December 13, 2006
From a design standpoint, Left Behind: Eternal Forces
is a bad game.Major review sites like GameSpot and IGN have trashed the artistic merit (or lack thereof) of the Christian-themed real-time strategy game, which is based on the best-selling Left Behind book series.
Perhaps surprisingly, most of the controversy over the game has been generated by Christian groups, which have criticized the mix of religion and violence in which the player's Tribulation Force does battle with the army of the anti-Christ. Enemies can be converted rather than killed, but that hasn't put critics any more at ease. They remain troubled by the concept of "convert or die."
Sacramento's CBS-13 reports on the controversy in an interview with a local pastor, who said:
This could contribute to more violence between religions the world doesn't need that.
Newswoman Anny Hong also visited a nearby Wal-mart to check on sales which were so-so. The chain is offering Left Behind at only 200 of 3,800 locations, which it explained by saying:
We chose store locations where we anticipated customer demand for the product, and the product has been selling in those stores. The decision on what merchandise we offer in out store is based on what we think our customers want.
An Associated Press report recounts the controversy and includes an interview with Rev. Tim Simpson, a Florida minister who said:
Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces. It is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The idea that you could pray, and the deleterious effects of one's foul deeds would simply be wiped away, is a horrible thing to be teaching Christian young people here at Christmas time.
Of the controversy, Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games, said:
They're good-minded people. They want to keep us from making games that are jihad in the name of God.
Comments
Gotcha XD
What about an atheist game? You'd have to attack churches, mosques and synagogues to prevent the religious from destroying the separation of church and state. :p
Honestly, you think about it, all the big controversial games of late have been like this - based on fictional stories but fiction that could potentially begin today. The GTAs. Bully. Rainbox 6 Vegas. And yes, if you believe in certain religious beliefs, the Rapture could happen today and Left Behind begins. Meanwhile, similarly objectionable games get a free pass because their stories are safe. WWII shooters are clearly historical, Gears of War is clearly futuristic, and Killer7 isn't clearly anything.
Which makes me wonder - do the researchers ever wonder if different types of violence makes any difference to the player? Is violence against pedestrians any better or worse than violence against aliens, or zombies, or Nazis? Because the media outcries would make one think that violence is relatively benign unless it's taking place against weak and underpowered civilians.
No but you shouldn't find it ironic. Alot of us here complain about how religions constantly contradict themselves because of the fanatics who outcry about anything that goes against their beliefs and trying to force it on those who are not interested. However this time they want to stop the defamation of their religion, something I'm sure you can relate to on any subject you feel strongly about. They aren't trying to force their views on you this time or outcrying something because it offends them based on their religion they just don't want the message of their religion skewed.
@General Koffi,
Eh, I dont see that being much fun of a game nor does the concept make any sense. Attack churches and monastaries? to keep them out of politics? Scare tactics rarely work over the long run and I don't see a connection between the two. As a side note religion and politics will never be seperate because religion is basically politics. It has always and will continue to always meddle in the affairs of the government and try to force its standards on the society as a hole. Even though it really should be seperate.
As a side note, I would also like to point out that any disruption of religion in any form or another will cause problems like this. Further, one can't help but wonder if this gaming company was intending for a situation like this. However, this gets into how certain people are for or against the Iraqi War and such, but I feel this may not be relevant for this as this is a discussion about how gaming industries are being treated, and not a philosophical debate over if the government was doing the right thing.
Anyway, why did they publish such a game in the first place? It actually isn't very good at all. They really should just pull it and move on toward another project.
Age of Empires 2 had campaigns during the crusades. In one campaign, you were following the Saracen leader Saladin fighting off Christian invaders (Third Crusade), and in another, you were following the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, which ended with the HRE getting involved in the Third Crusade. It also had a campaign based on the epic poem of El Cid, which climaxes with Christians and Muslims fighting side by side against invaders.
Christians:"your book says this and this which are not true your entire story is lies"
Author of book: "Well yea, thats why it's in the fiction section"
the game is not made based on the Christian religion, it's made based on a fictional book based on the Christian religion, key word there is fictional, meaning it's not meant to realisticaly represent the religion at all (and made badly acording to every single person under the sun thats played the game)
the big problem is not whether or not the game makes a poor representation of the Christian faith, as it's never meant to give a good one, the problem is too many religious fundimentalists fly off the handle over works of fiction that use reference to their religion
My point is that there would be mass protests, buildings firebombed and programmers lynched if either of the games I postulated came to fruition.
