James A. Bishop
Department for the Study of Religions, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
Email: james.bishop35 (at) gmail (dot) com
Sociological analyses of video game media have accelerated over the past twenty years on the grounds that these creations, like other popular mass entertainment media (movies, TV shows, novels, etc.), are lucrative, popular products of twenty-first century Western culture[1] that embody and express ideas.
Religion is one such form of common expression. Numerous respected anthropologists, sociologists, and religion and media scholars have provided arguments in favor of critically examining how religions are portrayed in video games and how their viewers interpret those representations.
Building on this basis and through my own video gaming experiences and doctoral research, I introduce readers to the critical analysis of video game “texts”, why video games have significance for the study of religion, and discuss research approaches for data acquisition and methods for analyzing this data in order to yield data pertinent to broader theory deliberation in the study of religion. These discussions and arguments have been directed toward answering my paper’s primary research question: How is religion represented in secular fantasy-fiction video game and film media, and does its interpretation by audiences indicate a pursuit for re-enchantment?
VIDEO GAMES AS LUCRATIVE PRODUCTS OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE
Video games are a very visible and important part of contemporary culture today (Berger, 2002; Muriel & Crawford, 2018; Cerezo-Pizarro et al., 2023) and incredibly popular. The video gaming industry has evolved into an economic juggernaut in general and in comparison to other lucrative entertainment industries (Bachynski & Kee, 2009; Testa, 2014; de Wildt & Aupers 2017), bringing in an annual global revenue of USD 396.2bn (statista, 2023a), evidently higher than the film ($136bn) and literature ($78bn) industries combined (statista, 2023b). Today there are a staggering 3.09 billion gamers worldwide (statista, 2024b).
The most sold video game globally is Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2011), boasting a total of 300 million sales (statista, 2023b). There were 141 million active players monthly in 2021 (statista, 2021) and, in 2024, according to Player Count (2024), 253,188 active players online concurrently. Second in the global ranking is Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North, 2013) and its impressive 200 million sales figure (statista, 2024a).
In the United States, there are 212 million gamers in total (Statista 2024e), 666 million in China (statista, 2023d), and more than half of Europe’s population regularly plays video games (European Commission, 2024). The European Video Games Society 2023 study recognizes video games as “an important part of Europe’s cultural landscape, as their artistic and creative dimension distinguish them from other technological products. This growing recognition is clear in terms of policymaking as video games become prevalent in key cultural and creative policy documents” (European Commission, 2024). One of several recommendations is to “[f]acilitate the safeguarding of video games as cultural heritage”.
These sales and figures demonstrate that video games cater for a large contemporary audience. Jesper Juul acknowledges the omnipresence of video games: “To play video games has become the norm; to not play video games has become the exception” (Juul 2009: 8).
Eric Zimmerman (2013) refers to a “ludic century”. Whereas in the twentieth century linear, non-interactive information with the moving image (film and video) was the dominant cultural form, transformations have led the present century to be one that “has been put at play… The rise of computers has paralleled the resurgence of games in our culture… Increasingly, the ways that people spend their leisure time and consume art, design, and entertainment will be games -‐ or experiences very much like games” (Zimmerman, 2013: 1–2).
According to scholar and game designer Ian Bogost, “[No] video game is produced in a cultural vacuum” (cited by Trattner 2017: 11). Theologian Kutter Callaway, who has studied the representation of religious ideas in various popular entertainment media, describes video games as “a pervasive cultural form that both reflects and constructs the contemporary cultural imagination, serving as a primary locus of meaning making and identity formation” (Callaway, 2010: 76).
VIDEO GAME STUDIES
The field of video game studies has grown significantly. The organizers of the first international academic journal of computer game research, Game Studies, identified 2001 “as the Year One of Computer Game Studies as an emerging, viable, international, academic field” (Aarseth, 2001). Academic journals became dedicated to the study of video games, notably Game Studies (2001), Games and Culture (2006), and Eludamos (2007). Methodological frameworks for analyzing video games were conceptualized (Konzack, 2002; Aarseth, 2003).
The Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference emerged in 2003, appearing first in Utrecht, the Netherlands, followed by conferences in Vancouver, Canada (2005), Tokyo, Japan (2007), and then in Brunel, West London (2009). A series of local DiGRA conferences were established in the likes of DiGRA Australia, DiGRA Nordic, and Chinese DiGRA conferences (Mäyrä, 2021: 536–537).
