[Karen Schrier] Ethics and Game Design Teaching V(BookFi org) pdf
Ethics and Game Design:
Teaching Values through Play Karen Schrier Columbia University, USA David Gibson Arizona State University, USAInformatIon scIence reference Hershey • New York Director of Editorial Content: Kristin Klinger Director of Book Publications: Julia Mosemann Acquisitions Editor: Lindsay Johnston Development Editor: Christine Bufton Typesetter: Jamie Snavely Quality control: Jamie Snavely Cover Design: Lisa Tosheff Printed at: Yurchak Printing Inc.
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Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ethics and game design : teaching values through play / Karen Schrier and David Gibson, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: "This book addressing an emerging field of study, ethics and games and answers how we can better design and use games to foster ethical thinking and discourse in classrooms"--Provided by publisher
ISBN 978-1-61520-845-6 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-61520-846-3 (ebook) 1. Video games--Social aspects. 2. Video games-
-Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Video games--Design. 4. Video games--Psychological aspects. 5. Video games--Philosophy.
I. Schrier, Karen. II. Gibson, David, 1950 Aug. 27- GV1469.34.S52E86 2010 794.8--dc22 2009040565 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the
authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.Editorial Advisory Board
Mia Consalvo, MIT, USA Nathaniel Croce, Cerebral Vortex Games, Canada Drew Davidson, Carnegie Mellon University, USA David Gibson, Arizona State University, USA Stephen Jacobs, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA Charles Kinzer, Columbia University, USA Karen Schrier, Columbia University, USA Jose Zagal, Depaul University, USA
List of Reviewers
Ben Medler Chris Parker Chris Swain Colleen Macklin Darnel Degand David Gibson David Langendoen David Simkins Debra Austin Drew Davidson Erin Hoffman Ethan Kennerly Gene Koo James Diamond Jaroslav Švelch Jennifer Groff Jon Melenson Jose Zagal Karen Schrier Lance Vikaros Marina Bers Mia Consalvo Miguel Sicart Mitu Khandaker Nathaniel Croce Neha Khetrapal Peter Rauch Rania Hodhod Ronah Harris Ross Fitzgerald Rudy McDaniel Sam Gilbert Scott Leutenegger Seth Sivak Siebenthal Sharman Stephen Balzac Stephen Jacobs Tobi Saulnier
Table of Contents
Foreword ............................................................................................................................................. xv
Preface ................................................................................................................................................. xx
Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................... xxv
Section 1
Situating Ethics and Games
Chapter 1 Values between Systems: Designing Ethical Gameplay ......................................................................... 1 Miguel Sicart, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark Chapter 2 Video Games for Prosocial Learning .................................................................................................... 16 Gene Koo, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, USA Scott Seider, Boston University, USA
Section 2
Cognitive and Social Psychological Perspectives
Chapter 3 Videogames and Moral Pedagogy: A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach ...................................................... 35 Dan Staines, The University of New South Wales, Australia Chapter 4 The Good, The Bad, and The Player: The Challenges to Moral Engagement in Single-Player Avatar-Based Video Games .................................................................................................................. 52 Jaroslav Švelch, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic Chapter 5 Playing with Ethics: Experiencing New Ways of Being in RPGs ........................................................ 69 David Simkins, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Section 3
Philosophical Perspectives
Chapter 6 Bioshock in the Cave: Ethical Education in Plato and in Video Games ............................................... 86 Roger Travis, University of Connecticut, USA Chapter 7 Virtual Ethics: Ethics and Massively Multiplayer Online Games ...................................................... 102 John Nordlinger, Microsoft Research, USA Chapter 8 Sideways into Truth: Kierkegaard, Philistines, and Why We Love Sex and Violence ....................... 109 Erin Hoffman, Philomath Games, USA Chapter 9 What Videogames have to Teach Us about Screenworld and the Humanistic Ethos ......................... 125 David Phelps, Indiana University, USA
Section 4
Youth, Family, and Play
Chapter 10 Ethics at Play: Patterns of Ethical Thinking among Young Online Gamers ....................................... 151 Sam Gilbert, The GoodPlay Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA Chapter 11 Family Fun and Fostering Values ....................................................................................................... 167 J. Alison Bryant, PlayScience, USA Jordana Drell, Nickelodeon/MTV Networks, USA Chapter 12 Cognitive Science Helps Formulate Games for Moral Education ...................................................... 181 Neha Khetrapal, University of Bielefeld, Germany Chapter 13 Moral Development through Social Narratives and Game Design .................................................... 197 Lance Vikaros, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA Darnel Degand, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA
Section 5
Design Considerations and Reflections
Chapter 14 The Mechanic is the Message: How to Communicate Values in Games through the Mechanics
of User Action and System Response ................................................................................................. 217
Chris Swain, USC Games Institute and University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, USA
