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A friend of mine mentioned to me recently that a Mormon cousin of hers had to stop creating video games because he was not allowed to due to his religion. I know Geoff Card is into video game creation, and others, too, if I remember correctly. So, is it true that these games are frowned on by the church, or not? Just curious.
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It's sort of an urban legend among Mormons that at some point some church leader came out with a viciouos, scathing attack on D&D as Satanic. Not true, but you know how urban legends can be. This has probably stretched over into gaming somehow.
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That is not true at all. The only thing leaders of the church have suggested towards video games is to not play them excessively. Moderation in all things.
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they also warn aboutvideo games that are too graphic and/or senseless in their violence, etc. i think they carry the same guidelines as any of the media.
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Yeah. I had to fight the instinct to shout, "YOU ARE SO MORMON!"
But it really isn't even THAT. OSC posted an article on nauvoo about rated-R movies and such. *sigh*
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Yes, but if you read it it discussed making case-by-case decisions, not blanket 'It's R, So Don't Go' thinking. He highly, highly praised PASSION, and did a little bit of rebuking of those who thought themselves Holier Than Thou in ways that they thought they could piously chastise people who had gone to see the movie.
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It could have well been that his particular job conflicted with his personal and religious morals. I doubt he was saying that the church wanted him to give up video games, but I would wager that he felt that whatever he was working on conflicted with his religious beliefs.
While the church has never said anything about video games, I think most LDS people would agree that there are some whose violence and sexual content is definitely contrary to the pursuit of uplifting and wholesome media encouraged by the church.
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If you friend was working on The Singles: Flirt Up Your Life, then I can see where she'd have a conflict about her faith, though it would still be a personal decision — not something forced on her by a higher authority.
As for me, I'm working on kids' games at my company, and the CEO, CFO, and most of the support staff are Mormon, so I can't imagine there being ANY kind of conflict here And I don't really foresee any conflict over it in the future, even if I move on to more violent and/or adult-oriented projects. I've got a personal line I doubt I'll cross, but most companies would never ask me to cross it. It's somewhere between Grand Theft Auto and Baby Murder 2000
[ June 05, 2004, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
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It was actually second-hand info, being my friend's cousin. I told her, but, but, I know Mormons who make up video games. And perhaps, as you say, the cousin was asked to make games that were way over his line.
Grand Theft Auto. My friend lets her ten yo son play it. I am so horrified, and I only saw about two minutes of it. It is getting to the point where I won't let my kids play over there anymore, between the paint guns, four wheelers, and video and video game choices. Sad.
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I sold my copy of GTAIII on eBay because it was so blatantly immoral. But my son (who is 8) and his friends come over and we all play video games and ride 4 wheelers and dirt bikes.
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I think the term "we" ride four wheelers is key, and I don't mean to be judgemental, even though I guess I am. Hmm. I will stand firm in judgmentalisticness when it comes to Grand Theft Auto, though. My son is seven.
I might add that thses kids also thought it was fun t light a can of gasoline on fire. One kid thought it would be funny to KICK the can. The flaming gas went all over his friend, who is still in ICU with burns all over his body. So, I think it is more of a lack of supervision thing for me than anything else.
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A couple of years ago, during a lesson in my elders' quorum (translation: class for adult men, usually relatively young), one guy spoke out against video/computer games quite vociferously. He told a story about his mission president (of course), who saw Pong being played at a party many years ago, when it was first developed. He saw all those grown men crowded around the screen, totally riveted by what they saw, and foretold right then and there that this kind of thing would be the downfall of society, or some such nonsense. So of course, the guy relating the story has never played a video game or allowed his children to play, and he despises the entire industry.
I looked at the guy sitting next to me, who was a programmer and team leader at a prominent computer game company, and just rolled my eyes. He rolled his back.
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If I'm not mistaken, I think videogames were invented by someone who was LDS. It was called "Computer Space" or something and he did it on one of those giant mainframe computers at the University of Utah in the 60's or 70's (so he had to be LDS)
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Bushnell's work was based heavily on Steve Russell's decade-old SpaceWar!. If you count "ports" of noncomputer games like Tic-Tac-Toe, implementations exist that are a decade older still.
LDS question: what is the stance on something like online poker?
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I came from one of the no makeup no cards school of families and I can assure you that it isn't restricted to LDS, fundamentalists of all stripes seem to see them about the same.
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ONLY THE EDITED VERSION of a fantastic movie. *sigh*
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And I don't really foresee any conflict over it in the future, even if I move on to more violent and/or adult-oriented projects. I've got a personal line I doubt I'll cross, but most companies would never ask me to cross it. It's somewhere between Grand Theft Auto and Baby Murder 2000 
