Introduction
Video games are a huge global phenomenon, driving well over $70 billion dollars in sales in 2011—a number that is only rising year by year. For comparison, global music sales in 2011 was about $16 billion, while global theater tickets was about $33 billion. This has consequences—largely unexplored—for people that are interested in spiritual development. It is thus important to look at the phenomenon of video games from a spiritual perspective, because almost no one growing up today can avoid them. The time in which human beings could develop spiritually without the presence of modern technologies is essentially over, and video games are now deeply integrated into the fabric of modern society. Their ubiquity means that human beings who wish to undertake spiritual development will often do so in contexts that are not devoid of video games. We can thus ask the question, how might video games impact spiritual development? (more…)