Chapter 15 Applied Ethics Game Design: Some Practical Guidelines ................................................................. 236 Rudy McDaniel, University of Central Florida, USA Stephen M. Fiore, University of Central Florida, USA Chapter 16 Using Mission US: For Crown or Colony? to Develop Historical Empathy and Nurture Ethical Thinking .................................................................................................................................. 255 Karen Schrier, Columbia University, USA James Diamond, Education Development Center/Center for Children & Technology, USA David Langendoen, Electric Funstuff, USA Chapter 17 Reacting to Re:Activism: A Case Study in the Ethics of Design ........................................................ 274 Colleen Macklin, Parsons the New School for Design, USA Chapter 18 Reality from Fantasy: Using Predictive Scenarios to Explore Ethical Dilemmas .............................. 291 Stephen R. Balzac, 7 Steps Ahead, USA Chapter 19 The Mechanic is the Message: A Post Mortem in Progress ................................................................ 311 Brenda Brathwaite, Savannah College of Art and Design, USA John Sharp, Savannah College of Art and Design, USA
Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 330
About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 353
Index ................................................................................................................................................... 360
Detailed Table of Contents
Foreword ............................................................................................................................................. xv
Preface ................................................................................................................................................. xx
Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................... xxv
Section 1
Situating Ethics and Games
Chapter 1 Values between Systems: Designing Ethical Gameplay ......................................................................... 1 Miguel Sicart, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark This chapter defines ethical gameplay as a consequence of game design choices. The author proposes an
analytical model that defines ethical gameplay as an experience that stems from a particular set of game design decisions. These decisions have in common a design method, called ethical cognitive dissonance, based on the conscious creative clash between different models of agency in a game. The chapter outlines this method and its application in different commercial computer games.
Chapter 2 Video Games for Prosocial Learning .................................................................................................... 16 Gene Koo, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, USA Scott Seider, Boston University, USA In this chapter, the authors consider the capabilities video games offer to educators who seek to foster
prosocial development, using three popular frameworks: moral education, character education, and care ethics. While all three of these frameworks previously considered literature and film as helpful tools, the chapter suggests that video games are unique from these other media in the multiple levers through which they can influence the worldview, values, and behaviors of players. Similar to literature and film, video games possess content—plot, characters, conflict, themes, and imagery—with which participants interact. Unlike other media, however, video games scaffold players’ experiences not only via narrative and audio-visual content, but also by the rules, principles, and objectives governing what participants do. Moreover, many video games possess an ecosystem that impacts players’ interpretation of the game itself—for example, on-line hint guides and discussion groups as well as the opportunity to play in the
company of peers in either physical or virtual proximity. The chapter considers opportunities and chal- lenges presented by each of these unique facets of video games for fostering the prosocial development of participants.
Section 2
Cognitive and Social Psychological Perspectives
Chapter 3 Videogames and Moral Pedagogy: A Neo-Kohlbergian Approach ...................................................... 35 Dan Staines, The University of New South Wales, Australia The Four Component Model of Moral Functioning is a framework for understanding moral competence
originally developed by James Rest and subsequently revised with Dacia Narvaez. It posits that moral competence can be broken up into four distinct components: moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral action. The purpose of the present chapter is to demonstrate, via an examination of three commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) videogames, Ultima IV, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect, and how this model can function as a blueprint for the design of moral content in games intended for pedagogy and entertainment.
Chapter 4 The Good, The Bad, and The Player: The Challenges to Moral Engagement in Single-Player Avatar-Based Video Games .................................................................................................................. 52 Jaroslav Švelch, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic This chapter presents a theoretical model for analyzing the challenges inherent in the implementation of
moral choices in single-player avatar-based video games. Based on previous research in moral psychol- ogy and game studies, the chapter investigates the relationship between the player’s moral emotions and the events brought about in the fictional world of a video game. The author finds two factors that govern the identification with the moral content of the game’s fiction: the implementation of moral agency into the game through two basic scenarios (fixed justice and accumulation of deeds), and the style of gameplay the player chooses to follow. Numerous examples, from interviews, on-line discussions and gaming press, are offered as instances when players feel moral emotions about im(moral) actions they have taken in a video game.
