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Video games began as entertainment for scientists at major universities during the forties and fifties. This grew during the sixties as the computing hardware improved. During the seventies the arcade phenomenon took off. This is also the generation that experienced the release of the first generation console by Magnavox. Then along came the popular Atari and there have been yearly releases of updated consoles ever since. The capabilities of the video game consoles and computer hardware increases every year and this allows more and more realistic environments to be created on the screen. With the creation of home computers like the Commodore, Tandy, IBM and Apple, gaming was opened up to a new market. It was taken from a family environment in the living room to an individual experience in the home office. The first games were simple tic-tac-toe, ping pong and message board style Dungeons & Dragons turn based fantasy games.

The “Dungeons & Dragons” fantasy game actually began as a turn based war game developed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studios. They created the precursor to the computerized “rpg” or role playing game. In this tabletop version, players create a character with a set of attributes such as charisma, dexterity, strength, etc. Players would then band together into a group called a “party” and explore a fantasy world controlled by the dungeon master. This dungeon master controlled all aspects of the game environment from the weather to attacking monsters. Dice with as many as 20 sides are used to assess a player’s chance of success or failure during his or her turn.   

There are many reports from the late 70's and 80's that associated “Dungeons & Dragons” with the occult and Satanism. People were acting out their fantasy battles in real life and killing themselves and each other. One famous case concerns a young man named James Dallas Egbert III. James was a 16 year old student at Michigan State University who disappeared from his dorm room on April 15, 1979. James' parents hired a private detective, William Dear, to find James. Dear proposed a theory that James' playing of the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons led to his entering the university's steam tunnels to incorporate them into the game. Dear concluded that James suffered a psychotic episode during one of the game sessions. James was coincidentally suffering from depression and performance pressure from his parents to do well in school. James made 3 suicide attempts; the final of which was successful. The way he died was by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

An increase in realism has brought about one element of gaming that was sought after for years: realistic damage/explosions and then the most controversial: blood. One of the first video games to ever include blood and realistic violence was “Rambo” for the Nintendo entertainment system. Based off of the movie, “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” this game contains some of the first pixels of blood ever seen in the video game world. “Rambo” was released in 1987 in Japan and a year later in North America.

The first video game to include blood and gore, realistically, was “Mortal Kombat”, which created the need of the ESRB rating system due to law suits pertaining to the accessibility of adult content by children. “Mortal Kombat” was first released for arcades in 1992, and was later made for home consoles in 1993. “Mortal Kombat” has since spawned numerous sequels and revamped remakes and is considered the most popular American fighting game to date.

“Fallout 3,” produced by Bethesda Game Studios, is an example of a role playing game that had multiple endings based on player decisions. The game received a lot of awards in the gaming community but there were some problems. The game allowed the player to become addicted to morphine and alcohol. There are plot lines in the game that allow the player to access a weapon that launched mini nuclear bombs called the “Fat-Man”. This is a reference to the bomb dropped on Japan.

One of the most disturbing quests in the game involves deciding whether to detonate or disarm a nuclear device in a small town called Megaton. The player can either kill all the residents and annihilate the town by detonating the weapon or save everybody by permanently disarming it. Consequently, parents were less than pleased when they found out that their children were responsible for killing hundreds of people, even in a virtual setting. The game developers were creating an environment where a child (or adult) could possibly recreate some of the most horrific moments in human history. The moral ramifications are obvious as young children are not capable of fully understanding the consequences of these actions. These types of experiences lead to a desensitization of a person's perception of death and murder. They will begin to associate real death with virtual death and thus become disconnected from a very real part of life.

One popular argument from video game advocates is that games increase hand eye coordination. This is only true inside the gaming world. Once you leave the gaming world these motor skills are largely worthless and cannot be applied in reality outside the gaming environment.

Games are not all bad. There are certainly innocent, educational or story based games that are non-violent. There are many sports and simulation games that are non-violent but there must be one underlying question: “How does this glorify God?” Spending time with friends and family, playing a game of soccer, or something similar would be more beneficial to bring the family together.

Another issue here is time. When does the time commitment become something beyond a casual experience? Children especially cannot regulate their time and would spend all hours of the day playing games. This leads to an addiction that is not easily broken. Children become out of shape, lose social skills, and their ability to function and communicate in society is limited. We can see further evidence of this since the advent of texting. Teens and young adults have begun to lose the ability to interpret human emotion through body language.

Games require an incredible amount of time to “beat” and some are even unbeatable. They simply perpetuate until the player grows tired of the game and moves on to the next installment. We are talking hundreds, if not thousands of hours dedicated to developing a person’s virtual skill. This is time not spent with a spouse or family. This is time not spent on education, or learning a trade. This is time not spent reading books or developing critical thinking skills needed to understand our reality. Most importantly, this is time not spent serving God and is therefore wasted time.

