This Christian Life

Video Games

I’ve never had a big attraction to video games. When I was a kid, I’d walk down to the local 7-11 and play Donkey Kong Junior and Ms. Pacman only to fit in. It never became much of anything to me.

When I heard a co-worker telling me about a new war game that emulates D-day (Medal of Honor), I was turned off. No. More. I was appalled. Game makers have turned a brutal, unforgiving, cruel, sorrowful, fatal battle into a GAME. Now, kids who are most likely grandkids of the people who fought in that battle, are playing a game that re-enacts that battle. They play, get killed, and hit reset, and keep playing.

Another news article explains that SOME GAMERS, the line between entertainment and reality seems to have blurred. I think these are the people Microsoft had in mind when it produced a TV ad that aired briefly in the U.K. before being pulled as a result of viewer complaints. “The ad opens in a labor-and-delivery room with a woman giving birth. The child arrives and is shot—missile-like—out of the hospital and off into the sky.

From there the boy—naked the whole time, but positioned for tasteful television—goes through his entire life, getting older, losing his hair, and developing wrinkles. He’s screaming most of this time, and smoke streams from his body. Finally, he lands in his grave.”

As the line between reality and fiction blurs, what will happen to our sense of morality?