In December 2007, the University of Potsdam became the first German university institution to study computer games on an interdisciplinary basis after media philosopher Dieter Mersch founded The Digital Games Research Center (DIGAREC) (Günzel et al., 2021: 533). Its work focused on several features of video games, including the structural, aesthetic, technical, and performative aspects. The center continues to host international lectures, workshops, and conferences on the topics of ludic boredom, serious games, in-game photography, and gamification.
Having now moved into the 2020s, video game studies has become one of the “fastest-growing branches of media studies” (Wolf & Konzack, 2021: 2180).
INTEREST IN THE REPRESENTATION OF RELIGION IN VIDEO GAMES
Researchers of religion wished not to be left out of the vibrant discussions on the nature of video games. Religion in video games has been a relatively recent yet lively domain of investigation by game theorists and religion scholars. In particular, this topic has enjoyed serious academic attention in the sociology of religion over the last few decades (Partridge, 2004; Possamai, 2005; Cusack, 2010; Davidsen, 2014).
The premise upon which this area of study, whether in game studies generally or by sociologists, theologians, media scholars, or scholars of religion, stands is that “digital games now depict the religious within the twenty-first century,” therefore rendering them an important site for critical exploration into the intersection of religion and contemporary culture (Campbell & Grieve, 2014: 14–15).
The “finest games draw from substantive wells in philosophy, mythology, and theology” (Detweiler, 2010: 4). According to the game theorist Mark J. P. Wolf (2018), “[R]eligious and theological ideas can be made manifest in video games, including the appearance of religion and religious iconography within video games and through the playing of video games as a potentially religious activity, especially contemplative ones that vicariously place the player in a different environment”.
Peter Molyneux, a well-known game designer, explains that “Clearly God, the divine as a concept, plays a huge role in modern gaming. Virtually every fantasy role-playing game… explicitly includes the divine in the form of priests calling down healing prayers or smiting evil foes” (Murdoch, 2010). According to the academic contributors to an online series on this topic by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, “the human construct with which video games have most in common isn’t television or literature or warfare but religion… It is a practice in rituals, ethics, moralities, and metaphysics” (Berkley Forum, 2019).
Sociologist William S. Bainbridge, who has spent considerable time studying video games sociologically, says that through them the player “experiences a marvelous world, often for many hundreds of hours, frequently encountering religious symbolism” (Bainbridge, 2013: 3). These gaming virtual spaces allow players to experiment with new worldviews in which gods from diverse religious and mythological traditions coexist. They appeal to the “homo [sic] fantasia”, the fantasizing and imaginative human (Morehead, 2010: 183).
Around the same time, many researchers acknowledged the lack of critical analysis of religion in video games and the need for more scholarly attention (Campbell & Grieve, 2014; Vallikat, 2014: 9), and presented apologia for why scholars interested in religion or theology should take video games seriously (Detweiler, 2010; Corliss, 2011; Campbell & Grieve, 2014; Vallikat, 2014; Campbell et al., 2015; Bosman, 2019).
In 2007, in a panel entitled “Born Digital and Born Again Digital: Religion in Virtual Gaming Worlds”, scholars presented their work on religiously themed games, the problematic appearance of violent narratives in religious gaming, and the rise of the Christian gaming industry. The following year, the panel “Just Gaming? Virtual Worlds and Religious Studies” discussed the use and presence of religious rituals and narratives in mainstream video gaming.
The need for a more focused study of religion in gaming and virtual worlds led to the release of a slew of landmark publications, notably Halos & Avatars: Playing Video Games with God (Craig Detweiler, 2010), Godwired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality (Rachel Wagner, 2011), eGods: Faith versus Fantasy in Computer Gaming (William S. Bainbridge, 2013), Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration Of Video Games (Kevin Schut, 2013), Playing with Religion in Digital Games (Heidi A. Campbell & Gregory P. Grieve, 2014), and Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion (Vít Šisler, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler & Xenia Zeiler, 2018).
Journals, such as Gamenvironments (2014–present) and Online – Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet (2004–2010 and 2014–present), continue providing substantive critical analyses of religion in video games, while many researchers have made this the central topic for their dissertations (Corliss, 2011; Kim, 2012; Perreault, 2015; Tregonning, 2018; Bishop, 2022–).
ENCOUNTERING RELIGION IN VIDEO GAMES
A number of scholars and researchers have articulated the ways in which religion is expressed by and encountered in video games (Love, 2010; Ferdig, 2014; Bosman, 2019).
