Gaming for God

"It's really about storytelling. Look at Japanese RPGs – they are rich with mythology and spirituality. We accept it because in the game world we're looking for the epic story."

It's a belief echoed by Vertigo Games, the Dutch creators of the Adam's Venture titles. While the adventure game series owes as much to Indiana Jones as it does to Christianity, Bible stories are central to its narrative.

"It's more about what the stories are, rather than saying you should live your life according to us," says Tristan Lambert, the non-Christian co-founder of Vertigo.

"What to make of those stories it leaves to people to decide for themselves but it does try to raise your curiosity. I do believe whether you're Christian or not that, given our culture and history, everybody should know at least the basics."

But getting lumped in with other Christian games is a worry. Erik Schreuder, CEO of Iceberg Interactive – the publisher of Adam's Venture, says the poor reputation of Christian games is a concern: "Christian games might not have the best reputation outside of Christian channels as far as graphics and overall quality go."

Lambert admits the Christian element of Adam's Venture often works against it: "Over and over we have to explain to stores and distributors and whoever that this is something different. So yes there are Christian elements, but no we don't try to convert you.

"The best way to explain it is to let people play the game, but sometimes it's hard to convince them to even bother because of the negative reputation of Christian games."

Skaggs says Christian games have traditionally suffered from two big problems: a lack of funding and a tendency to force teaching into games at the expense of fun.

One way round the funding issue is teaming up with Christian organisations as was the case with YaHero. Bankrolled by the Canadian Bible Society, YaHero is a massively multiplayer game for eight- to 11-year-olds best described as a blend of Club Penguin, World of Warcraft and Sunday school.

"We wanted something to plant the seed of God's word into the heart of children and to find a balance between Biblical engagement and a fun environment," says Marta LoFranco, communications director at YaHero Inc.

But for Skaggs the ultimate goal is to get serious venture capitalists to support Christian developers so they can produce better quality titles. But that will probably need that The Passion of the Christ moment first.

"Someone needs to make a mainstream title that has reasonable success so these people know there is a market," he says. "The Passion of the Christ got investors' attention and investors don't have to be motivated by faith, they can be motivated by the numbers."