This Christian thing gets idle mention in comparison.
Extremism is wrong, but it's not so bad if it's your own guys doing it?
I think this is more about christianity trying to distance itself as much as possible from any sort of violence, so they don't end up in the boat Muslim is in.
Regardless, I think 'convert or die' sends a better message than 'die', which is the only option most games give you.
Not about the theme, but mainly because the actual game appears to be crap.
Check out www.evilbible.com for plenty of examples.
I mean, really, we've seen plenty of bigotry and hate spouted from various religious individuals and organizations over just the past few years. Heck, just in the past few months.
The Baptist Convention in NC promoting bigotry and hate against homosexuals.
The Fred Phelps group running around from funeral to funeral promoting bigotry and hate.
A "certain someone" trying to encourage bigotry and hate against homosexuals by linking a mere kiss between two boys as being "gay sex".
A recent Jerry Falwell newsletter preaching bigotry and hate against homosexuals, and complaining about the media giving "Christians" a bad image (despite specific individuals themselves making their own comments in Public which means those specific individuals create their own negative publicity).
All the crap overseas screaming about religious superiority over other religions, murdering one another, or worse.
Or how about the pastor who fired the Sunday School teacher because she was a woman?
But where is the outrage over these acts? Not just by a few here and there on blogs, but in full view of the public? One doesn't even have to be homosexual or have the same religious beliefs to be against the bigotry and hate espoused in the above and other situations.
And certainly, in a non-fictional arena, it is far more a danger to teach others that this is exactly how one should treat a group of people in the real world, with bigotry and hate, rather than playing or reading about fictional situations in unrealistic worlds. Certainly if a fictional story can, as they are claiming, lead people to commit violent acts, then so, too, can the preaching of real bigotry and hate towards real individuals risk leading people to commit violent acts, more so since it's actually directing one real person to treat another real person with such attitudes.
Yet, where is the condemnation for bigotry? Where is the public claim that a supposed "good" God would not advocate bigotry and hate against others, whether through violent or non-violent actions?
nightwng2000
NW2K Software
...
Nah, just need to fire their PR staff. I'm pretty sure God laid out her strategy already, people just keep neglecting to read the memo. ;)
Mass protests by who Koffi? the christians or the atheists? Either way your point has no bearing on what the christians are doing now. Protesting a game about THEIR religion because it shows an extremist view of their religion that may have a negative impact on how they are viewed. Yes they'd flip out if your game was made but honestly the fact they are even protesting this game shows they are against extremism in their own sect. Can't you at least give them a pat on the back for that? lol.
And if your game was made the athiest outcry would be almost non-exsistant I think. Or it would be drowned in the wave of protests by the christians.
@James,
Lmao when I was scanning posts prior to this I had to do a double take at your post; thought I had posted under my name this morning. Oh, I'm also slightly offended to be mentioned in the same breath as fox news..... lol.
@me,
No religion is accepting of other religions (except maybe buddhism?). They all consider themselves the only correct religion. When your that arrogant sparks are going to fly lol. However you can still relate to someone of a different religion and understand where they are coming from if you look at it from a strictly dispassionate view. One problem I think is religious followers inability to except that other people look at things through a different color of glass. It might be the same thing but the color of the glass has changed the outcome to different things for each person.
And in case there was any question of my religious affiliations, I'm an Atheist, I'm also very synical about organized religion even if you can't tell by my posts.
@jatone, not all denominations of religions are as close minded as you state, Sure there are the people within the religion who go into extremes and are as close minded, but over all, (at least at my place of worship) are accepting of other religions and are told to go ahead and study what these other religions are about.
People are scared of what they do not understand.
Wait, what? The idea that you pray and your sins are washed away isn't in the teachings of the Bible?
A good question. I'm guessing it contains a high percentage of born-agains, the one's I've met seem to take the Bible pretty literally, and get offended easily when you poke holes in it, or point out the embarassing stuff.
It appears that christian outrage is selective.
I swear you youngins missed all the really good games.
Ah good times. Nothing beat mass converting enemy forces just to have them run in and be cannon fodder instead of your actual troops. ;)
Blessed are the meek, for they make good shields. :P
"Christian-themed real-time strategy game, which is based on the best-selling Left Behind book series."
I did a little bit of quick research on the series. There's at least 12 books in it, the first one written in '95. It's clearly been around for a while, and reasonably successful.
