Unsurprisingly, many game developers and publishers would rather stick a fork in a live power outlet than discuss religion in games, much less write it into a game with a role more complex than archetypal good-vs.-evil belief sets.

But GameSpy's Julian Murdoch went in search of truth on the subject, despite the stonewalling and no-commentary this effort was certain to receive. Some luminaries in the field are eager to take up the subject - notably Peter Molyneux, creator of the god-sim Populous, and Ken Levine, whose Irrational Games made BioShock, whose dystopic objectivist society is introduced with the memorable banner "No Gods or Kings, Only Man."

Games run a couple risks that literature and cinema would not seem to share. One, that as a form of interactive recreation, its consumers come to a game in search of fun and may not care to ponder such weighty subjects. And two, because of that role, no matter how seriously the matter is treated, it's still a game, and making that out of a faith's iconography or belief structure is bound to offend someone. There seems to be little percentage in grounding a game's message in any actual faith - and far less in making judgments of one, specifically.

That does not mean its time will never come, and as Murdoch's reporting shows, there are some willing to bring it into the discussion.

http://kotaku.com/5450014/questions-...-role-in-games