As most
of my friends are aware, I am a gamer. I make no
effort to hide it and I am, in fact, quite proud of the fact. I am not just a video gamer either; I have a
decent collection of board games as well and enjoy playing them with whomever I
can lure into donating a couple of hours to join me in amusement and
camaraderie. One of my favorite genera's
of game is the RPG, or Roll Playing Game.
I enjoy these games because in many ways it is like making choices in a
good book. You take on the roll of the
main character in a story and play
through the game making a variety of choices that can have an affect (both good
and bad) on the overall outcome and ending.
I have noticed a growing trend among modern video game RPGs that in many ways I
find rather disturbing, and that is the growing presence of evil choices. I am not talking about the choice to save a
random man who is drowning and who later turns out to be a mass murdering
psychopath who slaughters an entire village.
No, I am talking about the conscious choice to become that mass murdering psychopath and go slaughter as many
villages as you can and loot their possessions.
In the name of freedom and choice we offer the option to truly take on
an evil persona and live it out to the end, often conquering the world or becoming
a famous bandit, outlaw, or assassin.
Such choices are frequently rewarded with extremely powerful in game
weapons or other rewards that are attainable no other way.for many of my fellow
gamers this is not only not a problem, but a good thing. They look at it as a chance to live out their
darker fantasies and do things that in the real world would land them in prison
at the very least. For me, however, it
is different. I would never read a book
glorifying evil for the sake of evil or where the main character was an evil
person. When I read a book I want to
believe that I could make the same tough good choices that the main character
makes. I don't mind if the main character
is unrealistically wholesome or a better person than I currently am. It inspires
me onwards to keep my standards high in real life. When it comes to playing an RPG it is even
more true. I don't want to practice
making choices that hurt other people. I
don't want to build a fantasy world in my mind where I live an immoral lifestyle
or am a truly evil person. A big part of
this is because it can never truly be completely contained in a fantasy
world. When we condition our minds and
hearts to be ok with evil in a fantasy world, we shouldn't be surprised when we
quickly start to become ok with evil in the real world. I know it can be easy to write this whole
thing off as the rankings of a crazy gamer, but any English or Literature major
(and most liberal arts majors as well) can tell you that books and magazines
can have an equally, if not more potent effect on the culture.
While I realize that most people are not
gamers, the majority of us do read books and magazines at least on
occasion. When you look at some of the
recent books to hit the New York Times best sellers list, there have recently
been some very disturbing pieces. For example 50 Shades of Gray is not really a morally uplifting piece of
literature. In fact it is quite the
opposite. Many people have even put it
on the same level as pornography, just without the pictures and designed more
to entice women rather than men.
Regardless, the point is still the same or at the very least remarkably
similar the effect of making an evil or immoral character in a video game. You escape to a fantasy world where you can
live out a dark fantasy that you would be ashamed of or find unacceptable in
real life. Our leisure time helps to
form the innermost core and has a major effect on our soul. I am sure that just about everyone has heard
the saying to “practice what you preach” but in the long run we will all end up preaching what we
practice. If we chose to throw ourselves
into pornography, we should not be surprised to find that we struggle with
appreciating true feminine and tend to see women as mere objects rather than
children of God. If we choose to live in
a fantasy world where instead of fighting for truth and justice we instead
choose to relish hurting or killing the innocent and taking what we want from
who we want, we shouldn’t be surprised if we find
ourselves increasingly desensitized to the plight of our fellow man and simply
see them as “too weak.” I don’t see anything wrong with enjoying fiction or fantasy
literature, or even playing RPGs. What I
see as dangerous is feeding dark and sinful passions within ourselves and not
even realizing that we are doing it. Our
Catholic faith doesn’t take a break when we sit
down and play games or read a book. It keeps right on going. We are called to live our entire lives for
Christ, not just when we are at Church or out in public. There are video games that I have gotten rid
of or refused to play, even though I really enjoyed them because they were
supporting and promoting a lifestyle or a choice that was contrary to my faith.
As a friend once told me, “you are who you are when no
one is watching.” When no one is watching or when we think it
doesn’t affect anyone else, do we
still live for Christ?
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