I could care less if people want to protest this. But shouldn't you have been protesting back in '95? This didn't jsut pop out of nowhere.
Nope, although for Roman Catholics the whole "confession and absolution" cycle -is- supposed to work something like that. Do just about any and every horrible thing you can think of, and as long as you're -genuinely- sorry about it (repentence), confess, do penance, and get absolved you're now pure as the driven snow. And there's no limit, so you can get drunk and beat your wife every week, and as long as you keep being really genuinely sorry about it and doing your confession and penance you're a better and more holy person whose soul is more acceptable to God than a dedicated and unstinting philanthropist and humanitarian who just happens to be an atheist.
One of the things the early Protestant sects (not to mention atheists and agnostics like myself) had trouble with in the Roman Catholic Church's Praxis.
Judging all Christianity by the idiots like Phelps is like judging all gamers by the idiots leaving death threats... or the ones who go out and actually start shooting.
Yes, stoning was a method of execution in the Old Testament. But Jesus preached that "Let he without sin cast the first stone."
Yes, homosexuality is a sin (as confirmed in many places in the Bible besides Leviticus, and is thus a lifestyle *choice*), but no true Christian would hate those who practice it. Jesus hung out with the worst sinners and loved them because they were the ones who needed Him most.
Yes, there are idiots out there who base hatred, violence and even war on religion. But as the recent South Park two parter showed, if there weren't religion, there'd still be idiots, and they'd be basing hatred, violence and war on something else.
This probably isn't going to change a single person's mind who thinks it's "cool" to bash Christianity (usually with a very weak knowledge of what they're bashing, and/or a handy strawman), but the site is supposed to be GamePolitics, not ReligionBashing.
And yeah, this game is going to get bashed on both sides. It's a crappy game, and really doesn't conform to the ideas of the Bible at all. God has never needed and will never need humans to wage physical war on his behalf.
Not only did the books come out in 95 they are an interpetation of what it would be like to live through the book of revelations assuming the book is to be taken literally not symbolicly. (FYI Revelations is the last book of the bible.) So basicly we've got religous people bashing the bible, granted it's just one interpetation of the bible but it's the bible none the less.
they dislike the apparent truth..
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Sacramento’s CBS-13 reports on the controversy in an interview with a local pastor, who said:
This could contribute to more violence between religions the world doesn’t need that.
I am sorry but the fact that some religions refuse to play well with others is only dimed by your comment.
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Newswoman Anny Hong also visited a nearby Wal-mart to check on sales which were so-so. The chain is offering Left Behind at only 200 of 3,800 locations, which it explained by saying:
We chose store locations where we anticipated customer demand for the product, and the product has been selling in those stores. The decision on what merchandise we offer in out store is based on what we think our customers want.
We the Worg(Borg with a W) dislike this game since it offends 30% of our consumers.
we also refuse to aid the American worker and further our contraries debt to china,resistance is futile you must buy our product we are the only store left since we came in and hocked up property prices,resistance is futile!
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An Associated Press report recounts the controversy and includes an interview with Rev. Tim Simpson, a Florida minister who said:
Part of the object is to kill or convert the opposing forces. It is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The idea that you could pray, and the deleterious effects of one’s foul deeds would simply be wiped away, is a horrible thing to be teaching Christian young people here at Christmas time.
*worg bot brain explodes to much BS*
first off god is forgiving of our sins the catholic church less so ,man even more LESS so.....hoy fck...this si why world region AKA philosophy needs to be thought in schools so that other the brain washed fodder understand a bit abotu their sister/brother/cousin religions...
Of the controversy, Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind Games, said:
They’re good-minded people. They want to keep us from making games that are jihad in the name of God.
Jihad is a religious war thus anything having to do with religion fighting and war is a jihad thus one could say Left Behind: Eternal Forces is a jihad Christan game ,however theres a point missing,jihad dose everything it can to remove "not us" that are "before us" this game ues's the general Christan mythos in a game setting...and no one is happy about it the gameplay is horrid thus gamers dislike it,theres some forms of violence in it thus the anti gamers hate it and it shines a spotlight on Christan mythos and the fundies hate it so..the light that is.....
in the end will all this crap help sales any?
its a shame JT has a one track mind we would be all over this if it was made by RS...
I have to say two things. One, you are a fine example of your faith. And two, in my rather humble experience, most of the Christians I meet have the exact same emotions and feeling as you.