Chapter 5 Playing with Ethics: Experiencing New Ways of Being in RPGs ........................................................ 69 David Simkins, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA Role playing games are good spaces for ethical play. Participants can take on roles very different from
their own and experience the world through a variety of social contexts. This form of play can be en- couraged by good game design principles including the balanced use of consequence, mirroring, social context and freedom. This chapter examines the structure of ethics in role playing games and uses case studies of expert role players and analysis of game design to explore the effective use of the four design principles in popular games.
Section 3
Philosophical Perspectives
Chapter 6 Bioshock in the Cave: Ethical Education in Plato and in Video Games ............................................... 86 Roger Travis, University of Connecticut, USA Plato’s cave, when read with attention to its ludic element, provides a model for the way video games
can teach ethics. This chapter describes the cave-culture-game, the interactivity of the prisoners of the cave with the shadow-puppet play. It argues that on its own, the cave-culture-game gives insight into the standard reproduction of dominant ideological ethics by most games that have frameworks of ethical choice. The attempted disruption of this cave-culture-game by the philosopher, however, gives additional insight into the ethical potential of video games. To explore this, the chapter provides a close reading of 2K’s Bioshock, which shows how video games can teach ethics through disruptive gestures such as the forced killing of a major character.
Chapter 7 Virtual Ethics: Ethics and Massively Multiplayer Online Games ...................................................... 102 John Nordlinger, Microsoft Research, USA Many of the opportunities in the virtual world are not available in the physical world, others open our eyes
to real world opportunities we couldn’t imagine and teach us vocabulary and skills applicable to the real world. This chapter explores some of the connections between virtual decisions and real consequences, as envisioned in thought experiments of early philosophers from both eastern and western traditions.
Chapter 8 Sideways into Truth: Kierkegaard, Philistines, and Why We Love Sex and Violence ....................... 109 Erin Hoffman, Philomath Games, USA The interactive medium is often discussed as being possibly the ultimate in “meta” studies, touching
virtually every discipline, and yet it is rarely discussed in serious terms of one of the most comprehensive of humanities: philosophy. Correspondingly, philosophy and the traditional humanities have historically distanced themselves from games, relegating them to some curious and inconsequential sub-study of cultural anthropology, if they are studied at all. Yet it is the very human foundational compulsion to contemplate death—as the chapter shows through the works of philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Ernest Becker—that drives much of the violent content that makes the video game medium a lightning rod for cultural scrutiny and controversy. The chapter explores a number of games, including the con- troversial Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, through the lens of existential death-anxiety to show how video games represent contemplation of fundamental ethical concerns in the human experience.
Chapter 9 What Videogames have to Teach Us about Screenworld and the Humanistic Ethos ......................... 125 David Phelps, Indiana University, USA
Recent societal critiques air concerns about the pervasiveness and ubiquity of screen-based technology, charging that screens place the development of imaginative, relational, reasoning, and appreciative facul- ties at stake. Many of these critiques suffer, however, from a sensational and moralistic formulation. To move forward the ethical investigation into videogames, a value system, the Humanistic Ethos, is intro- duced and articulated in terms of observable qualities along four dimensions—the Poetic Imagination, Dialogic Relations, Systemic Thinking, and Existential Vigor. A survey of videogames along with two case studies develop these dimensions within their technical, social, and personal contexts revealing the delicate interplay between designer, game and player. Design principles compatible with the Humanistic Ethos are discussed. Limitations and future directions are also considered.
Section 4
Youth, Family, and Play
Chapter 10 Ethics at Play: Patterns of Ethical Thinking among Young Online Gamers ....................................... 151 Sam Gilbert, The GoodPlay Project, Harvard Graduate School of Education, USA This chapter discusses how young people think about ethical issues in online games as seen in the GoodPlay project’s interviews with fourteen online gamers, ages 15 to 25. After providing background
on the GoodPlay project and relevant moral psychology and video games research, the chapter describes individualistic, interpersonal, and communal models of ethical thinking that young players hold. These observed models suggest that online games are encouraging players to practice sophisticated ethical thinking skills and therefore might be valuable tools for fostering ethical thinking. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future directions in the study and use of games to foster ethical thinking.
