Ohio Northern University DigitalCommons@ONU Philosophy and Religion Faculty Scholarship Philosophy and Religion 6-2017 No Player is Ideal: Why Video Game Designers Cannot Ethically Ignore Players’ Real-World Identities Erica L. Neely Ohio Northern University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.onu.edu/phre_faculty Part of the Applied Ethics Commons, Game Design Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Neely, Erica. “No Player is Ideal: Why Video Game Designers Cannot Ethically Ignore Players’ Real-World Identities.” ACM Computers and Society, Vol. 47, Issue 3, 2017, pp. 98-111. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy and Religion at DigitalCommons@ONU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy and Religion Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@ONU. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. No Player Is Ideal Why Video Game Designers Cannot Ethically Ignore Players’ Real - World Identities By Erica L. Neely As video games flourish, designers have a responsibility to treat players and potential players justly. In deontological terms, designers are obliged to treat all of them as having intrinsic worth. Since players are a diverse group, designers must not simply focus on an idealized gamer, who is typically a straight white male. This creates a duty to consider whether design choices place unnecessary barriers to the ability of certain groups of players to achieve their ends in playing a game. I examine the design implication of this for the gameworld, avatar design, and accessibility to players with disabilities. I also consider the limits of designers’ control by examining responses to abusive player chat in multiplayer games.