Christian Game Developers Conference - July 28-30, Portland

#1 Still don't see what religion has to do with Gamedev, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
Good luck with the event.

#2 Stefan, I think it has to do with producing Christian games, which is a viable niche of the video game market.

#3 I wonder why only Christians have this desire., not only here but i see in some gamedev related forums people asking for help for their christian game, but i never saw catholic games, or jewish games or muslim games...
weird

#4 Besides Catholics being christians.... have you ever looked for muslim or jewish games? A quick search for muslim games shows some common (if tired) viewpoints... As far as Jewish video games... I have seen a few, mostly educational, but they prolly don't need video games since they've taken over the disney channel. : )

#5 I think that most muslims in the world don't officially approve of the most games. Jewish people are to busy with the movie industry. Just kidding. I am part Jewish, so I can say that. I was raised Christian. But seriously, good for you guys. Religion is important to some people and they want to both express their faith in art and they want their artistic expressions to stay within the boundries of their faith. I know that many people are worried when christians want to do anything public... cause most of what the public sees christians do is try to put their bounderies on everyone else... but I don't think that it the christian game developers that you should be worried about... it's the christian extremists who won't play video games that you have to worry about. In fact... growing up christian... I watched how christians went from being publicly against modern music to slowly embracing it and then finally exploiting it like everyone else. :) soon they will do the same to computer games. :) Embrace it that is. :) And the sooner they do that, the sooner the rediculous control freak extremists will move on to other ways to spend their spare time.

#6 Well put Anton. I wish I could go. Maybe next year...

-Peter

#7 I don't know why there are Christian movies. After all, Christians don't watch movies. Or Christian books. Because Christians don't read. Especially the Bible.

I find it interesting that this seems to come up every time this conference is posted. When thinking from a purely profit-oriented scheme, the Christian gaming market is an extremely hungry market. And, for the most part, the number of high-quality Christian games have been few and far between. And most of them come from studios with other tie-in's (say, the Veggie Tales producers). I think it's a great market for developers. Just because it's not my market doesn't invalidate it as a market. I'm not into the hunting game market, but it doesn't mean that there aren't people that both make hunting games and a market of people who play them (though much more selective after the post-Deer Hunter flood).

It's always impressive to see a conference survive through the years. Good luck this year!

#8 Actually, religion & games has been a bit of a hot topic of late.

www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3192 Perhaps one of the more creative and interesting games out there. My faith doesn't include this interpretation of the book of Revelation, but I'll probably play the game anyway, just for something different. After all, I play games about wizards, rogues, weird fictional gods, and space aliens far more advanced than us. I guess this is only a touchy subject because it's something many people strong feelings towards --- like dealing with politics in games.

money.cnn.com/2005/07/06/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm A really interesting interview with some of the major game developers out there on the subject.

I still won't be making the conference, but it's a valuable resource.

#9 Depends what you mean by "Christian".

Something that is generally educative for the family, primarily children, would be an excellent idea.

Something that is very flakey, be means of "spreading the gospel", is very wrong.

#10 WWeek, a local alt weekly here in Portland, OR just ran an interview with Ralph Bagley. Ralph runs the Christian Game Developers Foundation, and created the best selling Christian game of all time. He talks the following shit about low budget games:

Quote:...if you've got two guys in a garage and $10,000-even if it's a good concept-it's going to come out cheesy.

You can read the full interview here, which was in anticipation of the upcoming Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland.

#11 We had a great International conference with 5 Canadian, 4 Australians, 1 Swiss, 1 South Korean, 1 Brazilian and 1 Englishman there!

And we were blessed with not one, not two, but three GarageGames folks there! Thanks for coming - I hope that members of our community continue to look into Torque as a viable engine option.

Be looking next year around late July for CGDC 06, the fifth one.

God bless,
Tim

#12 Glad to hear you had a good turn-out. Keep it up!

#13 I wonder when the first Boeddhist or Satanic Game Conference will be held? These should prove to have some interesting games.

#14 @Joshua: I definately think that statement is 100% bullshit, though I think his biggest mistake is he didn't put the context the rest of that comment was in. I think he was moreso talking shit about "Christian" low budge games since he was talking about Christian games in that entire comment, to this point its proven true... Christian games have come out low rate and cheesy. I do think its a bit naive to give such a general statement over it though.

Hopefully someone will prove him wrong though... maybe I will down the road.

Hoping I can hit the conference next year.

#15 Hiya Tim, glad to hear that the conference was a success. I didn't make it out, but got some good reviews from others that attended. I'm really looking forward to some of the games that were showcased. Well, hopefully I can meet you and some of the other folks involved in the Christian games industry in person next July :)

#16 You do realise of course that for everyone of you who talks shit about "Christian Game Dev", there are atleast 10 people talking ahit about indie devs... They are wrong, what makes you think your any different?

Parents buy their kids bible story books, bible story play sets, bible story board games, why not bible story video games? Perhaps you protest because you don't understand, and are too close minded to accept new concepts...

I've seen a lot of christian based games, and they all normally suck, and if taken in context, thats what that guy was talking about. The typical people who make christian games aren't the same people who make indie games generelly- add that to the fact that, well, your making a game that tries to teach morals and values, yet trying to keep it fun... Not a small endevor. Much harder to get right than you weould think.

Just some thoughts.......

Glad the conference went well, good luck, you'll continue to need it with all the ney sayers. :)

#17 I would think a large ammount of "Christian" game devs are "Indie" game devs (self funded).

Just as many Indie games come out that are as cheesey and low quality as "Christian" games... though there are less high quality Christian games as there are non-christian indie games. I think its because christian developers seperate themselves a little too much, especially with comments like that. This is coming from someone in a position of influence. Thats why it dissapoints me. I'm a christian as well as an indie game developer... I plan to do some sort of "Christian" game down the road.

#18 True True... I'm more pointing out that ( ok, trying not to sound insulting) Christian Game makers tend to be less, um, modern? or something?

Most of the ones I've met aren't gamers, where as indies tend to be gamers as well and by that, more into the current climate.... Making sense? Thats really what I was going for with that phrase.

edit: Bad spelling error.

#19 @Chris: I agree 100%, in fact with my comment

Quote:I think its because christian developers seperate themselves a little too much, especially with comments like that.

I really was trying to hit on the same thing your putting into much more detail :)

#20 Its a tough area to broach without sounding like you are anti-Christian Games / Devs.