Have you ever made a spiritual experience when playing a video game? Some downright lend themselves to it, such as Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture or Journey. But how would you know whether any experience is spiritual and aren’t video games with their technological foundation pretty much the opposite of transcendental? We discuss exactly such questions with Dr. Felix Schniz, Director and Co-Founder of the Game Studies and Engineering Programme at Klagenfurt University.

In our side quests we then talk about the ramifications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the video game industry as well as the complications of juggling games such as Elden Ring and Horizon II: Forbidden West.

Shownotes

00:07:40 Spiritual Experiences in Video Games (with Dr. Felix Schniz)

00:45:25 Ukraine’s open letter to video game developers (Mykhailo Federov)

00:55:36 World of Tanks studio fires creative director who voiced support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Andy Chalk)

01:05:00 Juggling Games like Elden Ring and Horizon II: Forbidden West