Religion and video games

The study of religion and video games is a subfield of digital religion, which the American scholar of communication, Heidi Campbell, defines as "Religion that is constituted in new ways through digital media and cultures." (Campbell, 2012, p. 3).^[1] Video games once struggled for legitimacy as a cultural product, today, however, they are both business and art.^[2] Video games increasingly turn to religion not just as ornament but as core elements of their video game design and play.^{[3] [4] [5]} Games involve moral decision,^[6] rely on invented religions,^[7] and allow users to create and experience virtual religious spaces.^[8][9] As one of the newest forms of entertainment, however, there is often controversy and moral panic when video games engage religion,^[10] for instance, in Insomniac Games' use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man.^[11] Concepts and elements of contemporary and ancient religions appear in video games in various ways: places of worship are a part of the gameplay of real-time strategy games like Age of Empires; narratively, games sometimes borrow themes from religious traditions like in Mass Effect 2.