It is a sad fact of life that today’s kids (ages 8-18) spend a whopping 7.5 hours per day, on average, in front of some kind of screen.
According to a study cited by the CDC, that equates to roughly 51.5 more hours per week spent in the digital world then attending Sunday church service.
If you consider another study that indicates about 89 percent of kids use their screen time playing video games, it should be apparent that our children are being largely influenced from those outside the home, outside our churches — from God knows where.
The implications of all that are staggering, especially as it applies to online video games, which can be addictive and are rampant with sexual imagery and the promotion of drugs and violence. There is also the ever-present threat from predators.
Research from CyberSafeKids revealed the chilling reality:
- 26 percent of children have seen or experienced something online in the last year that bothered them, but 29 percent of those children kept it to themselves.
- 20 percent said they’ve seen something online that they wouldn’t want their parents to know.
- 64 percent said they had been contacted by a stranger in an online game.
- 26 percent said they have friends and followers on social media that they don’t know offline.
But it doesn’t have to be that way, and the answer doesn’t have to mean eliminating video games entirely. A safe alternative for concerned parents of impressionable gaming enthusiasts is TruPlay, the fast-rising, subscription-based, Christian-centric gaming platform (available on major app stores).
Brent Dusing, TruPlay’s founder and CEO, believes that if video games can be a negative influence, they also can be created to be a positive one. He’s pledged to make sure “God’s truth resonates through every product we create.”
“What we’re really trying to do is bring really, really high quality, fun gameplay experiences to children and parents. It’s something they can really enjoy and be excited about but walk away from being built up,” Dusing told The Western Journal in a video interview.
“They’re learning more about the reality of Jesus Christ, learning about courage and bravery, learning that the Bible is true, learning Bible verses. You know, all the things that equip you for life.”
None of that is mere posturing. Cynics might easily imagine the Harvard-educated venture capitalist swooping in to capitalize on a relatively untapped niche for the sake of deep profits. But the devout Christian and family man sees it as his personal calling to offer kids a safe, fun, educational and inspirational gaming platform that will direct them toward Christ.
In fact, Dusing’s insistence on ensuring this safe environment has actually meant turning down potentially highly profitable revenue streams — ads, chat features and in-app purchases — that, within the gaming industry, too commonly expose kids to inappropriate material and that can be predator gateways.
Even in the days before TruPlay, as the founder of a company aptly called Lightside Games, Dusing created safe and fun Bible-based games on Facebook. These reached more than 7 million players worldwide and resulted in more than 25,000 decisions in favor of Christ — a number confirmed through the company’s partnership with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Founding TruPlay in 2019 and launching it in 2023, represents Dusing’s attempt to expand on that previous success — this time through a full-fledged and evolving gaming platform. His stated mission is “to transform generations of children in such a profound way that it will shape culture.”
Meeting such a lofty goal, however, is not without immense challenges, which Dusing readily acknowledged. To begin with, a 2022 study found that 67 percent of U.S. parents of preteens said they identify as Christian, but only 2 percent possess a Biblical worldview; and a 2024 study found that weekly church attendance has plummeted to an all-time low of just 30 percent.
These studies may explain other recent worrisome ones that show:
- Only 25 percent of Gen Alpha (preteens) believe the Bible is the Word of God, and only 21 percent believe in absolute truths.
- 48.5 percent of Gen Z doesn’t identify as religious.
- 41 percent of Gen Z thinks religion is part of the problem.
- 23 percent of Gen Z would ban the Bible for hate speech.
Such statistics are tragic all by themselves, but even more so when you consider that they represent a significant lost opportunity for establishing life-long faith. According to a recent study, 72 percent of evangelicals come to their faith before adulthood.
Despite it all — or, more precisely, in direct response to it — Dusing surrounds himself with a top flight staff of faith-minded, creative individuals intent on countering the darkness with uplifting interactive games, digital comics and animated shorts “that build character and connect kids to their faith.”
Here, Dusing talked about the company’s goals and the life-long importance of faith. He also offered additional insight into the dangers lurking within the gaming industry as a whole.
TWJ: Have you always been a Christian? Were you raised Christian?
Dusing: I grew up going to church when I was a kid, and I always believed conceptually that God existed. But the idea that the Bible was all true — with Jesus as God in the flesh — those things were unsettled in my mind. I went to college [Harvard] in a very, very anti-Christian environment … and I had taken in a lot of a kind of worldly philosophy but had never been exposed to the actual foundations of the Bible.
At 22, what really got me was the book of Daniel that predicts the Messiah. And so there really is a God, right? And if that’s true, if he’s that powerful, I need to get right with God. It was a version of fear of the Lord. So, you know, faith in God is a journey.
One of my favorite pastors said that it’s like God has peeled off layers of your onion. You get one layer peeled off. You think you’re all good. Then the next layers come off. And so my journey has been like that.
An earlier company of yours, Lightside Games, was a kind of proving grounds for Christian-themed gaming on Facebook, correct?
Oh, sure. Going back to when I came to Christ, I mentioned what really got me was the Biblical prophecy, and it was true. The other thing that got me was the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” which came out in 2004.
I’d always heard about the crucifixion. When you grow up in Christendom you see crosses everywhere. But I just always thought of it as a symbol of the church. And I was aware of the crucifixion, but I never put it together in my mind. If you’re not careful, you can let the crucifixion become a cultural thing.
What we set out to do at Lightside Games was to really reach people with the Gospel — God’s truth through video games. [We had] games like “Journey of Jesus.” We told very Biblical stories, and we did very well in terms of usage in the gaming space, how frequently people play and return.
