I read this article [The Escapist - Making the Sacrifice] and while I found it an interesting read, her arguments were weak and unconvincing.

The idea that because most games use an "big boss" at the end, that this is an example of some biblical story of "scapegoating" is silly. Most stories have a protagonist and antagonist, and when the main antagonist is defeated, all is well, the story is over. This has nothing to do with religion, it's just a very basic storytelling technique that many stories employ. Somehow saying this is a specifically religious storytelling technique is naive.

"In any society, the scapegoat is not singly responsible for all wrong with the world, but he is made to take on all the blame."

And I hate the term "scapegoat theory", because it implies that the main boss is being wrongly accused of all the ills in the game world, when in fact they are the one and only cause of all the ills in the game world. Ganon in Zelda, Bowser in Mario, these are the big bads that deserve to be defeated because they are bad.

"The end of Sauron immediately resolves all the evil in Middle-earth. "

No it doesn't, Saruman goes to the Shire and wreaks havoc.

"In videogames, the death of the archvillain returns the game's universe to a Utopia. Religion is directly avoided in videogames, even though its influence is obvious."

No, they're trying to tell a compelling, entertaining story, and if religion has nothing to do with the story, then there's no reason to put it in there. I daresay religion has zero influence on the vast majority of stories told via videogames. The author seems hellbent on equating storytelling to religion.

"Another interesting aspect of god games is they consistently offer the player-deity rule over primitive village people. Is this to suggest that the fiction the game world tries to create would not survive in a contemporary setting? Is the modern player too arrogant and narcissistic to believe a god game could function in her city?"

Arrogant and narcissistic? No, maybe because most of us [outside the USA anyway] live in a secular society where the influence of religion is minimal, whereas primitive societies were ruled by superstition and other religious nonsense. Hence, more conducive to a "god game". I would think this would be obvious.

"The seminal SimCity, for example, asserts that a society can function fully without any place of worship."

And by implication, you're saying that it can't? Ha.

"As mayor, the player makes decisions regarding airports, sea ports, hospitals, fire departments, police stations, post offices and residential areas, but is not allowed to consider building a church."

I don't know where you live, but in my world, the mayor isn't responsible for building churches. Besides, I distinctly remember my sims building churches themselves when I played the game, so your argument is without merit.

And using GTA in this discussion because they say "goddamn"? WTF? GTA, like most games, totally ignores religion, they don't say "goddamn" to make some kind of religious statement.

"Religion and spirituality among players - be they religious, sacrilegious or passionately irreligious - remain higher on the hierarchy than any other aspect of our humanity, like economics, politics, race and nationalism."

Huh? No, religion is pretty low on the totem pole for those of us living in a secular society [where most games are sold], except for the most fanatical fundamentalists. And completely irrelevant to non-believers like myself.

"ToS is an RPG that creates a believable mythology. It recounts the journey a group takes to regenerate a dying world, and involves thick symbolism of scapegoats, rituals, prayers, angels, demons and an all-powerful goddess, Martel."

Funny you should mention Tales of Symphonia, I just began playing that game and I'm mostly enjoying it. Except for the religious elements, which I find irritating and unnecessary.

"But new methods of blending religion and spirituality are clearly being forged. The examples of recent successes cannot be ignored."

Mixing religion and gaming is like mixing religion and politics - not a good idea. When you put specific religious symbols and ideas in a game, you immediately alienate almost everybody outside that faith. And some people within that faith will be offended because you didn't "get it right" and are making a mockery of their beliefs. Besides that, a lot of religious people are against gaming in general. By incorporating religion in a game, you are greatly shrinking the number of people your game will appeal to and almost guaranteeing the failure of said game. You might get lucky and hit a "Passion of the Christ" success, but the gaming market is completely different from the movie market. I daresay there are a hell of a lot more religious movie-goers than there are religious game players, in total numbers and in percentage of audience. Just look at Doom, one of the most popular games ever, employing pentagrams and other satanic imagery. If anything, the general gaming audience is anti-religion and any game prominently featuring a specific religion will fail miserably, outside the niche of that specific religion.