How Demons Enter Through Fantasy: The Seducing Spirit

Everybody is born with an imagination. This imagination can be used to build a home, write a book, fix a car, or any number of situations requiring problem solving and creative solutions. The imagination can also be used to create a fantasy world in which we can escape reality. This is an illusion formed in our mind. We can create an event or sequence of events in which we are in TOTAL control. We can fulfill our most personal longings without fear of rejection or failure. We can become a “god” in a sense as we are in complete control of all aspects of the illusion. The stronger the pain, or rejection; the stronger and deeper the illusion.

Our imagination is a faculty of our inner man; the illusion is created from within our heart (soul) with an influence from one of the three following choices:

1. The Holy Spirit
2. Our Spirit
3. A Demonic Spirit

We create this fantasy world to escape the pains of reality, such as rejection. For example, within this reality we are always the center of the illusion. We are in complete control; we are important and everything always works out perfectly. We will always score the winning goal. If we don't score the winning goal in reality, we can replay the moment over and over in our mind and change the outcome to feel better about it. Men tend to sexualize their fantasies to gain power, money, women, fame etc. Men will always get the girl and she will always be satisfied beyond her wildest dreams. Men will spend millions in this illusion having the fastest cars, the nicest homes etc. Revenge is another motive in our fantasies. We can exact the perfect revenge without consequences.

Women on the other hand tend to romanticize their fantasies about the perfect man. This man will happily cater to her every need and desire. He will always satisfy her and take care of her. He will always say kind things and act perfectly in public.

The problem with this illusion is that it is a lie! There are pains and rejections in real life. We will not always score the winning goal and our spouse will not always act correctly and say the right thing. Revenge is never sweet, and there are always consequences.

Have you ever zoned out on a long drive, and then all of a sudden you snap out of it as you arrive safely at your destination without any specific recollection of the drive itself? You have to ask yourself, where did I just go in my mind? Daydreaming is a natural human element. It all depends on where the fantasy leads you.

“I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?” (Job 31:1)

“If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands…” (Job 31:7)

This tells us that our heart follows our eyes. If our eyes fall willingly on something Holy then we will be Holy in our heart. However, if our eyes fall willingly on something unholy then we are defiled and our heart is dark.

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:21-24)

If we find treasure in any dark thing not of God, be it video games, porn, books, TV, movies etc., then we are filled with the darkness thereof. This filling of darkness is the result of sin. This sin opens the door to the seducing spirit and this filling of darkness is the evil spirit coming in.

“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.” (Psalm 101:3)

Seducing Spirits Have Friends

The nature of seduction is that we are not aware of what is happening. We don't immediately recognize the influence of the seductive moment in our lives. Seduction does not happen in an instant. It is a gradual decline of our defenses against impure thoughts. The seduction will start off shallow and inconspicuous. It will increase in depth and complexity as we get more and more personally involved.

When somebody creates a fantasy that you pay money to be a part of, you become a voyeur. You are vicariously living out somebody else's fantasy. Take for example a sex scene in a movie. By willingly watching that sex scene you are inviting in the spirit of lust, adultery, fornication and more. By watching, you are in fact participating and fellowshipping with these evil spirits. This can lead to more than just an addiction to racy or pornographic movies. This can lead to a desire to act out scenes and you may come to idolize characters from the movie.

The media is only the vehicle of temptation. Let’s get back to video games. By playing a video game you are no longer simply watching. You are an active participant. It gets even worse with the live games on the internet because with a headset you can then speak the fantasy into your reality and you are communicating with other people in the same fantasy. When people play role playing games for example, they are taking on another identity. They kill, murder, steal, and condone others who do these things. So as we have seen, what we allow in our “eye gate” has the potential to enter our heart. In the Bible, the heart refers to the soul. We don't have to act out our fantasies in our physical bodies to be guilty of the sin. Dwelling on an impure thought and not casting it down/out opens the door to demonic problems.

“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Mathew 5:28)

When a person spends a significant amount of time in a make believe world or world of fantasy, the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred. We begin to desire the fantasy more than reality.

The Impacts of Unrestrained Fantasy

What are some of the impacts of unrestrained fantasy?

1. Creates tracks in our mind.
2. Causes people to avoid responsibility.
3. Causes false comfort.
4. Causes addiction.
5. Opens the door to seducing spirits.
6. Blocks intimacy.
7. Creates selfishness.

The tracks created in our mind are mental railroad tracks that are constantly distracting us and pulling us back to the fantasy. We may find ourselves slipping into the fantasy world more and more often, while doing anything repetitive such as dishes, laundry, driving, taking a shower etc. The fantasy takes more and more of our consciousness of real life and diverts it toward the fantasy in your mind: the lie.