We had over 7 million people play our games. We did very well on all those metrics with very high engagement rates, which meant that we knew we had games that were fun. People were willing to pay for what they really enjoyed.
And if you look at what’s happening with TruPlay now, which only has been out a few months, we’re already getting a lot of feedback and results about how people’s lives are changing and being impacted.
TruPlay is your new gaming subscription app, which you released earlier in this year, correct?
Yes. Our commitment to parents and families is that every piece of content contains God’s truth. Now, some of our games are Biblical. We have a game called “Stained Glass” where you put together panes of stained glass, and it comes to life. A character from the Bible comes to tell you their story.
We just released a game about King David. You start where he’s the shepherd boy, and you’re getting called to go battle the [Philistines]. It’s interesting that you play a young King David, but the narration is reflecting back. It’s very action packed. It’s one of our best games, and it’s just very exciting.
Is it the case that parents pay one price for a subscription and kids play as many games as they want?
Exactly. I should also mention there are also digital comics. We have a lot of Biblical content. Every piece of content is going to contain God’s truth, and we’re going to make it fun, and we’re going to make it be excellent. It’s something that parents can be happy their kids are using. But the kids are going to be really excited.
We release new content all the time. We just released “King David’s Battles.” … We release new comics and new videos all the time. We release more every month. We’ve got multiple games in the works that look fantastic.
Once you subscribe, there’s so much content, and we’re continuing to add more and more things that are going to bring truth and weight and that are beautiful, creative, and a lot of fun.
As an expert, what is your advice to parents about kids and gaming in general? What do unsuspecting parents have to fear?
First of all, anxiety, suicide and depression rates are at all-time highs for children. And yet in our society, the answer is ‘Let’s just spend money and give them drugs.’ We’re not short in America on money and drugs. What we’re short of is God’s truth — the peace of God’s truth.
I had an experience very recently. One of my sons brought a friend to the office to test some games. He’s a 9-year-old boy who had no idea who King David was. I thought, well, that’s right because where would King David be? You’re not going to see him on YouTube. You’re not going to see him on “Minecraft” or any magazine or in Disney anything. Right? You’re not going to see him in “Fortnite,” for sure.
The other thing to have to worry about is there’s a lot of toxic content. There’s a lot of hyper-violent content. I mean, we have games with battles. You play King David, but these other games are very gruesome and bloody — just gruesome content.
There’s also very demonic content out there. There’s also sexual material, a lot of sexual content now inside games. It’s being forced on your young children—conversations around sexuality and identity and all these things. They [game makers] also feel that now that drugs are legal in so many states, there are games where you can run your own drug environment. Nobody does anything because it’s legal. So if it’s legal, there’s nothing wrong with it, you know?
In fact, I had a conversation with a very well-known Christian music artist who has children. And her younger daughter was playing a game, a very benign game. But then there was an ad that had sexual material.
As a parent, you can’t stand over your kid’s shoulders 24/7. [But] then your kid sees an ad, and the parent feels betrayed. And so part of the thing with our TruPlay is, first of all, there’s no toxic content. There are also no ads and no means for sexual, predatory behavior.
Do parental ratings on games help at all?
There was a lot of controversy in the 80s about gangster rap. Parents were saying, ‘Hey, this content is essentially pornographic material. We don’t want it sold to kids.’ That was the point. And so the government’s answer was to put a label on it that says ‘Parental warning, explicit parental advisory.’
Do you know what happened as a result of that? They boosted sales. Everybody sold more records. It didn’t stop those records from being sold to kids.
And so you can put ratings on things — I think it helps with little kids, 5 to 10 year olds — but once kids get to a certain age, it almost becomes a draw. What’s bothersome to me is, you have things like “Diablo” and “Grand Theft Auto” where they’re going out of their way to put in really explicit content to try to stir the pot, putting in a lot of sexual material. They know that the kids are going to play it. They don’t care.
We are facing a crisis of faith in this country, and you’re offering a product that leads children toward Christ. What are your thoughts about making a positive dent?
I think we are, but I’ve got a tremendous team, really world class and just tremendous people who do a great job. We know we’re making a difference because we have parents and children write in and tell us that it’s made a big difference to them.
Parents tell us how the kids are learning the Bible, how they’re learning about courage, how they’re learning about their identity.
There’s one game we have called “Ava.” It’s very, very popular. It’s about a little girl who’s getting bullied, and her parents are divorced, and she’s having a hard time in life because of it. It’s about needing to find your identity and who God made you to be. Not in who, you know, not what the enemy tells you. Don’t listen to the enemy’s lies or to what other people say. It’s about who God thinks you are. That’s what your identity is, and that’s a message every kid needs to know. A lot of parents write in or send us videos telling us how much they enjoy it, as well.
That’s a Christian counteroffensive to all the transgender grooming that goes on online. Was that you intention?
Yeah. We’re all humans, and we all go through challenges in life. And rather than pretend bad things don’t exist or try to promote mental illness, which a lot of people are doing now, we’re saying, ‘Hey, look, life is tough, but it doesn’t mean you have to give up. God is with you. There’s hope. There’s a lot of hope.’ You know, that’s what it’s all really about.
If you had the power to fix things — perhaps as the head of some hypothetical oversight body — how would you stop the industry from producing toxic content and become more responsible?
You know, it goes back to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There aren’t many mature adults who would look back and say, ‘I wish as a five year old I would have been exposed to pornographic material, violence or drug usage in a piece of content.’
And there are very few of those same people who would want their own 5 year old to be exposed to that. But they get in these companies, in these organizations, and they think it’s something they need to put in there that’s going to sell, that’s going to be appealing or addictive or controversial.
