“Jesus with the joystick”:

reflections on game reviews on Christian gamer websites

Abstract

In the Christian context, especially among conservative groups, there are a variety of responses to the consumption of digital games, ranging from harsh criticism to enthusiastic praise. In view of this, “Christian gamers” communities seek to reframe the engagement of religious people with video games, imbuing this experience with the understanding of the instrumental role that the ludic should occupy in the experiences of the religious people. One of the elements in which this resignification is most notable and which is very present in these environments is the game review. This literary-journalistic genre proves to be opportune for the identification of an elementary form of the Christian philosophy on games. Therefore, in this relationship of tension between Christians and games, the present work proposes to identify some of the moral and theological assumptions that are present in this conflicting relationship, based on evaluation criteria of reviews of games on Christian gamer in English and Portuguese websites. Therefore, through elements of content analysis, the article carried out a comparative survey of the game review criteria on these sites, identifying that most of the sites analyzed use parental guidance methodologies as game evaluation criteria, as well as the presence of non-Christian elements in the game’s narrative and mechanics.