God of War

by | Mar 9, 2023 | 2011 | 0 comments

When Sony Entertainment released the first in a series of video game titles called God of War in 2005, they were right on the money, so to speak.

Kratos, the hero of the game, sets off on a quest to kill Aries the god of war in order to avenge the death of his family. In the process he has to battle his way through hordes of evil enemies.

The game offers excellent game-play and incorporated state-of-the-art graphics, but the real draw card for some was the explicit violence, gore, cruelty, nudity and interactive sex scenes.

With each game in the series going platinum (selling more than 1 million copies) shortly after its release, no wonder God of War ranks 11th on Sony’s best seller list.

The troubling thing is that if you were to visit your local DVD store, you would probably find God of War, which carries a 2-18 age restriction, on the same shelf as Super Mario Bros, an all-ages game. Many parents, without carefully reading the labels, tend to assume all games on the shelf must be about the same. Far from it. It would be like putting printed pornography on the same shelf as Dr. Suess books in the library, as though one is just as acceptable for children as the other.

It seems that adults in general have the idea that virtually all video games are nothing but innocent fun.

Addictive?

When most people hear the word addiction the first images that spring to mind are of drugs, cigarettes or alcohol. But there is a new form of addiction which is seldom spoken of – video games. South Korea and China have been shocked in recent years by a growing number of deaths resulting directly from video game addiction.

Although studies have been made into the subject, they have not been able to directly link violent games with violent behaviour. They have however proven that when we play very violent or erotic games, the areas of our brain that regulate these emotions show heightened activity. So video games do affect us.

Some addicted gamers play so long and hard that they put off eating, drinking and sleeping long enough to die from exhaustion and dehydration. This has prompted the Chinese government to pass laws requiring video game producers to build into games certain fail safes that compel players to stop playing after a certain amount of time.

One Chinese gamer stabbed his friend to death for selling the sword he was using in the online game called Legend of Mir 3. A man in Des Moines Iowa, in the USA, beat up his girlfriend and then locked her up because she stood in front of the video monitor while he was playing his game.

Examples abound from suicides attributed to addiction, to divorces caused by video game role playing affairs. One marriage was destroyed because a wife caught her husband having an imaginary affair with a woman in a game called Second Life.

As with most forms of addiction the telltale signs of obsession—lying, stealing and destroyed relationships can easily be found in video game addiction.

Too bizarre to be real

Can something that is supposed to be fictional fun really have such a devastating effect on peoples’ lives? As a video game addict myself for almost 25 years, I assure you it can! In my case I started young, soon resorting to stealing from my family to get my ‘fix’ at the corner café. Numerous hidings eventually cured the stealing, but odd jobs provided the money I needed for my beloved games.

As I grew older and personal computers made gaming even more accessible, I spent more and more time behind my computer. It got so bad that at one stage in high school, I started feigning sickness and avoided my friends so I could play video games.

I eventually got married and the problem reached epidemic proportions when I started neglecting my wife and obsessed over an online game called ‘Evony.’ I played it at work, at home, during dinner, and even into the early hours of the morning. My relationship with my wife became so strained that we were arguing about the game constantly.

Fortunately I realised I had a serious problem and did something about it before my life spiralled completely out of control. But it was not easy. It took a lot of prayer and soul searching and time. I quit Evony only to go back to it again three times before I was finally done with it.

So what now?

So does this mean that all video games are evil and that everyone who plays them will become addicted?

Not at all. There are many fun, innocent and entertaining games available. But some of them do glamorize evil, and many people become obsessed with them, damaging their relationships, neglecting their families and grieving those who care about them.

Jesus calls us to reflect God’s love, but when we find ourselves engaging in obsessive violent fantasy as I did with video games, it isn’t the love of God we’re reflecting.

We also have a duty to protect our children from destructive influences, which means not only steering clear of such games ourselves, but taking time and effort to be aware of the content of games before we let our children play them.

Matthew 5:9 reads; “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” As with many of these violent games, your avatar (virtual character) spreads more bullets, blades and pain than peace and love. Could a loving God be happy with the fact that we are imagining blowing someone’s brains out?

The question begs, do violent and erotic games desensitize our conscience? I’m reminded of a story that a friend of mine told me about an incident that happened while he was reading the comments posted for a first-person shooter video game.

A 13 year old boy was complaining that the quality of the game was not up to scratch. He felt it was important for the player to see how the bullet entered and exited the skull of the victim, and complained bitterly that the game studio did not make enough effort to accurately portray it.

In Titus 1:15 we read: “To the pure all things are pure: but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact both their minds and consciences are corrupted.”

This scripture indicates that it is possible for our consciences to be corrupted. Can excessive violent and erotic games defile your conscience? What I can clearly remember is that sometimes when I played games like Grand Theft Auto, where some of your tasks involved beating someone to death with a golf club, sawing a person in half with a chain saw or driving so recklessly that you killed innocent people, I got the urge to drive recklessly myself when I got into my real car. But maybe I am the exception to the rule. No doubt many would argue that the percentage of the population suffering from game addiction is very small.

In the final analysis, it all boils down to choice. Gaming is fun, and as a flight of fantasy is probably not bad for you at all, but like anything in life, too much of it can be disastrous.

So will you choose to be a man or woman of peace, or try your hand at being a god of war?

 

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