In Your Game We Play

Jason Killingsworth, Games editor at Paste, on what games have to do with faith: I also can’t help noticing the echoes of theological discourse in popular videogame criticism. The debate over the merits of open-world sandbox games vs. linear, on-rails experiences might as well be...

Jason Killingsworth, Games editor at Paste, on what games have to do with faith:

I also can’t help noticing the echoes of theological discourse in popular videogame criticism. The debate over the merits of open-world sandbox games vs. linear, on-rails experiences might as well be a discussion of free will vs. Calvinistic determinism. We examine the beauty of a game’s environmental detail and lavish praise on the artists at our favorite game studios who hung those stars in the sky. We laud the designers who decided it is not good that man should play alone and, in response, offer well-crafted multiplayer experiences to enjoy with our friends on Xbox Live. We talk about the iterative nature of game design in the same terms a Christian biologist might unpack the notion of theistic evolution.

via Start Press: In Your Game We Play :: Games :: Features :: Paste.

About the Author

Richard Clark (Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief) has spent his entire life writing, reading, listening, and playing. He has a Bachelors in Theology from the Baptist College of Florida and has a Master of Arts in Theology and the Arts from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY where he is the classroom technology manager at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition to writing at Christ and Pop Culture, he is also a staff writer for Kill Screen Magazine's website and has written for various other outlets such as Paste, Gamasutra, and Collide. Email: deadyetliving [at] gmail [dot] com. Twitter: @deadyetliving. Xbox Live: deadyetliving