Print Screen: The Ethics of Computer Games
6/25/2009 3:34 PM | 8 Comments | Page 2 of 2
In terms of ethics, the game-development community is still wedded to the choice-and-consequences model. But what is the payoff for gamers? I still run into many gamers who insist that, so long as the game is "fun," nothing else really matters or is even worth talking about. A good ending and an evil ending are reasons to keep playing, not reasons to doubt the convictions of the developers. Sicart is an academic, so is this just more pointy-head musing about stuff that will never filter down to the rest of us?
I hope not. Gamers who see
Shadow of the Colossus as no more than an artistic platform/action game are missing its elegant sadness. If we, as gamers, insist that games are valuable media that affects us emotionally -- even if that emotion is just joy -- then we have to leave room to question whether a game that pretends to be about moral choice really is. Or whether an action game about insurgency, according to the developer's claims, has nothing to do with ongoing real-world wars.
Still, for every gamer who sees a decision tree as a way to "game the system," there's another one asking what their character should do in that situation. Even if
Knights of the Old Republic is just math, some people won't play evil -- because they know what evil is, and it doesn't speak to their souls. For all the talk about ethical game design, there is little talk about ethical game-players (massively-multiplayer online games aside), and a game without a player isn't much use at all.