In my view, religion features in most video games in some way, to varying degrees, and arguably across almost all genres ranging from first-person shooters to real-time strategy, action-adventure, survival horror, the walking simulator, high fantasy role-playing, and so on. Some genres evidence a greater level of expression, particularly high fantasy role-playing games where mythological themes, creatures and stories, and magic and supernaturalism are particularly frequently encountered (Aupers et al., 2018: 2).
Yet, even in video games in which religion is unlikely the first idea to come to mind, religious imagery and themes are observed and encountered by players; for example, a segment in The Last of Us Part II (Sony Interactive Entertainment, 2020) that takes place in a synagogue in Seattle that, in real life, is the Daniels Recital Hall, or the unhinged religious zealot Longinus from Far Cry 4 (Ubisoft, 2014), who offers a unique spin on some major biblical texts while supplying the player with useful armaments needed for surviving the fictional setting of Kyrat.
In addition, religious controversies may erupt around video games, which some might argue do not intentionally emphasize religion at all. Notably, the combat that takes place inside a digital version of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2006), a video game attentive primarily to an alien invasion of Earth, led to the Church of England to publicize its disapproval of a purported act of desecration, as well as copyright infringement (Fernández-Vara, 2019).
Walking simulators are particularly known for their ability to tell stories (Carbo-Mascarell, 2016; Catalan et al., 2024), literally having players “walk” through a narrational script. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2015) evokes the Christian eschatological concept of “rapture” while also containing religious images and locations, such as a quaint church and balls of light reminiscent of spirits existing after the death of the physical body.
In such cases, compared to what many might think, religion is more present in video game material than perhaps realized. This is not lost on researchers themselves. According to culture scholar Mark C. Love, the ways “religion is used in video games are legion” (Love, 2010: 208).
It is used creatively, serving existential, experiential, narratological, and ludological purposes: [1] Functionally, as a gaming mechanic, to serve as “tool [that] one [the player] uses to suppress dissent, put down rebellions, gain bonuses (items and stats), and accomplish goals”; [2] narratologically, it “improves the fiction by making for a great story… [and] a believable world”; [3] elucidating the driving motives and moral backgrounds for in-game avatars or characters that players control; [4] utilized creatively by game developers in the form of “clever puns” or included merely as “trite throwaway allusions”; [5] experientially for players, religion gives a numinous/Gnostic/mysterious aura to the video game; and [6] existentially/reflexively, religion in a video game can be a way for a player to express identity, as well as a “tool players use to fantasize and deal with the lack of certainty and efficacy in the real world”.
Theologian Frank G. Bosman (2019) offers a typology of five “shapes” referring to ways in which religion is encountered by players: [1] material (religious artefacts, buildings, clothes, items, and so on); [2] referential (implicit or explicit references to an existing religious tradition existing externally to it); [3] reflexive (the video game uses existential ideas traditionally associated with religion); [4] ritual religion (when players engage with in-game activities that are traditionally associated with religion, which can be either intended by the developers or happen spontaneously); and [5] gaming as religion or as a religious act (the experience of gaming itself being identified as religious, by developers and/or players).
Another helpful perspective is given by Richard Ferdig, in which he outlines four areas where one may study the relationship between religion and video games (Ferdig, 2014: 71–77): [1] Game content: content explicitly related to religion; [2] Game context: story, environments, and situations within the game that explicitly or implicitly refer to religion; [3] Game challenge: actual goals and presupposed outcomes of the game that are connected to religion; and [4] Player capital: the religious element introduced by the gamer himself or herself.
APPROACHES FOR STUDYING RELIGION IN VIDEO GAMES
We now shift focus to the appropriate ways the researcher might approach his object of study. In video game research, two major approaches are apparent: the actor-centered and game-immanent (Heidbrink et al., 2014; Bosman, 2016). Both follow naturally from the perspective that video games, being products of culture, can be critically studied as “textual material” or “texts”, availing themselves to researchers. Religious and spiritual concepts and themes within them are open for exploration (Campbell, 2012).
The actor-centered approach places focus not on the researcher but on the experiences of other players, typically involving interviewing and/or observing a certain number of players engaging in the designated game or game sequence. The researcher can learn and understand the emotions, cognitions, and/or notions of the player and to what degree games influence players’ religious beliefs.
