Chris Skaggs remembers a day a decade ago when he presented a workshop on Christian gaming at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) International Christian Media Convention. Not one person showed up. Plus, he says he got shade about his interest and work in the industry.
This past year, Skaggs spoke again at NRB’s media convention on the same topic. The room was packed. And no shade this time.
Skaggs is founder and chief operating officer of Soma Games, which makes adventure and interactive fiction titles such as The Lost Legends of Redwall series andThe Reluctant Redemption of Verity Lux. He’s also founder and executive director of the Imladris community, a nonprofit professional trade organization for game developers who are Christians.
The Christian gaming industry includes not just video games but also speculative fiction presented in game form, cosplay, film (a natural sideline for game companies), board games, comics, graphic novels, and other media. Once viewed with suspicion as the kingdom of the Devil—think the panic over Dungeons & Dragons—gaming now has a reputation as a valid artistic medium among many Christians, whether for educational, entertainment, or evangelistic purposes.
Nowhere was this more evident than at the first-ever Realm Makers Expo, a “fan convention featuring Christian storytellers impacting popular culture” held this summer in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Do you love science fiction and fantasy, but also make your spiritual growth a high priority?” asks the Realm Makers website. “Have you found that you’re a little too weird for the usual church crowd, but don’t exactly fit in with the sci-fi convention set either? Now there’s a place for YOU to find community with people a lot like yourself!”
Though the larger expo is new, Realm Makers has been hosting a writing conference for speculative fiction authors since 2013. Back then, the conference hosted about 60 people. This year’s combined conference and expo drew about 1,100 and featured workshops on developing platforms and negotiating contracts alongside workshops like Fight Scenes 101 and Comics: From Concept to Creation.
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This year’s expo also intentionally coincided with the Christian Game Developers Conference (CGDC), which brought about 120 more people to Grand Rapids. Founded in 2002, the first CGDC drew about 30 people; its numbers have ranged between 30 and 70 from then on, so this year’s attendance represents a big jump. In total, there are about 2,500 in the CGDC community, “from missionaries in the field with an idea for a game to those working at the highest, AAA level of game development, from hobbyists to professionals, from those making only Bible-based games to those who are Christians in the broader industry,” said board president Brock Henderson.
Henderson is head of game development at Salvation Poem Project, the Christian media company behind the feature film Light of the World and the video game Clayfire, slated to debut in 2027. Clayfire offers an immersive fantasy world inspired by the Gospel of John, in which players “encounter saving grace and bring light back to the darkness—all while inspiring [players] to live their own lives for Jesus.”
With 3.2 billion gamers in the world, Henderson said, “the digital space is a whole new place to take the gospel to.”
A fraction of those 3.5 billion gamers showed up at Realm Makers Expo, where wizards, elves, various Star Wars characters, hobbits, and lots of folks wearing lace-up boots, belts, and bustiers wandered the aisles perusing dozens of booths and tables featuring game developers, spec fiction authors and publishers, universities with gaming majors, photographers, creators of dragon jewelry, and more. The conference’s Costume Parade showcased hobbits, wizards, Jedi warriors, aliens, and creatures of all varieties.
As I traversed the exhibition hall, it became clear how common it is for a given franchise to span books, films, and games, creating multimedia universes for kids (and adults) to explore. One corner booth showcased S. D. Smith’s Green Ember book series for middle-grade readers, in which rabbit heroes fight to save rabbit-kind. Two screens encouraged kids and adults (this author included, who couldn’t remember which buttons did what and started to get motion sick) to grab a handset and start playing Helmer in the Dragon Tomb, an interactive game that will release the same time as the book by the same name. It’s the 12th title in the Green Ember universe.
“Green Ember books have always been stories kids take with them,” said Smith. “They create art, play games in the yard, make up adventures. The game is another way for kids to access the story. We also hope it’s a gateway for kids who love video games to step easily into the reading world.”
Then there’s Lightgliders, an educational, virtual world for kids ages 6–12 created by Derek Holser and Zach Fay. In this case, what began as a digital product now has accompanying books. Bryce and the Lost Pearl, the first volume of seven, relates the origin stories of teenagers who come to alternative world Glideon from different places and times. “We moved into the books because of the opportunity we were given to expand the story. We call it Narnia for the digital age,” said Fay.