But I do disagree with one thing. Love, as is considered by many, a good thing. Two people that love each other can make one another complete. I see examples of it every day in my house, as I'm really lucky and have two parents that love each other and have loved each other for...twenty years. So how can it be a sin for two people to love one another, just because they are the same sex?
This can open up a whole can of offtopic worms in which several people can and probably will say several hateful things.
So let me leave it as simple and non offensive as possible. Love is never a bad thing. Love and sexuality however are two completely different things. You can have love without sexuality and you can have sexuality without love.
Beyond that, I probably shouldn't respond further in this venue to ward off an argument. If you are interested in a more thorough answer (and there is a quite valid one), there are several resources online easily looked up.
as one balanced minded Christian put it its not "gay" its "promiscuity" or to be over sexed in appearance and life style not all gays are flaming homos that will "poke" holes into things,once you start devidieng and conquering the masses over non issues you start walking down the darken path.....
Heres a question can you have religion without love or light?
So I suppose I must simply continue the argument with myself.
That post above was done by me.
Surprised they're not up in arms over the theft of thier tagline.
Or no, maybe I shouldn't say this, who knows what mother's group frequent might stumble by and instantly file the game as terrorist propoganda, or unholy devil preachings, driving annother mindless crusade on for longer then it should've lived, which was in the 'yesterweek's news' pile.
Just to clarify, it's ok for a man to love, care, and support another man as much as they would any other spouse, it's just not ok for the sticking of bits into other bits part.
As for "many other places in the bible address this", it depends how you interepret it. Romans 1:26-27 can be deemed not as criticism of lesbianism, but criticism of sex orgies as part of pagan worship. 1 Corithians 6:9-10 can be read as a criticism of male temple prostitutes, sexual abusers of young boys, or possibly those who masturbate, same as 1 Timothy 1. The problem is the translation. The Hebrew version specifically names temple prostitutes, and the greek version has no known translation, only close approximations. Jude 1:7 seems to refer not to sex with men, but the desire to rape angels.
Doesn’t ‘Islam’ or ‘Israel’ translate to ‘Convert or die?’
You've been listening to too many religious whackos. Mohammed specifically stated that conversion by force was worthless, he didn't want false worship (aka apopasty). What instead was spread by the sword was obedience to the state. Which mostly went hand in hand with the spread of Islam, granted, but conversion of religion wasn't required. Many cities in the Holy Land that were ruled over by the Muslims were mixed faith cities.
Also, supposedly in the Middle Ages Islam was far more tolerant of other religions than Catholicism - though that could also be utter lies, since the only concrete source I specifically remember reading that is the manual for Medieval: Total War.
And haven't we all had this desire at one point in our lives?
Or am I sick and wrong is more ways than can be easily counted.
Also can we PLEASE have a edit feture, so I can tack on these points without having to post something new?
The Islmaic nations of the middle ages were really advanced, compared to the Christian nations.
The dark ages had a lot to do with that. ;)
Hard to advance your scientific knowledge when you're just copying books and not actually doing any science. Plus the Islamic nations had a lot less taboos about questioning God's creations. In Islam, to study nature is to get to know God just a little better. In middle ages Christianity (and certain regions of modern day America), doing science is akin to selling your soul to the devil...
It varied widely depending on when and where in the Muslim world you were looking, and your definition of "tolerance". They were better protected by law in some cases, and were more readily accepted in places like Constantinople and Moorish Spain (until the Almohad dynasty took power there and started a "convert, flee, or die" policy, although that mellowed later), but at the same time they were also locked firmly into place as second-class citizens, forced to wear distinctive clothing, pay a special "non-Muslim" tax, not allowed to defend themselves in court or to give testimony in court on behalf or against another, not allowed to bear arms...
As for advancement, yes, for a time the Muslim world was actually significantly ahead of the "West" (although the term isn't really appropriate for the time period we're talking about) in terms of mathematics, medicine, and several other fields. However they were already beginning to stagnate even as modern "western civilization" was starting to come into full flower with the Renaissance and (later) the Enlightenment. That stagnation held for centuries, and frankly I still don't think the Muslim world has entirely recovered.
But, if I'm right, basically, they learned that if your leg hurts, you don't need to cut it off :P Or drill a hole in your head for headaches. Eat toxic emerald dust. Wear dead frogs. Bathe in piss. The blood-letting, oh, they loved that one.
It's the problem when your religious and state rules as crafted together as one. The problem then arises: Is refusing to convert treason against the state, or treason against God? Mohammed clearly tried to seperate the two, but others since weren't so distinguishing.