The game-immanent approach, moreover, entails the researcher playing the video game being studied. This approach emphasizes the interactive experience of playing. The researcher must think carefully about how he is to understand himself as a player and how to acquire pertinent data for analysis,
“What type of player am I? Am I newbie, casual, hardcore? Do I know the genre? How much research should I do prior to playing? Do I take notes while playing? Keep a game-diary, perhaps? Or do I just go ahead and immerse myself, and worry about critical analysis later? Some games are fast, some are slow; should we approach them differently? Should we record ourselves while playing? How do we analyze a game we are not very good at?” (Aarseth, 2003: 3).
These two approaches should not be considered contradictory or mutually exclusive (Aarseth, 2003), as both have academic validity and should ideally be combined (Bosman, 2016: 37). Espen Aarseth considers both being required, although clearly underscores the game-immanent approach,
“Firstly, we can study the design, rules and mechanics of the game, insofar as these are available to us, e.g. by talking to the developers of the game. Secondly, we can observe others play, or read their reports and reviews, and hope that their knowledge is representative and their play competent. Thirdly, we can play the game ourselves. While all methods are valid, the third way is clearly the best, especially if combined or reinforced by the other two.” (Aarseth, 2003: 3).
William Bainbridge (2013), in eGods, emulated an internal or game-immanent approach, spending a sizeable 2,400 hours in World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004–), during which he experimented with twenty-two avatars[2] of every class and race and participated in player guilds. Bainbridge planned exactly what his avatars would do in World of Warcraft’s virtual world to gain relevant data. His research built upon the idea that through the user-controlled avatar, the player experiences religion and engages in meaning making that occurs in the digital space. One should agree with Aarseth that “if we [as researchers] have not experienced the game personally, we are liable to commit severe misunderstandings, even if we study the mechanics and try our best to guess at their workings” (Bainbridge, 2003: 3).
METHODOLOGIES
Various research methodologies are suitable in video game studies. Critical discourse analysis (Trattner, 2017: 11–25), surreal impersonation (Bainbridge, 2017: 50–77), phenomenological hermeneutics (Fiadotau, 2017: 77–89), empirical triangulation (Gandolfi, 2017: 89–115), normalized social distance (Šlerka & Šisler, 2017: 129–143), and socio-phenomenological (Waltemathe, 2014) methods have yielded valuable insights (refer to Heidbrink & Knoll, 2015, for critical analyses of some of these methodologies).
For my dissertation, I am using thematic analysis. It is a useful method because of its inclusivity, allowing one to derive data from a range of sources, including texts, ‘traditional’ face-to-face data collection methods such as interviews, and focus groups (Terry et al., 2017: 10). The question for the researcher is then which method of data acquisition is best suited for answering his primary research question.
In many instances where the subjective views of individuals participating in the study are concerned, qualitative interviews are required. The minimum number of qualitative interviews is roughly twelve to obtain data saturation.
I view text as broad. Although traditionally understood as referring to “any discourse fixed by writing” (Ricoeur, 1981: 14, cited by Bosman, 2016: 31), texts’ arsenal also includes films, paintings, clothes, architecture, and video games (Buerkle, 2008: 26–35). Many researchers consider it appropriate to perceive or define video games as “texts” (Beavis et al., 2009; Apperley & Beavis, 2013; Beavis, 2014; Mummart, 2014; see Cox’s [2014] four-part series).
The approximately 100 hours I spent in The Lands Between of Elden Ring (Bandai Namco Entertainment, 2022) as both a player and a researcher assisted me in making progress toward answering my main research question, though my research is still ongoing. It has been some time since I have been in its inspired luminous and bricolage virtual world, so The Lands Between call to me again.[3]
Using thematic analysis to analyze data derived from internal and external readings, I can discover dominant themes in the data, which are then explained in greater detail (Terry et al., 2017: 6). This requires sifting through data and looking for patterns of meaning and common themes, such as repeated ideas, perspectives, and topics (Terry et al., 2017). I can subsequently theorize why these themes are prevalent and why they are so meaningful for some players.
By examining the subjective, phenomenological perspectives of gamers, researchers have discovered some interesting findings.
Sociologists Julian Schaap and Stef Aupers examined players’ phenomenological understandings and interpretations of religion through 22 qualitative interviews, based on player engagement with the religious or spiritual aspects of World of Warcraft. I find inspiration in their qualitative, phenomenological analysis for my own study.
Phenomenologically, as Schaap and Aupers describe, player engagement could evoke a search for “ultimate meaning” (Schaap & Aupers, 2017: 16). As a result, based on their gaming experiences, a number of players talked about their exploration of real-world religions, including Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Hinduism, based on in-game interactions with factions and cultures like the Tauren and Pandarian.
