Thoth is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat, and his wife was Ma'at. He was the god of the moon, wisdom, writing, hieroglyphs, science, magic, art, and judgment. His Greek equivalent is Hermes.
Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) published and developed by Norwegian video game development company Funcom. Released in June 2001, the game was the first in the genre to include a science-fiction setting, dynamic quests, instancing, free trials, and in-game advertising. The game's ongoing storyline revolves around the fictional desert planet "Rubi-Ka", the source of a valuable mineral known as "Notum". Players assume the role of a new colonist to Rubi-Ka. With no specific objective to win Anarchy Online, the player advances the game through the improvement of a character's skills over time. After more than 20 years, Anarchy Online has become one of the oldest surviving games in the genre.
EverQuest II is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed and published by Sony Online Entertainment for Microsoft Windows PCs and released in November 2004. It is the sequel to the original EverQuest, released five years earlier, and features updated graphics and more streamlined gameplay compared to the previous entry, as well as an abundance of voice acting with contributions from actors such as Christopher Lee and Heather Graham. In February 2015, Sony Online Entertainment's parent corporation Sony Computer Entertainment sold it to investment company Inception Acquisitions, where it continues to develop and publish the game under its new name, Daybreak Game Company.
The Battle of Olympus is a 1988 action role-playing video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in North America in 1989, in Europe in 1991. A port for the Game Boy was also released.
God of War is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). First released on March 22, 2005, for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) console, it is the first installment in the series of the same name and the third chronologically. Loosely based on Greek mythology, it is set in ancient Greece with vengeance as its central motif. The player controls the protagonist Kratos, a Spartan warrior who serves the Olympian gods. The goddess Athena tasks Kratos with killing Ares, the God of War and Kratos' former mentor who tricked Kratos into killing his wife and daughter. As Ares besieges Athens out of hatred for Athena, Kratos embarks on a quest to find the one object capable of stopping the god once and for all: Pandora's Box.
Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile is a city-building game set in ancient Egypt, developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment. The game was released November 2004 in the United States and February 2005 in Europe. It is part of the City Building series.
Risk Godstorm is a Risk variant board game published by Avalon Hill and designed by Mike Selinker with developers Richard Baker and Michael Donais. The cultures of the Celts, Norse, Greeks, Egyptians, and Babylonians clash for supremacy of the ancient world. Players invade territories, play miracle cards, sink Atlantis, and conquer the underworld. The latter is a significant addition to the Risk series, as soldiers do not leave the game when they are killed, but instead go to their heavens and then embark to take over the underworld.
The Secret World is a massively multiplayer online role-playing video game set in a modern-day real world under attack from occult forces. Ragnar Tørnquist led development of the initial game for Funcom. The Secret World uses a subscription-optional, buy-to-play business model, requiring players only to buy the game with no additional subscription fees, with additional benefits to those members still paying a subscription.
In-game advertising (IGA) is advertising in electronic games. IGA differs from advergames, which refers to games specifically made to advertise a product. The IGA industry is large and growing.
God of War III is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. First released for the PlayStation 3 on March 16, 2010, it is the fifth installment in the God of War series, the seventh chronologically, and the sequel to 2007's God of War II. Loosely based on Greek mythology, the game is set in ancient Greece with vengeance as its central motif. The player controls the protagonist Kratos, the former God of War, after his betrayal at the hands of his father Zeus, King of the Olympian gods. Reigniting the Great War, Kratos ascends Mount Olympus until he is abandoned by the Titan Gaia. Guided by Athena's spirit, Kratos battles monsters, gods, and Titans in a search for Pandora, without whom he cannot open Pandora's Box, defeat Zeus, and end the reign of the Olympian gods to have his revenge.
God of War: Betrayal is an action-adventure mobile game developed by Javaground and Sony Online Entertainment's (SOE) Los Angeles division, and published by Sony Pictures Digital. Released for mobile phones supporting the Java Platform, Micro Edition on June 20, 2007, it is the third installment in the God of War series, and the fifth chronologically. Loosely based on Greek mythology, Betrayal is set in ancient Greece with vengeance as its central motif. The player controls the protagonist Kratos, who became the new God of War after killing the former, Ares. Kratos is framed for the murder of Argos and pursues the true assassin across Greece, resulting in a confrontation with Olympian messenger Ceryx.
God of War is an action-adventure game franchise created by David Jaffe at Sony's Santa Monica Studio. It began in 2005 on the PlayStation 2 (PS2) video game console and has become a flagship series for PlayStation, consisting of nine installments across multiple platforms. Based on ancient mythologies, the story follows Kratos, a Spartan warrior and later the Greek God of War, who was tricked into killing his family by his former master, the original Greek God of War Ares. This sets off a series of events that leads to wars with the different mythological pantheons. The Greek-based games see Kratos follow a path of vengeance due to the machinations of the Olympian gods, while the Norse-based games, which introduce his son Atreus as a secondary protagonist, show Kratos on a path of redemption and inadvertently coming into conflict with the Norse gods.
Rohan: Blood Feud is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). One week of closed beta testing in America started from March 17, 2008 by publisher YNK Interactive. It ended its one week of closed beta testing. Second round of closed beta testing ran from April 3, 2008 to April 9, 2008, the open beta was launched May 28, 2008. There are other versions of Rohan Online in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, and Philippines as well.
The Legend of Ares or just "Ares Online" is a free 3D, MMORPG game developed by MGame Inc.. Like many 3D MMORPGs, it is a point and click game, where players can attack monsters (PvE) or other players (PvP), pick up items, and talk to NPCs for items and quests.
Kalydo is a proprietary cloud gaming technology and service based on file streaming. The Kalydo platform launched commercially in 2008 and has been in service since. The Kalydo file streaming technology allows games to be played immediately, without the need of downloading and installation, providing faster and easier access to games. Games running on Kalydo do so via the proprietary Kalydo Player plugin and can run in a browser, or from the PC desktop.
KoramGame is an international software developer and publisher. It is the Western-oriented subsidiary of Koram Games Limited, which is itself a subsidiary company of the Kunlun Group. KoramGame has published many of Kunlun's games in nine languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese and Chinese. The company was started in March 2008; in 2010, KoramGame launched their first game in Malaysia, and their first Bahasa web game in Indonesia.
Smite is a 2014 free-to-play, third-person multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Hi-Rez Studios for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, and Amazon Luna. In Smite, players control a god, goddess or other mythological figure and take part in team-based combat, using their abilities and tactics against other player-controlled gods and non-player-controlled minions.
Echo of Soul is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Korean game developer Nvius and published in North America and Europe by Aeria Games.
The study of religion and video games is a subfield of digital religion, which the American scholar of communication, Heidi Campbell, defines as "Religion that is constituted in new ways through digital media and cultures.". Video games once struggled for legitimacy as a cultural product, today, however, they are both business and art. Video games increasingly turn to religion not just as ornament but as core elements of their video game design and play. Games involve moral decision, rely on invented religions, and allow users to create and experience virtual religious spaces. As one of the newest forms of entertainment, however, there is often controversy and moral panic when video games engage religion, for instance, in Insomniac Games' use of the Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. Concepts and elements of contemporary and ancient religions appear in video games in various ways: places of worship are a part of the gameplay of real-time strategy games like Age of Empires; narratively, games sometimes borrow themes from religious traditions like in Mass Effect 2.