Chapter 11 Family Fun and Fostering Values ....................................................................................................... 167 J. Alison Bryant, PlayScience, USA Jordana Drell, Nickelodeon/MTV Networks, USA This chapter looks at the interplay between video and computer games and values discourse within
families. It focuses on the theoretical models for values discourse within families; the role that video games can play in values discourse within the family; the role that both research and design have in the game creation process; and the future opportunities for engaging values and ethics discourse within the family context through gaming.
Chapter 12 Cognitive Science Helps Formulate Games for Moral Education ...................................................... 181 Neha Khetrapal, University of Bielefeld, Germany This chapter emphasizes that cognitive science can play a significant role in formulating games for
moral education. The chapter advocates an encompassing approach where games should be developed by concentrating on the interaction of users with their contexts. Ethics entail moral principles and ethical decision-making is dependent upon developing cognitive structures. Therefore, while designing games one needs to consider developmental trends and information processing models. The framework devel- oped here further emphasizes the need to develop moral games based upon principles of good games in general. There should also be stringent criteria to gauge the success of the game in real world contexts, especially if these games function as part of a school curriculum for moral education. Finally, the chapter concludes with issues surrounding the implementation of such technologies.
Chapter 13 Moral Development through Social Narratives and Game Design .................................................... 197 Lance Vikaros, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA Darnel Degand, Teachers College, Columbia University, USA Morality originates in dispositions and attitudes formed in childhood and early adolescence. Fantasy
play and both the perspective taking, and interpersonal negotiation of conflicts that it affords, have been causally linked to the development of moral reasoning and a theory of mind. A closer examination of the self-regulated processes involved implicates a number of contributing factors that video games and virtual worlds are well suited to encourage. The chapter presents recommendations suggesting the ways in which such technology can facilitate moral development by supporting and simulating diverse social interaction in ways leading to the promotion of self-efficacy, critical thinking, and consequential decision making.
Section 5
Design Considerations and Reflections
of User Action and System Response ................................................................................................. 217
Chris Swain, USC Games Institute and University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, USA
Humans learn through play. All games are learning devices—though most teach the player how to play the game itself and do not strive to communicate information with utility in the real world. This chapter is for designers seeking to design game mechanics to communicate learning objectives, values, and ethi- cal messages. The term “mechanic” describes both (a) the actions a player takes as she interacts in the context of a game (e.g., run, jump, shoot, negotiate) and (b) the response of the system to player actions. When the mechanics of a game align with the values the game’s designer strives to communicate, then the player is learning those values experientially. Learning science shows us that this type of experiential learning is a powerful and natural type of learning for humans. The chapter includes six best practices for achieving success, which are supported by case study examples from leading designers in the field.
Chapter 15 Applied Ethics Game Design: Some Practical Guidelines ................................................................. 236 Rudy McDaniel, University of Central Florida, USA Stephen M. Fiore, University of Central Florida, USA
This chapter presents case studies of two original games entitled Veritas University and Knights of Astrus. Through these case studies and a review of relevant literature, the authors explore the content creation of, and theoretical rationale for, the design and development of ethics games. Both games use the Adobe Flash® platform and are geared toward an undergraduate student audience as casual games to be completed in a few hours of gameplay. To ground the development of these games, the chapter reviews contemporary research on identity, cognition, and self in relation to video game environments; and argues for the need for further research and development in this area. From this literature base and applied design experiences, the authors offer six guidelines as practical suggestions for aspiring ethics game developers.
Chapter 16 Using Mission US: For Crown or Colony? to Develop Historical Empathy and Nurture Ethical Thinking .................................................................................................................................. 255 Karen Schrier, Columbia University, USA James Diamond, Education Development Center/Center for Children & Technology, USA David Langendoen, Electric Funstuff, USA In this chapter, the authors describe Mission US: For Crown or Colony?, a history game for middle
school students that we collaboratively designed, developed and tested. The chapter argues that empathy is an important component of ethical thinking, and that history games, if well designed, can support the practice of empathy. The authors analyze how they designed Mission US: For Crown or Colony? to encourage the development of historical empathy and ethical thinking skills. They also relate their design challenges, and the ethics of representing the past in games. The chapter concludes with real world results from classroom implementation of the game, and design recommendations for creating games for historical empathy.
