TY  - GEN
AU  - Bosman,F.G.(Frank)
TI  - The Sacred & the Digital. Critical Depictions of Religions in Video Games
SN  - books978-3-03897-831-2
PY  - 2019///
PB  - MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
KW  - imaginary worlds
KW  - play
KW  - Isaac
KW  - criticism of religion
KW  - games and religion studies
KW  - American history
KW  - football videogames
KW  - cults
KW  - new religious movements
KW  - subcreation
KW  - ritual practices
KW  - Ethos
KW  - digital games
KW  - stereotypes
KW  - child abuse
KW  - game-immanent
KW  - religious studies
KW  - Assassin’s Creed
KW  - game mechanics
KW  - Dishonored
KW  - secular
KW  - science
KW  - religious violence
KW  - moral decision making
KW  - fundamentalism
KW  - video games
KW  - occulture
KW  - critique of religion
KW  - game
KW  - religion in games
KW  - Bible
KW  - religion studies
KW  - Western esotericism
KW  - transmedial worlds
KW  - science fiction
KW  - studies
KW  - sacred
KW  - paranormal
KW  - Mythos
KW  - karma
KW  - Fallout 3
KW  - video game
KW  - religion criticism
KW  - theology
KW  - religion
KW  - contemplation
KW  - game studies
KW  - post-apocalypse
KW  - transmedia storytelling
KW  - content analysis
KW  - transmediality
KW  - game worlds
KW  - society for psychical research
KW  - Catholicism
KW  - Horizon: Zero Dawn
KW  - storyworlds
KW  - Evangelicalism
KW  - world-building
N1  - Open Access
N2  - Video game studies are a relative young but flourishing academic discipline. But within game studies, however, the perspective of religion and spirituality is rather neglected, both by game scholars and religion scholars. While religion can take different shapes in digital games, ranging from material and referential to reflexive and ritual, it is not necessarily true that game developers depict their in-game religions in a positive, confirming way, but ever so often games approach the topic critically and disavowingly. The religion criticisms found in video games can be categorized as follows: religion as (1) fraud, aimed to manipulate the uneducated, as (2) blind obedience towards an invisible but ultimately non-existing deity/ies, as (3) violence against those who do not share the same set of religious rules, as (4) madness, a deranged alternative for logical reasoning, and as (5) suppression in the hands of the powerful elite to dominate and subdue the masses into submission and obedience. The critical depictions of religion in video games by their developers is the focus of this special issue
UR  - https://mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/1253
UR  - https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/58761
ER  -