Inversion, or the propensity for certain players to build avatars that convey worldviews that differ from their own, was also encouraged by engaging with World of Warcraft’s religious features (Schaap & Aupers, 2017: 12). Deviant, controversial, marginalized, or even immoral behaviors could thus be creatively experimented with by players. Christian players, for example, could “create stories in which belief in god(s) and supernatural influence is denied and by focusing a character’s powers on nature’s potential or physical strength” (Schaap & Aupers, 2017: 12). An example of this could be the expression “of the self that they [players] have found necessary to suppress or efface in the offline world” (Robinson, 2007: 98), as in a Catholic player who experimented with an atheist identity as a “guilty pleasure” (Schaap & Aupers, 2017: 13).
A number of players chose avatars that reflected or mirrored their own worldviews and life experiences. For example, one player’s avatars depicted the religious struggles she had as a teenager, and Lance, who suffered trauma from a negative religious experience as a child and commands an avatar that harbors a deep hatred for the gods (Schaap & Aupers, 2017: 14).
Furthermore, some players’ perspectives toward religion were altered by their interactions with religion in World of Warcraft. Colin, a self-described materialist, claimed that he was “always open to things” after coming across supernatural beliefs and forces in the game’s universe (Schaap & Aupers, 2017: 15). In their interviews, a number of players also noted that they felt more at ease with the supernatural beings in World of Warcraft because they were real and visible in the game, which they contrasted with their offline encounters with religious people when talking about theological ideas (Schaap & Aupers, 2017: 15).
Through my own research, one interviewee, Tom[4], who is an avid fan of the Dark Souls franchise, evidently held strong feelings about the nefarious use of religion for power and its ability to engender madness in important characters. He pointed out Pontiff Sulyvahn, the penultimate boss of the Anor Londo castle, in Dark Souls 3 (Bandai Namco Entertainment, 2016). He feels that “the whole series is meant to leave you depressed”.
“I feel sad when I see it, as someone who appreciates the good that religion can create in a society, I feel sad when I see people abandon religious or spiritual views out of fear for their status in society. One also needs to know that systemic corruption was present in the royal family and how they ran Anor Londo and Lothric Castle, so seeing how corruption has destroyed corrupt people can create a feeling of justice. But mostly it’s just sadness.”
Yet, why this issue specifically? As a former anti-theist turned devout Christian who has worked in the ministerial sphere tasked with sharing the gospel with unbelievers in his sociocultural context, Tom realizes how the evils perpetuated in the name of religion can prove disastrous for these efforts. Critics of religion frequently point this out in their discussions with the religious.
Further, he observes fellow Christian believers abandoning their faith in their society, although he does not describe what type of society this is. Rather than being a source of corruption and embarrassment, religion has, in his view, significant good to offer society. For Christians, this goodness lies in what Tom says is the heart of the Gospel, namely the salvific work God has done through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and sharing this good news through deeds of charity and support for the poor, ill, and vulnerable. Tom is therefore particularly upset when fellow believers abandon Christianity, which, he believes, negates doing good for society’s most vulnerable and needy.
As these examples show, qualitative interviews can draw out the real feelings that players have when encountering and reflecting on religious themes in their favorite video games.
THEORY IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND MEDIA STUDIES
Theory depends on data. Since hypotheses cannot be developed, tested, revised, or abandoned in the service of knowledge advancement without evidence, data is essential to comprehending social phenomena.
In the sociology of religion, debates have raged for decades, perhaps even centuries, over the role and influence of religion in modern Western societies. In this case, secularization and modernity occupied central roles and each boast notable supporters and detractors, all of whom derive and/or vigorously advocate and defend their views based on sociological data (Casanova, 1994; Lambert, 1999; Stark, 1999; Bruce, 2002; Dobbelaere, 2006; Berger, 2011; Clark, 2012; Gauthier, 2021).
The argument over the role of religion in society has persisted well into the twenty-first century (Dobbelaere, 2006; Clark, 2012; Flanagan, 2017; Obirek, 2019), particularly in the wake of the popularization of the “post-secular” by social theorist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas (Habermas, 2008), as well as debates about the Weberian notion of disenchantment (Weber, 1948; Aupers et al., 2018: 4) and the concept of post-modernity (Furseth & Repstad, 2017: 77).
The hypothesis I attempt to test, which has pertinence to these discussions, is the mediatization of religion, considered by Mia Loveheim and Stig Hjarvard (Loveheim & Hjarvard, 2019) to be a modern, secularization process occurring in contemporary industrial Western societies.