A person may start to avoid responsibilities in order to spend time in the fantasy world. This is especially true of gaming. The addiction can become so strong for some people that they will skip school, call in sick to work and cancel appointments in order to spend time in the fantasy world. Children may lie to parents and sneak time on video games after restrictions have been employed. This is a greater problem for an adult as there is nobody to hold them accountable and they can become reclusive.

False comfort is created because we are never rejected from the fantasy. We can distract ourselves from the pains of soul damage and traumas. These issues are never dealt with and will lie just below the surface causing all sorts of other problems like insecurity and shyness.

This can also lead to addictions such as drugs, food, sex, and other things because once we leave the illusion of safety; we still need comforting in real life. Once outside the illusion and back into reality, we discover that our hurts are still there. We are then constantly on the lookout for new ways to bury the pain.

We discussed previously how seducing spirits enter into us. We ask them to enter our lives! By not facing our pain and looking to God for forgiveness and healing, we are looking to Satan for the answer. He will happily supply us with all manner of distractions to keep us busy and hurting for the rest of our lives. Only when the pain outweighs the pleasure will we turn from sin and ask God for help.

Intimacy requires an acute sense of the now and self-awareness. We cannot be intimate and close to others if we are lost in a fantasy world. Relationships and careers suffer heavily from gaming and the entertainment industry as a whole. When a person is immersed in a fantasy, they are disconnected from reality and the feelings and needs of others. Their perception is blocked and they are shut off from receiving love from outside the fantasy.

This leads us to selfishness. When a person comes to the point that reality is just too painful, when the illusion replaces love and comfort, this person will become selfish and withdrawn. They will become self-centered and quick to anger if their game time is interrupted.

STATISTICS DO NOT LIE

Here is a short list of people who played video games and ended up murdering people before they were caught or killed. This list is taken from the book Xenogenesis - Changing Men Into Monsters by Stephen Quayle.

Evan E. Ramsey, 16 years old, shot and killed two and wounded another two at the Bethel Regional High school in Bethel, Alaska on February 19, 1997. Later he told investigators he liked to play the shooting video game Doom. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison and will be 85 years old when he is eligible for parole.

Michael Carneal, age 14, fired upon students having a prayer meeting at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky in 1997, killing three girls and wounding five others. Michael was obsessed with the violent games Doom and Mortal Kombat. At his trial, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, ages 18 and 17, killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado of 1999. Both of them were obsessed with the video game Doom. When cornered by the police, they used their own guns to commit suicide.

Devin Moore, age 18, went on a shooting spree in Fayette, Alabama in 2003, killing three policemen with a gun he had snatched from one of the officers when he was brought in to the police station and in the process of being booked. Moore would later tell investigators, “Life is a video game. Everybody got to die sometime.” Moore’s favorite video game was Grand Theft Auto. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection and is on death row in Alabama.

Seung-Hui Cho, age 23, killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia in 2007. When confronted by police, he took his own life with his gun. He was known for playing violent video games which included Counterstrike.

Jared Lee Loughner, age 23, killed six people and injured 13 others, including Congresswoman Gabby Gifford in Tucson, Arizona in 2011. HAt his trial e was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was known for having played violent video games.

Anders Behring Breivik, age 32, killed 77 people in the 2011 attack at the summer camp on the island of Utøya, Norway. He claimed to use the shooting video game, Call of Duty, as a training mechanism for his killing spree. Due to the extremely liberal laws in Norway, he was sentenced to just 21 years in prison and will be eligible for parole after 10 years.

James Holmes, age 25, killed 12 people at a Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. He was known for playing violent video games. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Adam Lanza, age 20, drove to the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 after he had shot his mother to death. At the school he shot and killed 26 grade school children and six teachers, before taking his own life. Investigation showed that he had regularly been playing shooter video games.

Aaron Alexis, age 34, was the shooter at the Washington Navy Yard, in Washington D.C., that left 13 people dead. He took his own life as the police closed in on him. Investigations showed that he had played violent video games for up to six hours at a time.

These are the most infamous mass murderers but there are thousands of other men that play violent video games and end up killing someone. Every time there is a mass shooting, Barack Obama and other liberal politicians call for stricter gun control, even going so far to make the case that guns should be taken from the hands of citizens.

It is impossible to legislate morality and stricter gun control or the outlawing of guns will only take firearms away from law abiding citizens. Does any sane person think that criminals will voluntarily turn in their guns? Such draconian laws only makes it easier for the criminals when their victims can’t properly defend themselves.

Why doesn’t Barack Obama call for the elimination of violent video games? The answer is that the video game manufacturers are a powerful lobby in Washington D.C. and no politician wants to oppose them or the movie industry.