Chapter 17 Reacting to Re:Activism: A Case Study in the Ethics of Design ........................................................ 274 Colleen Macklin, Parsons the New School for Design, USA This case study of the big urban game Re:Activism examines moments where failures in the game’s
design revealed how the design process itself is a set of ethical choices and actions, illustrating specific strategies for integrating more interesting choices into games. Ethics in a game is not inherent; it is enacted through rules, mechanics and play. The chapter presents a “thick description” of the first time Re:Activism was played in which the losing team paradoxically had the kind of engaging experience the designers sought to create.
Chapter 18 Reality from Fantasy: Using Predictive Scenarios to Explore Ethical Dilemmas .............................. 291 Stephen R. Balzac, 7 Steps Ahead, USA A major difficulty with teaching ethics is that it is relatively easy for participants to state the “right”
thing to do when they have no personal stake in the outcome. One way of dealing with this problem is to teach ethics through engrossing, immersive, predictive scenario games in which players are forced to deal with ethical issues as they arise, where they have a personal stake in the outcome, and where there is not always a clear right answer. Predictive scenario games are a form of serious live-action roleplay- ing in which participants take on the roles of people involved in complex situations. In these games, knowledge of the game world is distributed among the players through overlapping and conflicting goals, and in which ethical dilemmas emerge naturally, without fanfare, much as they would in the real world. There is a high level of tension between cooperation and competition among the players. This structure creates the opportunity for players to experience the consequences of their own judgment in realistic, ethically fraught situations, to receive feedback, and to engage in constructive discussion, within a relatively short time period.
Chapter 19 The Mechanic is the Message: A Post Mortem in Progress ................................................................ 311 Brenda Brathwaite, Savannah College of Art and Design, USA John Sharp, Savannah College of Art and Design, USA This chapter provides two entry points into Brenda Brathwaite’s series The Mechanic is the Message,
a group of six non-digital games that explore difficult topics. Brathwaite writes from the perspective of the game’s designer, covering the inception of the series, its inspirations and the challenges inherent in working with content one might deem questionable in the game space. Sharp, on the other hand, writes from the perspective of a game designer and an art historian and critiques the game’s entry and reception into both the world of art and games.
Compilation of References ............................................................................................................... 330
About the Contributors .................................................................................................................... 353
Index ................................................................................................................................................... 360 xv Foreword
“What a videogame does at heart is teach you how, in the midst of utter chaos, to know what is important,
what is not and act on that” -- Colonel Casey Wardynski“I’m reviewing the situation. Can a fellow be a villain all his life?” or so asks Fagin, the scheming and ruthless mastermind of an army of thieving young boys, at a key moment in Oliver!, the musical based on Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. Fagin’s “situation” may be an odd place to start in thinking about the potential role of games in providing ethical and moral instruction—after all, Dickens used Fagin to embody the negative influences that besieged young men when society turned their backs on them—but bear with me.
In Oliver!, through the song, “Reviewing the Situation,” we have a character digging deep into his own goals, values, and place in the world, and openly proclaiming that his experiences as a “villain” make him ill-suited to most of the trappings of a “normal life.” Fagin’s self-reflection leads him to construct and test a series of scenarios (marrying, joining respectable society, getting a job, living alone, freeing the young men in his employee, reaching old age), each embodying an alternative version of himself. Fagin plays out their consequences as a series of thought experiments, before pulling back and deciding to “think it out again.” In the course of “Reviewing the Situation,” Fagin engages in a range of different cognitive processes—projecting alternative versions of himself, and speculating about possible choices and anticipating their consequences—all in a particular kind of mental space that has no immediate con- sequences for his current social situation, though it has the potential to reshape the way he sees himself and his place in the world. Here, for example, he explores what it would be like to work for a living: “Is it such a humiliation for a robber to perform an honest job? So a job I’m getting, possibly, I wonder who my boss’ll be? I wonder if he’ll take to me...? What bonuses he’ll make to me...? I’ll start at eight and finish late, At normal rate, and all …but wait! ...I think I’d better think it out again.”
Now consider a typical adolescent, seated in front of her computer screen, beginning to construct a character for a role playing game, and facing the same range of questions about her potential identities and goals. Should she join the dark horde, embrace a life as a villain, commit atrocities on other players, and in the process, begin to experiment with and potentially exorcise the darker side of her own person- ality? Or, should she become one of the good ones, going out to do heroic deeds, sharing the loot with others in her party, rescuing those in distress and helping newbies learn to play, and developing a sense of responsibility and accountability to others in her guild? Should she design an avatar that reflects the way she sees herself or should she embrace a fantasy radically different from her real world personality or situation and in so doing, see what it might be like to walk in a different set of moccasins?
