{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T23:20:36Z","timestamp":1777936836550,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2016,7,9]],"date-time":"2016-07-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1468022400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["New Media &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>The article discusses the methodological aspects of studying religion in video games. It examines the concept of \u201cprocedural religion,\u201d that is, the representations of religion via rule-systems in games, and investigates how we can formally analyze these representations. The article uses Petri Nets, a mathematical and a graphical tool for modeling, analyzing, and designing discrete event systems, in order to analyze how religion is represented in the rule-systems of two different mainstream video games\u2014 Age of Empires II, developed in the United States, and Quraish, developed in Syria. By comparing the rule-systems of both games, the article provides empirical evidence on how game rule-systems migrate between cultures and influence local game production by providing local game developers with pre-defined formulas for expressing their ideas while simultaneously limiting the scope of such expression with schematized patterns. On a more general level, the article discusses what rule-system analysis can tell us about video games as cultural and religious artifacts.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1461444816649923","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2016,5,26]],"date-time":"2016-05-26T22:30:09Z","timestamp":1464301809000},"page":"126-141","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":13,"title":["Procedural religion: Methodological reflections on studying religion in video games"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"19","author":[{"given":"V\u00edt","family":"\u0160isler","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,7,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-1461444816649923","unstructured":"Aarseth E (2001) Computer game studies, year one. Game Studies 1(1). 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