.)
By the way, the article can't "miss the point"... it's the one making the point (in response to gamer reactions to Guitar Praise). It may have missed an angle, but not the point.
Well, if you think you're going to stop people from using the word "Christian" as an adjective, it's just not going to happen. If that's the point of the article and your point, the in the end, it's just an impractical stand.
As for the article, it argues not just that you shouldn't use it as an adjective, but it shouldn't be used for marketing purposes. That's also just as impractical.
At the end, the article mentions what Christians should be looking for and interestingly, his advice is to believers is...
"...believers should simply be demanding good and beautiful games that delight in creativity, make people happy, present or explore the world in interesting ways and maybe, just maybe enable us to catch a glimpse of their God, from whom all good things are claimed to flow. "
That's generic and has nothing Christian specific in it. If that's the point of this article, then Simon has completely missed why people are trying to create games with Christian oriented content.
So, he's missed the actual reason why there are Christian games out there.
The arguments he puts out might be appealing, but they don't hold up when you push it toward its logical conclusion.
If he had been saying that you should not trivialize the term "Christian", then I'm with him. But that's not what he's saying. He's saying that Christians shouldn't want games with Christian content...just nice ones that just might show the tiniest glimpse of God. That's at best naive.
You can have people who call themselves Christian that are not very good examples of what it means to be a Christian. That is not an argument to say you can't call someone a Christian, but you should simply call yourself someone who tries to do beautiful things so that others might see a glimpse of God.
That might be a nice sentiment, but it has nothing to do with why Guitar Praise was created. To argue that it shouldn't have been created in the first place by saying they are abusing the word, Christian, is preposterous.
My original post comes from an understanding of this that's so obvious to me that I am dumbfounded that it is not obvious to others.
But this is what Christians face in any case. It's not just the insults that must be faced, but also these odd twistings of what it means to be a Christian...especially when it concludes with something that is could be applied to anyone of any faith.
The content is what makes something what it is. The content of this article ... particularly the conclusion, is not Christian. It might be spiritual, but it's not Christian.
That is probably consistent with what the article is arguing, but it holds no value for any Christian who does not agree with his premise and it offers no value for those who are creating Christian games or those looking for games with Christian content. You can't reasonably expect that people who are deeply interested in their faith that they shouldn't want that faith exposed in games in concrete and palpable ways. But rather you should replace it with some generic notion of beauty and niceness. It's just not going to happen.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. I'd like to respond to a few of your arguments here. I hope you don't mind.
I would be delighted if the word ‘Christian’ was principally used in its proper historical sense, as a noun and not an adjective. As the Rob Bell quotation so eloquently points out: it is a poor adjective and a meaningful noun. I challenge you to not use the word as an adjective in your arguments. I think you’ll find having to articulate what you mean in other ways a useful exercise.
However, I fully understand that this isn't going to happen anytime soon. Like you say, it's an impractical wish (especially when there’s a gigantic money-spinning industry based around its use as an adjective) but, as a Christian, I’m sure you’ll appreciate impracticality doesn't mean certain things shouldn’t be said.
You describe my conclusion as ‘generic’ with nothing 'Christian-specific' in it. My argument is that Christians who work in creating content should, in an ideal world, focus on creating games that exude qualities of excellence, intelligence and goodness. That is the traditional and historical Church understanding of art's function, a holistic reading of how art and creativity should glorify God, beyond one that simply says if you swap out the word ‘baby’ from a song lyric and replace it with ‘Jesus’ your work is magically made sacred.
I have not missed the reason that there are ‘Christian’ games out there. By far the main reason for their existence is for the benefit of Christian parents who are uneasy about their children's consumption of a medium they don't understand. In the article I state: '[the word Christian] provides some kind of invisible moral safety net for [parents] and their children’s media consumption.’
I have not missed this reason but I am thoroughly dissatisfied with it. You also misrepresent me by saying that I argue 'Christians shouldn't want games with Christian content'. Not true. I am simply contending the contemporary US evangelical, Christian Book Store definition of what Godly content is and/ or should be.
Guitar Praise was created to make money, first and foremost, and to be marketed at Christian parents who want to buy games that are ostensibly 'safe' for their children, and, possibly, for teens who REALLY like CCM to get involved with the rhythm-action zeitgeist.
As someone who is, as you say, 'deeply interested in faith', this game does nothing to speak to, investigate or explore that interest. Indeed, for you to suggest it does is blinkered and preposterous. It's just a cynical, copycat, capitalist product. it makes me tired at the ghettoization of Christianity, tired oft the way in which Christians lap up this content without properly engaging with it, sick of the dumb, poorly-nuanced and misleading 'Christian' classification.
You say that to wish for ‘good and beautiful games that delight in creativity’ is wishy-washy and has nothing to do with Christianity. That - exactly that sentiment - is the impetus behind the article.
Of course we want games and activities that are more moral. But I must infuse that Jesus Himself told us to be in the world, but not of the world. I council caution to anyone looking at any product that has a secular counterpart.
Please, please, please. Do your homework before writing another article.