Laurent Di Filippo’s scientific contributions

Staging and questioning the sacred in video games. Many video games are immersed in a world of magic which conjures up recurrent figures from the sacred realm : a pantheon of gods and demons, religious organisations of priests, wizards and knights, beliefs, myths, rites etc. The authors of this article explore the meanings behind a remarkable phenomenon where the young people and adults who play these games, coming from a disenchanted society, do not usually indicate their religious convictions. The first part of this article gives an inventory of figures through whom the sacred is staged in the most widespread video games : axiological oppositions, mythological tales and adventure experienced as a quest. The second part analyses the function of games in relation to the sacred : if the player is only pretending to believe in these figures, what is the meaning of this make-believe ?