Like Fagin, she can try on different personas, test different scenarios, and imagine alternative moral codes through which she might navigate the challenges of her day-to-day existence. She has the option of taking risks, dying, rebooting, and exploring another course of action: “I think I’d better think it out xvi
again.” While young people have often found it difficult to anticipate the future consequences of their current actions, the game offers her a powerful tool through which to accelerate life processes and thus play out in the course of an afternoon several different scenarios and their consequences. And through in-game cameras that allow players to record and replay their actions, she can literally review the situ- ation, going back to key choice points and retrospectively evaluate where she went wrong and how bad decisions led to negative consequences. Seen in this way, the computer game constitutes an incredible resource for self-reflection and personal exploration, one with rich potentials for moral and ethical edu- cation. No other current art form allows such an intense focus on choices and their consequences; no other art form allows us this same degree of agency to make our own decisions and then live through their outcomes.
Shortly after Columbine, while the news media was full of sensationalistic speculations about whether video games constituted “murder simulators” and whether they deployed operative conditioning to brain- wash otherwise normal young men into school shooters, MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program was approached by a group of business men who had plans to construct a Christian-themed amusement center. They had taken at face value the prevalent misconception that games were a magic device that could turn good kids into bad people. They wondered if it might be possible to reverse engineer exist- ing games and design play experiences that could transform the bad kids into good ones (or at least into better ones) through reinforcing pro-social values. Thankfully, we were able to convince the group that what they were proposing relied on a reductive model of the educational value of games, though that critique left open the prospect that games might nevertheless be an appropriate platform for exploring ethical issues. And it is this terrain that is so well explored by the various contributors to this volume.
While these contributors approach the ethical value of games from many different theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, I am happy that none of them start from the premise, widespread less than a decade ago, that games were programs that programmed their players. Thankfully, games are now being discussed through a language of media ethics, which emphasizes what the player does with the game, rather than a language of media effects, which stresses what the game does to the player.
Instead, most chapters in this volume start from a scenario similar to the one involving Fagin il- lustrated above. That is, games represent tools that enable personal reflection and ethical exploration, often through the construction of what James Paul Gee (2007) calls Projective Identities. Gee uses the word, Projective, here in two senses. First, the player projects aspects of herself onto the game avatar, maintaining an emotional relationship with this fictive identity that is intense and intimate and yet at the same time, preserving some degree of separation and distance from the game character, who is like us and yet not us, even if we are able to control the character’s actions. Second, the player, in embracing the character, also embraces their “project”: the game constructs a set of goals and roles that motivate, and to some degree constrain, our actions and determine what the costs and rewards may be for differ- ent choices we make during our play experience. Taken together, these two conceptions of “projection” explain what allows games to serve important ethical functions. Such a balance between intimacy and distance, between free will and pre-articulated rules, roles, and goals, allows us to embrace a particular stance toward the represented events, allowing players to speculate and explore ethical alternatives. The game thus supports both embodied/situated and abstract moral reasoning, often at the same moment. Our agency over the character pushes well beyond the empathy we might feel for a fictional figure in any other medium, and yet we hold onto the recognition that the character lives in a world that operates on fundamentally different principles than our own.
Much like Fagin, who discovers that he cannot change who he is, even at what seems to be a turn- ing point in his life, the player controls a character and yet also faces fundamental constraints in the character’s programming that restricts what she can do with them. One gamer/filmmaker (Jenkins and xvii
Bertozzi, 2007) once described to me that the process of making movies using The Sims is like working with trained animals: you can try to get them to do what you want but you can’t prevent them from pee- ing on the floor. Fagin, like Jessica Rabbit, isn’t bad; he’s just drawn that way, or rather, he is the product of a lifetime of choices that determine that he may indeed be a villain all his life. The game character is not altogether bad, but it is really difficult (though rarely impossible) for a player to override its basic programming. You can play Grand Theft Auto, going around rescuing people, rather than bashing them in the head with a baseball bat, but what’s the fun in that? The player who makes that choice faces a penalty, pays a cost, which, in the end, suggests just how challenging it can be for an ex-con to change their situation.
