Praying For Hits: Amazon Bets On Religion

Praying For Hits: Amazon Bets On Religion ‍

Thousands of hostile Philistines are gathered across the valley from the Israelite camp.

The armies are at a standstill, but a nine foot tall Philistine giant comes out to mock his opponents.

David, an Israelite teenage shepherd, chooses to accept and shows up to duel with only a slingshot and some stones.

Against all odds, in one shot David sinks a stone deep in Goliath’s forehead and he is vanquished.

This iconic story of David and Goliath is known across the globe, and is often referenced whenever there is a severe underdog in sports. The House of David, a limited series produced by the Wonder Project, is an eight part series diving into the story of David and his accession to the throne of Israel. The series launched this week on Amazon Prime’s OTT platform and has been prominently featured as one of Amazon’s key releases for the year. The Wonder Project has raised over $100m and is rumored to have received an additional nine figures in investment from Amazon directly for The House of David series.

Dallas Jenkins and Jon Irwin are some of the core minds behind The House of David. Dallas Jenkins is credited with creating The Chosen, a story that tracks the life of Jesus. The Chosen has reached over 200m viewers globally and is currently in Season 4. Jon Irwin’s previous works include the Jesus Revolution and I Can Only Imagine. Amazon is clearly betting that this creative team with the midas touch for the Christian audience will produce another home run for Prime. So far so good, as the recently released series currently occupies the #2 slot in the Top 10 in the U.S. on Prime.

What Is Amazon Seeing?

To understand what drove Amazon to make this sizable investment, it is helpful to understand the context around the Christian entertainment market over the past 25 years. The reason we focus on the Christian market in this piece is because according to Pew Research, in the United States, 63% of adults identify as Christians, 28% percent identify unaffiliated, and 6% identify with other religions. We believe how mainstream entertainment adopts the Christian market is indicative of how it should explore embracing other religious demographics.

Prior to the late 1990s, it would have been hard to foresee any sizable media giant desiring to invest significantly in faith-inspired media. In 1998, Prince of Egypt was created in partnership with DreamWorks, by strong talent such as Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Sandra Bullock. The film cost over $100m, an unthinkable sum to invest in an Old Testament story; however, the bet paid off as it grossed $219m.

Fast forward six years, the Passion of the Christ was released in 2004, grossing over $612m, making it one of the most profitable independent films in history. Even 20 years after its release, it is the second highest grossing R-rated film domestically in history. Both of these movie blockbusters were created on both ends of the demographic spectrum, a family-friendly animated film and an intense graphic depiction of the story of Jesus.

Below is a list of the top ten grossing Christian films of all time, you will notice that there was only one title produced on this list within the past seven years and there is a stark revenue dropoff between the films made in the early 2000s and those in more recent years. The list below includes both explicitly religious stories, like The Passion of the Christ, and also those with mainstream narratives that resonate with religiously-minded consumers, like The Chronicles of Narnia series.

So what is Amazon seeing that is regenerating the interest in catering to the faith market given the largely lackluster performance we have seen over the past decade? The answer is the strong up-tick in young adults turning to faith. In 2021, 25% of 18-25 year olds believed in a “Higher Power” and in 2023 that same group polled at 33%. There is a significant speculation surrounding what is driving this with many pointing to this generation being the first to believe their lives will be worse than their parents combined with the trauma of COVID-19 and the overall decline in mental health. 46% of Christians under the age of 35 say they are keen to see more faith-based content that specifically addresses the topic of mental health.

As reported by the National Research Group, young people have a strong desire to see the media they consume reflect their worldview. The below chart is in response to the question: “have you been watching more faith-based movies and TV shows over the past year?”

(National Research Group)

Gaming is Next

Amazon has determined that this is an area that they should pursue for film and shows; however, if this is an area that other forms of entertainment should pursue, such as video games, remains to be seen. The National Research Group did a poll that found that 36% of Christian respondents under the age of 35 wanted to engage with faith-based video games, which was only slightly behind the desire to see more short-form content (e.g., Tiktok or Instagram) at 40%, and faith-based podcasts at 37%. To date, we have seen very few games attempt to cater in any specific way to this audience.

We believe that groups attempting to build games for this audience should take an approach similar to the House of David or Prince of Egypt, leveraging the public domain IP of the Bible and making a game that has mainstream appeal. Games need to be fun, if they are not fun then no one will play them. This is why so few educational games or other religious games have found success, they are constantly competing in the most competitive digital media forum. The approach that will be successful is similar to what the House of David has done, the focus is on the entertainment value of the story.

There are several strong examples of iconic franchises leaning into the Christian allegory to support their games. The Doom series, a game series built by the revered John Carmack and John Romero, depicts a story of a space marine accidentally opening a portal to hell and unleashing demons. The space marine then proceeds to fight the forces of hell back on earth ultimately defeating the Icon of Sin. The popular Assassins Creed series on the other hand was the first game set in the Holy Land and heavily features religious locations such as the Dome of the Rock. The narrative also includes the Knights Templar, an organization founded in 1118 A.D. known as the “poor knights of Christ”, who took monastic vows in the defense of pilgrims and the protection of the Holy Land. Both of these series leveraged the allegory to help create further emotional buy-in from their players.

We predict that we will see more games take this one step further and have the stories of religious texts, in this case the Bible, be more prominently featured. Imagine an Age of Empires version with nations from the Old Testament or a role-playing game tracking the story of Joshua. Focusing on stories that are meaningful to this audience but also allowing others who may not subscribe to the religion to enjoy the art. This is the fine line that we believe will be pressure tested by mainstream media, just like the House of David series. It will start with Christianity in the US, and if successful, will spread quickly to serve other large religious audiences.

Risks of Religious Gaming Content

There are clearly risks to attempting to build a title with religious themes, one of which is that you are officially writing off the second largest gaming market in the world: China. There are approximately 209,447 games available on the Apple App Store in the United States. It is estimated that ~75% of these games are made by developers outside of the United States. China is much stricter in terms of the games they allow to receive a license, which you need in order to distribute in China.

In 2024, China had less than 1% of the games on their app stores compared to the U.S., only allowing 1,416 video games, of which only 110 were foreign titles. If that hurdle was not daunting enough, if you have any content in your apps with religious affiliation you need additional blessing from China’s National Religious Affairs Administration. Ultimately, Western game companies already have a very low chance of success entering this market; however, adding a religious theme in the gaming content almost ensures rejection by the Communist Party.

Two other potential risks:

1) potentially alienating the 28% of adults in the U.S. who do not affiliate with that religion or the 6% who affiliate with other religions.

2) facing intense scrutiny from the Christian community for inaccurate portrayals of the story. For example, the disclaimer below appears at the beginning of House of David espisodes.

Gamers are known to hold no punches on their feedback, and pairing this with their religious affiliation will undoubtedly create a multiplying effect on scrutiny.

‍Takeaway: Amazon has decided to wager over a hundred million dollars that the 63% of adults in the U.S. that identify as Christian are underserved with Christian content. We believe that this investment in the House of David is the beachhead of more significant investment in the religious content space, and gaming will be the next medium to pressure test this thesis. Amazon’s investment appears to be paying off.