A tearjerker story hit the gaming world following a post on YouTube asking “Can Videos Games Be a Spiritual Experience?” A 16-year-old whose father had died revisited an old game they used to play together on Xbox when the boy was just 4-years-old. It was Rally Sports Challenge and the boy hadn’t played it for over a decade. He still had warm memories of playing the game with his father–so he finally broke it out to play again. It was a powerful emotional and spiritual experience.
In the game, the player who has the best time around the track gets recorded as a ghost driver. You can always afterwards race against the ghost driver. When the boy revisited the game, he found the record was held by his dad–and as he raced the ghost he was actually racing against his dead father. He made sure never to beat him, stopping at the finish line to let the ghost–his dad–pass even if he had a big lead. Or as the boy describes racing against his dad: ” i played and played, and played, untill i was almost able to beat the ghost. until one day i got ahead of it, i surpassed it, and…i stopped right in front of the finish line, just to ensure i wouldnt delete it. Bliss.” That answers the question about whether video games can be a spiritual experience.
