If a game development team is driven primarily by making a "christian" game first, and a good game second, you get stuff like this, or other christian games that I've tried out that are just Doom/quke rip offs, ironicly enough.
What they need is a veteran development team, that makes a GOOD game first, then worries if the content is considered to be in line with christian values.
I agree and disagree.
I agree that the majority of the Christian themed games out there are just christian values tacked on to a 5 year old engines and poor production values. But, I don't think you should leave Christianity out of the design process entirely. There needs to be a balance. You might get an up to date engine and high production values, but you still end up with a superficial and "tacked on" Christian theme. The Christian theme needs to be an integral part of the design process IMHO.
Money dosen't make good games, look at EAs track record.
Sure, it isn't
necessary to have a lot of money to make a good game, but in the absence of money you need a team that is a) highly talented (able to fill many roles and do a lot with very little) and b) willing to work for less then they could make elsewhere and sacrifice personal time for the project -- in otherwords, they need to be very dedicated to the game. Big companies can pull in big talent (with money), but getting the dedication is a bit harder. It's seems more common to see this level of dedication at the smaller producers, who are putting most of their energy into one or two projects and working with smaller teams.
That said, EA games is a huge company, and every game it's put a lot of money behind has had high production values (IMHO). After all, money can be a good way to "get" the
good team to work on your project. EA definitely has it's low quality shovel-ware, but these projects aren't getting nearly the same budgets as projects like The Sims 2, Medal of Honor, and the other "big" titles. I doubt EA is wasting the best of it's programming and design/art talent on these projects.
The point I was trying to make was that many Christian businesses certainly have the money (and the dedication) needed to push out a quality game. Christianity is the largest religion in the world, so there are obviously talented artists, programmers, and designers out there who also fall under the catagory "devout Christian". What they seem to lack most is a realized
market. Without a market it's hard to get the serious financial backing needed to bring on veteran talent and see them through to the production of a decent Christian themed game.
There
is a market for these games (IMHO), but it's never going to take of if it is saturated with the junk that keeps getting turned out. It's going to take a company/organization willing to put serious money (money they might not see again) into a high quality game to open the market up -- not just someone looking to make a fast buck by putting a Chrstian sticker on dated software and bad design. That or, as you said, a group of very dedicated, very talented freelancers who do it on their own.
~Mike