Today, the Lightgliders universe includes character creation, games, puzzles, virtual events, journaling, and Bible-based weekly activities, plus lessons and reflections emailed to parents or group leaders. Over 100,000 kids in over 100 countries have subscribed over the decade Lightgliders has been in existence. Holser said that “the game is designed as a way to redeem screen time for kids.”
Perhaps the most well-known of these franchises is Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga (first released starting in 2008 and re-released in 2020), now an animated television series by the same name. The Wingfeather Saga: Adventures in Glipwood video game, published by Angel Studios and developed by Soma Games, was released on the Roblox platform in March 2023.
“When it opened, the game was in the top five of Roblox games,” said Chris Wall, executive producer of the TV series. “It was important for us to help families and fans extend their experience with the Wingfeather world. With an interactive game, players can really get into it and wrestle with the same challenges the world presents.”
It wasn’t just video-book-game franchises for kids represented at Realm Makers Expo. Products that appeal to all ages were part of the scene as well. The Jake Muller Adventures, an audio-drama series complete with zombies and spiritual truths, appeals to older listeners: “The enemy comes to deceive, steal, and kill. Jake’s weapons are the whole armor of God.” Allies of Majesty, a role-playing game “of biblical proportions,” promises custom avatars, complete with a companion app.
Joe Bragg is creator of The Christian Board Gamers Podcast and the 4,600-member Christian Board Gamers Facebook community, where users comment on games they’ve played, gloat about purchases, and talk about new games they’re creating. The top games of 2024, according to Bragg, are, from fifth to first place, Draft & Write Records, Skyrise, Ezra and Nehemiah, River of Gold, and Forges of Ravenshire. He bases his ratings on everything from ease of play to “table presence.”
Bragg is also behind the organizations Meek Heroes Gaming and Love Thy Nerd, which “exists to be the love of Jesus to nerds and nerd culture.” “Gaming is continuing to grow,” he said, pointing to new collaborations (including with Realm Makers) and new products on the horizon such as “testimonial games,” speaking into real-life concerns like the joys and struggles of marriage.
“I want to start partnering with ministries that explore the game space. … [We can] help them test the waters,” said Bragg. “We feel like we’re entering a new season. God is lining up things such as ministries, investors, and collaborations. And there are warmer receptions to games that share faith.” With mobile game The Serpent & the Seed, for example, the creators hope that its players will “discover the supreme source of hope that is contained within the Bible’s pages.”
Yet it’s not all fun and games in the industry. Wingfeather producer Wall has experienced video games as an ongoing challenge for some faith communities. The church, he worries, has “given up on recognizing that the creation of art is an act of the kingdom of God. There is discomfort with mystery, the unexplainable and unresolved.”
Skaggs of Soma Games and Imladris said, “The church is way, way behind. It’s a great embarrassment to the church that I found ten Christian universities and colleges in this country with a gaming program with a total of about 400 kids, but one secular school down the street from my house has 600 students.”
America, he said, leads the world in gaming and is making a huge cultural impact. But in Christian gaming? No.
“Games will change the culture for better or worse, just like film did in the last century,” said Skaggs. “Yet in the church context it’s considered distasteful to game. There is grant money for other Christian art forms, but they say no to games. There is a barrier to this media.”
That barrier is multilevel. First there’s the often-misplaced desire to imbue gaming with what Skaggs calls “evangetainment,” making sure games teach Christian principles at the expense of their design. A few players may want that dynamic, “but it will never go mainstream and never influence the world for Christ,” he said. “We can’t slip a fish symbol on it and call it good.”
Christian game developers also need to produce more games more quickly—and that takes cash: “We need to make thousands, but the chokepoint is money.”
Skaggs encourages those who work in the secular gaming industry to consider adding churches to their virtual landscapes: “There are churches everywhere in every town. And what about spiritual people in your game? … There should be an underlying assumption in your work that Christians are there.”
Most fundamentally, “we need to be letting players know they are loved and valued in the church,” said Skaggs. “The huge thing Christians need to get is that gaming isn’t just a toy for kids. It’s remarkably social. … That component is reshaping everything.”
Gaming isn’t just sitting in dark basements; it’s meeting online and in real life, connecting both from consoles and around tables. It’s gathering together at a place like Realm Makers, where elves hug hobbits and swords are only for show, where the vibe, overwhelmingly, is “I’ve found my people.”
Ann Byle is a writer living in West Michigan. She is the author of Chicken Scratch: Lessons on Living Creatively from a Flock of Hens.
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