These violent computer games I have just written about pose an interesting question: do the actions performed in the game world affect our moral fabric, and our body and psyche? The focus on violent computer games is mostly concerned with the values of the game objects, and not as much with the effects of the games on the users. For answering that other ques- tion, there is a relevant and oft-cited body of research focused on analyzing the effects of violent games on their users. This research has been used as a spearhead by the media and policy makers when it comes to defi ning the morality of games in a larger, cultural perspective. By effect studies I am referring to psychological empirical studies that argue for a causal link between the game’s ethical content and the player’s behavioral patterns.9 In what follows I will formulate a criticism of this effect studies research from the analytical framework of computer game ethics that I have argued for.
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The research on the effects of computer games on the behavior of their users is a reasonably well-consolidated fi eld of research in psychology; a fi eld that, much like many similar studies done with other media as targets, has yet to provide conclusive data on the correlation between violent or sexual content and what I will here call “unethical” behavior. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that may point to a certain relationship between the violent content of a game and the unethical behavior of players. This connection is of extreme interest for understanding the ethical footprint of computer games in our culture.
It is not my intention to delve deep into a methodological discussion about these studies, as our methods are not compatible.10 Furthermore, the goals we are seeking to achieve are not similar: while effect studies tries to connect unethical content with unethical behavior, I have tried to defi ne what constitutes the ethics of computer games, and how we can analyze them. Nevertheless, there is an obvious connection between the fi eld of effect studies and the interest in the ethics of games. In the intersection of these two areas I fi nd some substantial fl aws concerning the ethical discourse and rhetoric that informs many effect studies. I shall present arguments against the use of these effect studies as a tool for analyzing computer game ethics.
Effect studies focus considerably on the content of the computer game.
Most of this research takes as a starting point how the game world looks—
the audiovisual representation of the player’s actions in computer games.
This is their main ethical fl aw: these studies can say much about the rela- tions between the graphical representation of the players’ actions and the effects on their out-of-the-game behavior, yet they are leaving out the complex network of elements that also make playing computer games a moral experience. While their results concerning physical reactions are interesting, pointing at some correlation between actions in the game and the reactions of our bodies when playing, these studies seem to deny the fact that players are moral beings, and that we are not slaves to our cor- poral, primordial reactions.
The content of computer games, their fi ctional element, is relevant for their ethical construction of meaning, and thus these effect studies do make a valid point. I am not advocating here a total disregard of content when it comes to considering the effects of computer games on their users.
Nevertheless, in this book I am arguing for a networked ethical system that
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explains the moral nature and structure of computer games beyond their fi ctional content, which, though relevant, is not alone in the confi guration of the experience of a computer game, and thus it should not be considered as the only source of behavioral conditioning.
Effect studies tend to fall into a guilty/victim user conception: players are victims of a game system that “forces” them to behave violently, both in the game and outside the game by “direct” correlation of the game content and the actions outside the game experience; but players are also guilty of engaging in those activities, both the violence and the act of playing a game. Effect studies tend to consider players moral zombies, unable to critically refl ect on what they do inside or outside the game. This consideration is in itself an unethical statement, since it is treating ethical agents as mere input providers who cannot reason on their own. As I have repeatedly argued throughout this book, players are ethical beings capable of deep and complex ethical refl ection about their acts in the game.
There are recent claims, both from computer game critics and from other social institutions, about computer game training disinhibiting users, making them less sensitive to committing violent actions. Again, this reveals a discourse that is damaging for computer game culture: the player as a passive puppet in the hands of mischievous game designers.
But before I present my criticism of this perspective, I believe it is neces- sary to state clearly once again that there is a certain truth to the impor- tance given to the game content and to the relatively passive role of the player, though these perspectives are often misguided. Players need to be morally mature to understand the ethical values of the game they are playing and the moral nature of their actions. This moral maturity is achieved through time, by means of playing games and refl ecting upon them—it is a knowledge that we as players have to acquire. This ludic moral maturity implies that players can engage critically in the gameplay experience, using their own game culture, their self-perception as players, and their ethical being outside the game as evaluation tools for the moral- ity of their acts.
If we don’t have the moral maturity to understand the ethical implica- tions of a computer game—of its content, design, or culture—then we are actually being nonvirtuous beings, and games can be considered a source of harm. Hence the importance of age regulation codes, game education,
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and other social and cultural institutions. For now, suffi ce it to say that the content of computer games does play a role in the ethical construction of meaning and in the effects of the game, but its true importance has to be seen from a wider, more inclusive perspective.
What effect studies have consistently left out of their research are two elements of fundamental importance for the ethics of games: the game as designed object/experience, and the moral presence of the player. To leave out the importance of game design and the ethical affordances that it may have means not addressing a very important issue: how the content of the game is designed to be interacted with, and how the game system encour- ages and rewards the player’s participation. The design of the game is a fundamental element in the ethical construction of meaning in computer games, as it is also highly relevant for the perception and interpretation that players have of those ethical values. Furthermore, because it is the game as object, and thus the game design, that initially creates the subjec- tivity of the player, and because it is also the underlying structure that makes the game world playable, the game design has to be taken into consideration when it comes to evaluating the effects of computer games.
When playing a game that is poorly balanced, frustration may arise and, in some personalities, anger through frustration. For example, as a thought experiment, playing a platform game in which there are no saves and in which the jumps have to be extremely well calculated or the level will restart, wasting all the progress achieved during gameplay, might foster in the players a state of frustration that could make them angry. This game can have colorful, bright, innocuous content, like a clone of the Mario games, and yet it can produce an unwanted physical effect. As I have argued before, the design of the game is partially responsible for the ethical confi guration of the player-subject in her relation with the game world and her interactions with other agents using the afforded game system mechanics.
