The Videogame Ethics Reader Revised First Edition Edited by Jose P. Zagal Included in this preview: • Copyright Page • Table of Contents • Excerpt of Chapter 1 For additional information on adopting this book for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x501 or via e-mail at [email protected] revised first edition Edited by José P. Zagal DePaul University Bassim Hamadeh, Publisher Christopher Foster, Vice President Michael Simpson, Vice President of Acquisitions Jessica Knott, Managing Editor Stephen Milano, Creative Director Kevin Fahey, Cognella Marketing Program Manager Jamie Giganti, Project Editor Al Grisanti, Acquisitions Editor Luiz Ferreira, Licensing Associate Copyright © 2012 by University Readers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereaft er invented, including photocopying, microfi lming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of University Readers, Inc. First published in the United States of America in 2012 by University Readers, Inc. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. 16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-60927-635-5 Contents Preface v EFFECTS 1 Blazing Angels or Resident Evil? Can Violent Video Games Be a 3 Force for Good? Christopher J. Ferguson Now It’s Personal: On Abusive Game Design 31 Douglas Wilson and Miguel Sicart The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 47 Ben DeVane and Kurt D. Squire Encouraging Ethical Refl ection with Videogames 67 José P. Zagal ETHICS OF PLAY 83 Gaining Advantage: How Videogame Players Defi ne and Negotiate Cheating 85 Mia Consalvo A Rape in Cyberspace: or TINYSOCIETY, and How to Make One 103 Julian Dibbell Playing Metal Gear Solid 4 Well: Being a Good Snake 119 James Paul Gee IN-GAME ETHICS 129 Grow-a-Game: Tools for Values Conscious Design and Analysis of Digital Games 131 Jonathan Belman, Mary Flanagan, Helen Nissenbaum, and James Diamond Playing with Good and Evil: Videogames and Moral Philosophy 145 Peter E. Rauch Applying Ethics: Case Studies 163 Miguel Sicart Videogames and the Ethics of Care 191 John Murphy and José Zagal INDUSTRY + SOCIETY 205 “EA Spouse” and the Crisis of Video Game Labour: Enjoyment, Exclusion, Exploitation, Exodus 207 Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter Putting the Gay in Games: Cultural Production and GLBT Content in Videogames 225 Adrienne Shaw Production Protection to Copy(right) Protection: From 10NES to DVDs 249 Casey O’Donnell Codemining, Modding and Gamemaking 263 James Newman Free Speech and the Entertainment Software Association: An Inside Look at the Censorship 287 Assault on the Videogame Industry Clay Calvert and Robert D. Richards Preface few years ago, I was off ered a choice. It wasn’t a diffi cult choice. Would I rather teach a course A on videogame ethics or an introductory game design course? At the time I didn’t know much (if anything) about moral philosophy, so I decided on the videogame ethics course. It seemed like a good opportunity to learn something interesting. I also thought that a few weeks would be enough to get up to speed on the debates, consensus, and understanding of the intersection of ethics and videogames. I naively assumed that all there was to “videogame ethics” was deciding whether or not violent videogames should be banned. It’s now a few years later and I am still travelling down what I quickly realized was a rabbit-hole of fascinating questions, issues, and ideas. Violent videogames and their potential eff ects are thin thread in a larger and richer tapestry of themes and topics. Th e more I learn and discuss with others, the more convinced I am that videogames, as the dominant art form of the 21st century, will increasingly play a central role in our understanding of morality and ethics. How we go about designing and creating videogames, what we choose to say and express with them, and how we engage with and play them, will all increasingly refl ect and inform our behavior and broader understanding of who we are, and who we can aspire to become. Th is book off ers a collection of essays and readings that have been useful to me and my students as we have examined and explored questions of ethics through the lens of videogames. On the surface, it would appear that many of the chapters in this book aren’t about ethics. However, they all highlight ethi- cal questions and topics that are incredibly relevant to videogames. It just depends on the perspective on ethics and games you are using. Perspectives on Ethics and Games Why do we fi nd lying a reprehensible activity, yet celebrate great Poker players for their ability to lie and deceive their opponents? Does playing an ultra-violent videogame imply that I’m a bad person? Is it ethical for a game designer to purposefully attempt to elicit negative emotional reactions like fear, anger, or guilt from their players? Should videogame makers discourage players from spending unhealthy amounts of time playing their games? Should players have the right to transfer or sell their saved game fi les or characters created in online games? Is it ethical to use a strategy guide or cheat codes to play a game? Does it make a diff erence if the game is multiplayer? Should certain games be banned based on their content? Should they be banned based on their gameplay? Th ese are just some of the questions I’ve been asked over the years. Th ey’re all about videogames, and they’re all about ethics. However, they assume diff erent perspectives, focusing on the games, what is in the game, the players and what they do in game, or the people who make them. When examining these questions I’ve found it useful to pay attention to these perspectives since they highlight diff erent issues and concerns. Focusing on the Games Can a “mere game” be good or bad in a moral sense? Should we condemn a game about the Columbine school shootings1 simply because it is about a serious and emotional topic? Perhaps there are themes or topics that should never be part of a videogame, regardless of how they are treated or presented. Many people would agree with this. Consider for example the outcry in Germany regarding the announce- ment of 1378, a student-created game set in the Cold War that would allow people to play as border guards shooting political refugees trying to cross the Berlin wall2. Or, recall the controversy surrounding Medal of Honor, a fi rst-person shooter game published in 2010 by Electronic Arts? Th e game, set during the opening moments of the US invasion of Afghanistan, originally featured a multiplayer mode would allow players to play as the Taliban. Aft er considerable pressure and outcry, the term “Taliban” was replaced with “Opposing Force” though the game remained otherwise the same. Does simply changing the name solve any ethical issues the game might have? More generally, does the act of playing a game inherently trivialize the issues it tackles and thus render any game about a serious topic inherently inappropriate and unethical? Are there things for which it will always be unethical to make game about? We could perhaps then examine the moral worth of a videogame by focusing on the consequences that the existence of a game may have. From those consequences, we might have a basis for determining the morality of a game. In what ways does a game aff ect its players, our society, or our culture? For example, is the hyper-violent game Madworld, released in 2009 by SEGA for Nintendo’s Wii console, good or bad? We might argue that its depictions of violence are such that the game might have a negative eff ect on its players by desensitizing them to violence. It might even increase the chance that they will become more violent individuals. On the other hand, perhaps it is a moral game because of what we can learn from it about game design and for the pleasure it may bring to those who play it. Aft er all, popular game site IGN3 praised the game (rating it with a 9/10) calling it a “playful, absurdist celebration of the playful, absurdist celebration of violence in video games.”4 So, which of these factors should we consider, and how we should weigh them? Focusing in the Game If we think of ethics as rules for guiding our behavior and then look at games, there are remarkable parallels. Games are also systems of rules. Sometimes those rules are arbitrary or nonsensical (Why can’t 1 Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, available at http://columbinegame.com/ 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11453443 and http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6059839,00.html 3 http://www.ign.com 4 http://www.gameinformer.com/games/madworld/b/wii/archive/2009/09/22/review.aspx I pick up a golf ball with my hand and place it directly in the hole?), but they are rules nonetheless. Th ey are also eff ective, through the use of rewards and other incentives, at infl uencing our behavior. I’ve seen players spend hours with a game trying to get one last golden coin. If, in addition to a game’s system of rule, we add a rich narrative storyline, characters, and detailed settings, we can begin to examine the ethics of actions in games as defi ned by the games themselves.