Blurred Edge Magazine announces the inaugural issue of their new video gaming magazine. Check out the Web site at http://www.blurrededgemagazine.com/.

Check out the cover story "Virtual Crusades" Media kit which I will post here.

Virtual Crusades

Holy Moses! Hang onto your halo, the rapture approaches. Today's interactive video games, like Madden NFL, allow you to experience the visceral thrill of scoring the winning touchdown in the Super bowl. Play deadly, superhuman, characters in surreal environments immersing your mind in violent alternate realities. Or feel the power of killing all who oppose your religiously inspired mission to convert non-believers to Christ's word or piece by bloody piece, send them to their beautiful master. Everywhere the interactive entertainment industry is creeping into the cracks in the blurred edge between our fast paced lives and the interactive entertainment industry of today. If you think the true-life, near-death, experience is for ...

To read the entire article go to http://www.blurrededgemagazine.com/, look under cover storys. Then wait for the sequel to this one appearing in the October issue of Blurred Edge Magazine.

~ by warrenh on July 5, 2007.

Here is the media kit I wrote for the up coming cover of Blurred Edge Media's new video game magazine, be brutal now.

Virtual Crusades

More Christian game developers today are making use of old Crusader tactics in the battle-for-your-money... As they concentrate on a shift to traditional game play and genres in an effort to attain a mainstream audience. The subconscious of offended Christian and video game critics alike is asking. Would Christ play these games? By Warren Hayashi.

Entertainment is hot. Not surprisingly as industry wide revenues continue to spiral upwards each year. More Christian game developers are shifting to the conventional approach in order to count additional shekels. Needing to increase their customer base, they have embraced the untraditional use of violence in their Christian games as a medium to reach non-believers interested in Christianity. Instead of the old philosophy of selling games to Christians who like playing video games, and while their novel approaches to video death maybe less desensitizing? Will these games pass on Christian values?

Rewind to the decade of Islander and Oiler domination, specifically to the year Calgary lifted the cup high, 1989. This is the year the non-religious origins of violent new-generation Christian video games, like Left Behind Games recently released title Left Behind: Eternal Forces, begins, with the profit-inspired titles developed by unlicensed game developer Colour Dream. Colour Dream was the world's largest developer of unlicensed video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System at the time Nintendo was experiencing success with the Nintendo system. So many games like Narc inspired Raid 2020 and Crystal Mines, one of Colour Dreams best selling titles, were being bought and played in eye-opening amounts by tired parents and stimulant-craving adolescents desperate for entertainment. They had to wear sunglasses.

Until the glare off their sunglasses caught the money-seeking eyes of the beam-counters watching Nintendo's market share dip. As Colour Dream titles continued to slide across the counters of retail stores due to Colour Dreams reverse engineering of the Nintendo Entertainment System's ‘lock-out' chip. Which allowed Colour Dream games to load onto the Nintendo system despite the chip; Nintendo decided to act.

Reacting to the continued unlicensed sale of Colour Dream titles, Nintendo succeeded in convincing video game retailers into pulling Colour Dream titles from their shelves. By threatening to cease marketing video games through retailers stocking unlicensed Nintendo Entertainment System games. Thereby discouraging other unlicensed game developers from following the path pioneered by Colour Dream.

Undeterred by Nintendo's interference and inspired by an idea floating around in their money-coveting minds? Sell Christian-theme video games to Christian bookstores? Colour Dream founded the label Wisdom Tree in 1989, under which they would develop their new Christian-theme games.

The first game developed by Colour Dream under the Wisdom Tree label was the primitive Bible Adventures. Loosely based on game play elements in Super Mario Brothers 2. Bible Adventures featured accounts from the bible, like Noah's Ark, Baby Moses, and David and Goliath. Subsequent titles like Exodus, King of Kings, Bible Buffet, and the moderately successful Spiritual Warrior followed in Wisdom Tree's teething years.

Fast forward to the increasingly lucrative and competitive video gaming world of today's reactive entertainment industry. And one sees and hears a different religious experience being presented by many new-generation Christian game developers. As increasing numbers of new Christian video game developers, like N'Lightning Software, developers of best selling games Catechumen and Ominous Horizons. Decide to shift battle tactics in their war for the hearts and minds of non-Christians, they ride out onto the field of battle trumpeting a tried and true Christian-theme in the war for your ever-important golden trinkets, tinkling across the greedy-counters of entertainment industry retailers today.

What is this tried and true Christian-theme? Thou shall not kill. Unless of course your converting unrepentant non-believers to the Lord's light. With a sympathetic shotgun blast to the back of the head and a heart-felt, "Praise the Lord," you apparently ensure salvation for the souls of the damned and blessed alike. Murderer and murdered, through out the blood-red history of religious fervour, would certainly have exclaimed a hearty, "Praise the Lord," as their victim or blood expired into the darkness... if they had known forgiveness was words away. We ask, would Jesus use violence in defence of others salvation?

~ by warrenh on January 22, 2007.