Mediatization is when “core elements of a social activity (for example, politics, teaching, religion, and so on) assume media form”, which gives media significant power and influence over society (Hjarvard, 2008: 6). Media not only become progressively more autonomous and independent, whereas they previously served other social institutions, but also advocate a logic increasingly adapted by other institutions.
Given the potential changes the media may bring about in religion, called the mediatization of religion, the dependence on and portrayal of religion in the media is of significant interest to researchers and scholars.
The use of religion in the secular media produces a paradox (Hjarvard, 2016). On the one hand, secular mass media have given public visibility to religion and sustained religion’s public presence (Hjarvard, 2012: 35). In some cases, media have even provided cosmologies, rituals, practices, and frameworks for interpreting the world, inspiring new forms of religion in secular societies. Jediism (Possamai, 2011: 245–262; Lyden, 2012: 775–786), Matrixism (Laderman, 2009; Morehead, 2012; Maćkowiak, 2016), Snapeism (Alderton, 2014), and Tolkienism (Davidsen, 2014) are a few examples of new forms of modern religions, which might be called “invented religion” (Cusack, 2010), “hyper-real religion” (Possamai, 2005, 2012), or “fiction-based religion” (Davidsen, 2013) that are based on and/or draw substantially from diverse fantasy-fiction media.
Yet, on the other hand, as a tenet of secularization, media have progressively taken over the functions of traditional religious institutions, thus pushing those institutions closer to the margins of societies. In addition, media is now the primary means by which some Western audiences encounter religion, while traditional institutionalized religious texts have a more limited role (Hjarvard, 2012: 27). So, translating this to my research, a Danish player of the latest edition of World of Warcraft or Valheim (various publishers, 2021) is much more likely to be exposed to, learn, and reflect about religious and metaphysical themes and concepts while venturing across these digital, virtual worlds than she is from “real-life” religious institutions or sacred texts present in her society.
Natural questions arise: How is religion being represented in secular fantasy-fiction media? Why and how does fantasy media serve as an inspiration for the religious imagination? And does this indicate a desire and longing for re-enchantment in a disenchanted world?
By strategically continuing to participate and inhabit the marvelous virtual worlds of specifically selected fantasy-fiction video games as a researcher (i.e., applying an internal or game-immanent approach), collecting and interpreting information from various sources, such as merchandise, fandom websites and wikis, social media pages, blogs, official developer and publisher websites, novels, and comic books (i.e., an external approach), and interviewing and/or observing the players themselves (i.e., an actor-centered approach), I will go a long way to learning how religion is represented in secular fantasy-fiction media, in particular video games, and how it is being interpreted by audiences, therefore contributing to the evolving academic debate on this fascinating topic. The Lands Between await.
POSTSCRIPT
Since having once again plunged into my research following the aforementioned temporary hiatus, a part 2 will follow this article for the Journal of Geek Studies.
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About the author
James A. Bishop is a PhD student at the University of Cape Town’s Department for the Study of Religions. He researches religion and media, with a focus on new religious movements. His interests are diverse, including debates over secularization and post-secularization theories, religious apologetics and legitimation, world religions, fantasy-fiction religions, religious theories, and religious history. James also possesses an inkling of creativity, having earned a degree in Creative Brand Communication, Marketing, and Multimedia Design (CBC), followed by a degree in Theology (majoring in Psychology) (BTH, Community Leadership). James has had a fondness for video games since he got his hands on Resident Evil at the tender age of eight, and has expanded his tastes to an array of genres, especially high fantasy.
[1] I restrict the scope of my paper to the “West” even though China (statista, 2023d), Japan (statista, 2024c) and other Asian countries have very large gaming markets. This is because North American and North and Western European countries have been the case studies for important theoretical discussions in the sociology and study of religion for several decades on issues of secularization and post-secularization, modernity and post-modernity, and mediatization theory. These topics are directly relevant to my paper’s analysis of religion in video game media, its expression therein, and audience interpretations.
[2]A player-controlled character is called an avatar. It serves as a tool of digital visualization and representation that allows the player to interact with the virtual world or environment of a video game. Scholars have not overlooked the phenomenological importance of player-controlled avatars (Bessière et al., 2007: 540; Livingston et al., 2014; Vallikatt, 2014: 25).
[3] I decided to take a temporary break from my research since relocating to a new country in recent months of 2024.
[4] This particular interview with Tom will not be included in my final paper; rather, it served as a mock trial using qualitative interview questions that I created. I plan on doing another interview with Tom later.