The design of computer games is not neutral. Game designers elaborate complex challenge systems that pretend to engage us in a ludic activity.
As I have argued before, part of our player-subjectivity is determined by the game system and its affordances. A game design in which cheating and harassing the opponents is encouraged, helping those who are ruthless, is unethical. A game like Burnout 3, in which players race against each other
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trying to crash their opponents’ cars, would be unethical if the game design was not balanced, since some players could harass others without being punished. Balancing the game, in this case, is creating an appropriate equilibrium between the actions the player can do against other agents and the negative consequences of those actions. Another case of unethical design due to balancing issues is Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings.11 When played in diffi cult single-player mode, this game’s computer-controlled civilizations receive an advantage in the number of resources they are given and the speed with which they can harvest them. Finally, the example of the privileged strategies in Warcraft (which I mentioned in the chapter dedicated to game design) illustrates other possibilities of unethical design that ought to be considered because they affect and harm players and their ludic experience, since they systemically allow for some players to defeat others by virtue of a failed game design.
A proper expansion of effect studies’ methods would be to incorporate an evaluation of the game design and questions directed to the players as a part of their empirical method. By relating the content of the game to the way it is designed, researchers should be able to point out those ethical affordances that might be of relevance for their study on the effects of a computer game. Then the result of the research would take into account how the actions that players can perform in computer games are partially determined by a game design that has the goal of limiting player behavior and encouraging certain actions.
Nevertheless, taking into account the game design is not enough to vali- date the ethical relevance of effect studies. It is essential to overcome the discourse of the guilty victim and to defi ne the player as a moral being who has responsibility and refl ective capacities when it comes to playing games. Effect studies cannot disregard the moral capacities of players; they should not be treated as moral zombies, for they do actually behave ethi- cally in the context of playing computer games.
Effect studies in general do not ask the players about their refl ections on the game itself, but they ask them to correlate the act of playing the game with their feelings and actions immediately after playing the game, and a while after doing so. Therefore, there are no insights about how the player perceives the act of playing a violent computer game, and there is no depth in the understanding of what players feel and think when engaging in a violent computer game. Players are not entitled to refl ect upon the
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morality or even the nature of their acts—their status as moral beings is disdained, thus leaving out most of what makes computer games ethical experiences. Effect studies discard players as moral agents, and thus their work has to be taken as just a partial view of how some content of some games may infl uence some actions, but not the moral fabric of a player or a community.
Only by reassuring us that researchers acknowledge the ethical being of computer game players can effect studies yield relevant information about how computer games affect their users’ behavior. Effect studies can be a very valuable tool for understanding how players relate to the game experi- ence and how the game experience carries ethical values from inside the game to outside the game, and the other way around. The relations between the game and the player need to be charted if we want to understand how some design choices affect the player’s ethical refl ections and her behavior, and how those changes may affect the way she relates to the game. Serious effect studies should take into consideration the ethical construction of games as experiences; only then would we be able to answer some of the most interesting questions regarding the actual effects of computer games in our moral universe.
In this chapter I have approached two of the most interesting ethical issues that computer games create: their violent content and the possible effects that this content has on game players. Throughout my refl ections on these two closely intertwined topics, I have insisted on the importance of under- standing this ethical agency not as a quality that is always fully developed, but that we, as cultural beings, develop and learn through our experiences as players. To be a player is a learning process that takes years—and to be a good player from a moral perspective, to be aware of the ethical choices and dilemmas that computer games pose, to be able to act according to our moral fabric, is a lifelong process—one that also has the promise, for game development, of future players who are also interested in ludic expe- riences of heavy moral load.
Some readers may be now wondering: “Is it ethically correct to play computer games with unethical content?” To those who ask this question, I can only answer: think about who plays. Is the player mature enough?
Does he or she understand the meaning of the rules, of the gameplay, of the game world? Is the player aware of her ethical agency, of her ethical
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being? Is the game respectful of that ethical agency? Players are ethical beings: we can refl ect about our actions in games, and we have the moral tools to distinguish between the values in a game and the values we live by. But we, players, developers, parents, citizens, politicians, have the duty to foster this culture of game ethics. We have to foster the development of ethical players and the maturing of computer games as expressive media.
This duty is a fundamental part of our ethical being and obligations toward others and society.
Computer games pose ethical problems for their moral content and the way they affect us. But I insist: as players, our ethical capacities allow us to experience those problems not only as challenges, but also, and more importantly, as opportunities for experiencing morals, for testing and applying our virtues, and for building, within the game, a successful ethical experience.
7 The Ethics of Game Design
Designing computer games is a complicated task—there are considerations to be made concerning the player, the balance of the system, and how to create fun or engagement in an activity that will generate the intended ludic experience. To these complexities, I would like to add one more: if game design is a moral activity, since the object created is ethically rele- vant, and if the goal of game design is, generally speaking, to create com- pelling gameplay—how can we create interesting ethical gameplay?
In this chapter I will not directly answer this question. What I will do is approach the question of ethical gameplay from an analytical perspec- tive: I am not trying to provide specifi c tools for a game designer to appro- priate, apply, and instantly generate ethically interesting gameplay. My goal in this chapter is to think about ethical gameplay, to understand what this means, and to provide a framework that can inspire and challenge game developers.
Before presenting such a framework, I am going to briefl y analyze some recent computer games that have allegedly included ethical gameplay as a signifi cant part of their experience. I will argue that those games are noble but failed attempts at embedding ethics into computer game experience because they have not taken into consideration the different actors in the network of ethics that every game experience creates. This also means that they have neglected the understanding of the player as a moral being. With those games I shall start my refl ections on designing ethical gameplay.