Preaching to the choir could prove beneficial to the bottom line of Christian-themed game developer and publisher Left Behind Games. The company announced in in a release that Christian stores have preordered 37,174 PC games in 503 locations.

Texas was the first state to be a test market for Left Behind games. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon said the company is moving forward with the Walmart partnership. Left Behind’s Christian-themed PC games will soon be available in “a limited number of Walmart stores covering a broad area of states,” whatever exactly that means.

Digital Praise, the company responsible for the music games Dance Praise and Guitar Praise , has announced a planned merger with Left Behind Games Inc, most well-known for games based on the Left Behind best-selling series of books.

The two companies have had a friendly working relationship in recent months, as in December 2009 Left Behind gave Digital Praise a no-interest short term loan of $50,000.

In its latest press materials, Left Behind Games vows to move past the PC and focus on the Xbox 360 and Wii for future development (although it doesn’t mention the PlayStation 3. Maybe there are just too many heathens playing that console).

The company has also entered an agreement with videogame representative firm SMP Communications to help get Christian-themed games into more retail outlets.

Is the Christian market for games being underserved? Is there, in fact, a market for Christian games? Walmart and Left Behind Games will try to answer those questions with a test in 100 stores in the Houston and Dallas areas. These stores will stock back catalog PC games based on the best selling Left Behind book series.

Troy Lyndon, CEO of Left Behind business unit Inspired Media Entertainment, said in a recent press release that the company picked Texas because that state has the highest number of evangelical Protestants in the United States (it has more than 23,000 churches statewide)…

September 2006, Afkar Media, a Syrian game company, released a PC Real Time Strategy (RTS) game to positively portray Islam during the first hundred years of its existence. Called Quraish (according to the official website; the Christian Science Monitor calls it Al-Quraysh), players can choose to be one of five powers, including the Romans, the Persians, and a fledgling Muslim empire.

Afkar Media isn’t a new company, having also released Under Siege, a first/third person shooter that follows the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from a Muslim point of view. Both of these games are intended to show Muslims in a more positive light, portraying them as protagonists.

Radwan Kasmiya, executive manager of Afkar Media, believes that …