God’s PR Problem: The Role of Religion in Videogames

GameSpy’s Julian Murdoch asks “why does God get short shrift in videogames?”

Writing about videogames is not generally the stuff of Woodward and Bernstein. Occasionally, a hostile public relations manager will make your life difficult, or you’ll lose a scoop to a rival publication. Trying to get a good interview while a game’s in development can be challenging, especially if that game isn’t in its official PR swing yet. But for the most part, this is the entertainment industry: The consumers want to read about it, the producers want to talk about it, and the rest is just details.

So it was with some surprise that I encountered a wall of fear and paranoia when I called around, asking developers to talk about religion in gaming. What I found is a small handful of people who think about the issues a lot, and wanted desperately to be part of the conversation…and a vast, silent majority who didn’t want to touch the topic with the proverbial 10-foot pole.