The game designer, Will Wright (The Sims, Spore) (Personal Conversation, 2006), has said on more than one occasion that games are the only medium that allows us to experience guilt. Think about it. If a character in a novel or a film does something we find morally reprehensible, we can always pull away from the character; we can blame the author for making immoral or amoral choices; or we can critique the character as a “villain” who does not deserve our moral sympathy. Yet, in playing a game, should our protagonist make a choice that has reprehensible consequences, we as players are always partially to blame. We mashed the button; we moved the join stick; we made the choice that put the character into that situation in the first place, even if we rarely made the choice from a position of total control.
Confronting such a situation, we learn something, potentially, about ourselves and we learn something, potentially, about the rule system of the game itself.
I say the player “potentially” learns something through the rule system because there is no guarantee that either the game design or the player’s mental attitude will yield meaningful ethical reflection. Such a moment of reflection is only as powerful as the ethical model underlying the game allows it to be. The game as a system simulates certain processes according to pre-coded principles; the designer makes choices about what kinds of consequences might emerge in the course of the game play; the designer often frames the choices the character confronts and determines what possibilities are available to the player at any given moment of play. A powerful game design can embody and dramatize certain core ethical debates; it can provide resources that encourage us to ask certain questions and enable us to explore their ramifications. The game designer can arbitrarily narrow the range of potential responses, so that in confronting an ethically-charged situation, we may have no options but to shoot or flee. Yet, throughout the history of the medium, there have been designers—Peter Molyneux (Fable, Black And
White), Brenda Laurel (Purple Moon), and Wright himself come to mind—who recognized and realized
some of the potential games offer as ethical systems. Game designers talk about “possibility spaces” to describe the range of potential actions built into the game, yet we might also talk about the “probability space” to reflect the likelihood that a player will chose one set of options over another, much the way a magician may “force a card,” making it harder for the rube to foul up the trick. The ethical system of a game emerges both from what the game allows the player to do and from what the game doesn’t support or actively discourages.
And I say that the player “potentially” learns something about themselves because the potential for self-reflection rests also on the mental framing and social context the player brings to the experience. Again, assuming we reject the brainwashing or conditioning or programming metaphors, then we have to assume that the player takes active agency over what they do in the game and over what they bring from their game play experience back with them into the world. For reflection to occur, the player has to invest enough of themselves—intellectually, emotionally—into the game to be willing to ask hard questions about the events that occur and their relationship to their own everyday experiences. They have to engage in what various people have called “hard fun” or “serious play,” rather than dismiss the game play as inherently frivolous and meaningless. The Good Play project at Harvard University (James xviii
et al., 2008), for example, has found that many young people do not apply their emerging ethical un- derstanding to online experiences because they have been taught by their teachers and parents that what happens on line doesn’t really matter. They often ignore the humanity of the actual people with whom they interact online and aren’t always projecting ethical questions onto the bytes and pixels with whom they interact in a computer game. Yet there is some hope that pedagogical interventions may teach players new ways to deploy games as vehicles for self exploration, and may give them the ethical frameworks through which to ask questions about and through their play which might not emerge elsewhere in their everyday lives. As players review their situation, they may do so in an opportunistic or formalistic way, seeking only to best the game’s system and enhance their opportunities to win. But they may also do so on a deeper level, seeking to use the game as what Sherry Turkle (2007) might describe as “a tool to think with,” asking themselves why they are drawn toward certain kinds of characters or why they favor certain options in their play over time.
I am often reminded of one of my former graduate students—a young mother who had gotten divorced just before she left Europe to come to our program. She was spending time in the evening playing The
Sims and using her fictional persona to imagine what it would mean for her to re-enter the dating scene.
What she did not know was that her preteen son was playing the same game, entering the same reality, and seeking to construct for himself the perfect family. As fate would have it, her more seductive char- acter lured away the husband from her son’s idealized family, shattering the illusion he had constructed for himself. When the mother discovered what she had done, she was horrified by the implications of her own choices and soon mother and son were playing together, doing what they could to heal the rift in the fictional marriage, only to discover that what had been done could not be undone. The game, thus, became a tool for them to talk through the dramatic changes that were rewriting the terms of their relationship to each other, allowing the mother and son to share some of their emotional experiences and to better understand how choices they were making impacted each other’s lives. They could do so both because the game’s programming opened up or foreclose certain options in a way that offered a particular model of the moral universe and because the players were receptive to the possibilities that there might be meaningful connections drawn between their game world and real life experiences. The two had conversations through their game play that they had found emotionally difficult to confront on a more literal terrain.