Steps to Pulling Down the Illusion

Here are the necessary steps to pull down the video game illusion:

1. Recognize the issue.
2. Requires deep repentance.
3. Remove the fantasy at its root.
4. Replace fantasy with truth.

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

The very first thing we have to do is to recognize the problem for what it is. An addiction to gaming, porn, sex or whatever it may be must be acknowledged with proper understanding. People do things for a reason. We mostly do something to get a response or we are responding to something done to us. Once we have accepted that we are sinners, we need to repent. We are held accountable for the consequences in our lives and it is impossible to turn things around without repentance. God will not take action without genuine repentance. This also requires us to completely remove the illusion from our lives. Not some or most of it, but all of it! The sin and the demonic problems will remain as long as you hold on to the fantasy. Finally, we must replace the fantasy with truth. We must acknowledge whatever it was that drew us into the illusion in the first place. It can be rejection, some type of failure, embarrassment, rape, or molestation. Whatever the problem, it must be dealt with before you can receive help. We cannot begin to heal from a hurt if we don't accept (admit) that we were hurt in the first place. Only then can we accept God's love and move forward in Christ Jesus.

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.

Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:22-32)

“But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” (Ephesians 5:13)

On a more personal note, I would like to share with you my personal experience with fantasy and video games. I had a number of traumas in my youth that caused me a lot of pain. I became withdrawn and did not have a lot of friends. I was shy and meek. I had no trust of people around me and so I became withdrawn into fantasy novels written by Terry Brooks. At about the same time I discovered R.A. Salvatore and his Dark Elf trilogy. These novels are written under “Forgotten Realms, Dungeons and Dragons.” They follow along with the fantasy world created in the “Dungeons and Dragons” gaming series. I read all that I could find and completely escaped into this world. I started to believe that I was born in the wrong time and that I would have been more comfortable having been born in a different age or world altogether.

The books led me to one of the first “Forgotten Realms” video games produced by SSI (Strategic Simulations Inc.) called “Secret of The Silver Blades” in 1990. This was my first experience with a role playing computer game and I was instantly hooked. I never actually made it to the end of the game because I bought the sequel as soon as the next release came out and dropped the previous game. I remember going outside to do chores or hang out with friends and then at night I would stay up all night playing these games. I don’t think I have to tell you that my grades began to suffer. I was a sophomore in high school, as my gaming progressed, my grades crashed. My parents would not upgrade our computer, so I was pushed outside. I became an avid rock climber who smoked pot, ate psychedelic mushrooms and dropped LSD. I started smoking cigarettes and my rock climbing took a back seat to the “party” life.

I settled in with a decent job as a cabinet maker and built myself my first gaming computer. From that moment I played mostly fantasy (Dungeons and Dragons), and first person shooter games like “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield 2142.” I became trapped in a cycle of staying up late and all weekend playing games, drinking, and smoking pot. I was not alone and had a pseudo support group once I was able to connect to other people living online as well. They were all doing the same thing for the most part.

I was just coasting along at this point. I was not getting ahead in my career. My marriage was failing, and most importantly, I had no relationship with Jesus. It was not until I lost my marriage and job that I saw what a time commitment gaming required. I wondered where I would be today if I had spent that time on other things. Instead of amassing 1,500 hours playing “Bethesda's Oblivion,” I could have read any number of books, learned a language, who knows? That amounts to about 3 hours a night for a year and half. On weekends it was much more. It was just time thrown away! I had a good time with absolutely nothing to show for it. This is time that I will never get back. Satan stole it from me and I allowed it to happen.

I have so much more time available to me now. I hope that parents out there who have little children will come to realize that while games are used as a babysitter, these games are handicapping them. Children are actually regressing in intelligence.

I had a chance to work in a client’s house which homeschooled their children. During my time in the home I witnessed the following: The son who was about 15 had certain projects to do for school. Well, when his parents were not supervising him, he would use the “alt-tab” command to cycle between his game and school work. It was comical at first because as I would walk by and he would “alt-tab” to the school work thinking I was his mother. It was obvious that he was breaking a rule imposed by the parents but the urge to play was so strong that he could not help it. After about three weeks of this walking past him, I could see that his nerves were shot and he was exhausted from constantly thinking he might be busted. I began to feel sorry for this boy and prayed for him because I could see the bondage he was in. He could not stop playing; it was always pulling him back. I could also tell that when it came time for him to do a chore such as cutting the grass or helping grandma down the street, he was grumpy about it. He would hang his head, put on some headphones and race through the chore just to get back in the game seat. I am sure he was happy to see us finish our job so he could sneak the gaming with impunity.

I also noticed that he could not do his chores without headphones on. This is something I have seen more than once in other people, and it tells me that there are thoughts that they don't want to face. They would rather zone out in music than face their inner man. Any amount of silence and they begin to squirm.

My advice to parents is this. Educate yourself on what your children are doing and what they are listening to. The Internet is available almost everywhere these days. Learn how to use the parental controls on the TV. Limiting exposure will push them towards more worthwhile pastimes like sports and education, and of course, introduce them to Jesus!