At ETHICOMP2008, Don Gotterbarn will be presenting a paper entitled, “The Ethics of Video Games: Mayhem, Death, and the Training of the next generation”. The abstract is currently available on the ETHICOMP2008 website. Having read the abstract, I feel I must respond to some of the points made there. I hope I am not doing Don too much of a disservice by responding before having read the entire paper.

Gotterbarn begins by noting that most criticisms of video games with respect to ethics focus on reinforcement of certain behaviors, such as aggression, violence, and drug use. He correctly notes that such “broad stroke” criticisms of video games are not justified; he points to video games that do not have these qualities and games that are used for physical therapy.

Gotterbarn thinks that there is a deeper ethical issue regarding video games. What it boils down to is that, according to Gotterbarn, video games are not taken seriously enough - more consideration of ethics needs to go into the development of video games. “Video games are treated by members of the game design and development community as a domain of software development that seems to lack clear ethical impacts beyond some minimal affect [sic] on the users of the software.”

Based on the responses of a “group of computing students”, Gotterbarn concludes that the people making video games do not have concern for making a quality product - they would let it ship with major known bugs. The first response that comes to mind is: of course one would ship buggy software - “real artists ship”! However, I would not expect computing students to provide a good sample of the opinions of professional game developers. In fact, these students lack the very thing that is relevant in this context - someone making a video game cares about making a good video game. I can’t even imagine someone working professionally at making video games not caring about what they’re making. Video game developers tend to characterize what they do like works of art, or at least really interesting chains of puzzles they’ve solved.

What Gotterbarn is getting at is that ethical implications for video games do not merely apply to the person playing the game. This should be obvious; conventional wisdom treats as ethically relevant the effects something has on society-at-large. But is this obvious to makers of video games?

Perhaps it doesn’t need to be. What is relevant to ethics is excellence. As long as a game developer has interest in making a good video game, these ethical concerns will be built into the process. This assumes that video game developers have a good grasp of what it actually is to make a good video game; while a video game that leads to the downfall of western civilization would probably be a bad video game, the game developer might not notice that this is a possibility. (Some of us would contend that it’s not a possibility, but that’s beside the point.)

Gotterbarn goes on to say that video games encourage gamers to think “solely in terms of benefit to their character”. He cites the multiplayer mode in Gears of War, in which “the only reason to save a wounded teammate is that the action will improve your chances of winning”.

Regarding concern for the other soldier’s life, I’m not sure there’s a way to encourage that in such a game. Though notably, I know many people who have developed strong attachment to characters in RPG-style-games; many people will report having cried when Aeris died in Final Fantasy 7. I think that relates more to the lack of real harm or permanence relating to this “death” – that may involve a deep ethical problem on its own.

I must admit; I am no expert on Gears of War. However, this struck me as not possibly true, just given the popularity of the game’s multiplayer modes and my own experience with other games. So, I approached an associate of mine, RJB3, to make sure I had the story straight on the multiplayer experience in Gears of War (edited from IM conversation - emphasis added.):

The real sexy-time is in the co-op. It is a buddy-style setup where you and your boy have to work together and look out for each other and like help each other out when you get knocked down. It is probably more helpful to keep your head geared toward combined tactics.

“Ok i just took that fucker out over there and the guy just ran off the troika over to the left… can you get on that troika??? an E-hole just blew open back out there in that other big room!!!! oww fuck i just got taken out, can you pick me up?”

I’ll put it another way: never beaten the game on my own. Played through the campaign with several people repeatedly. But in my experience it emphasizes cooperation and a mutual trust/looking out for each other. And caution… lots and lots of caution. I mean you’re definitely sensitive to your partner and it’s not about so you can win. Hell, i have brought people through the campaign just so they could experience the game and get good at it - the cooperation was most of the fun. Being in that shit-festival of a situation with your buddy is the point. I mean, it’s obviously about winning; it’s a game. But it’s not about ME or YOU.

This matches my experience with cooperative games. The joy is in playing with other people - sharing in the experience, working together towards a common goal, and having fun. And it’s not just that cooperation is the best strategy towards winning the game. Those who nurture an attitude related to personal glory rather than developing a cooperative attitude will fail both at “winning”, whatever that might mean in a long-term, story-based shooter, and at having a good time.

Then Gotterbarn blatantly shows his stance with respect to ethical theory: “The driving question is not the impact a decision has on society but rather the impact on the individual character.” To any sort of egoist, including most virtue ethicists, this isn’t even a considerable criticism. Indeed, imagine only being concerned for the impact that my actions will have on my character! (double meaning intended) While society is morally considerable, it is because my society is a part of who I am, and concern for myself therefore includes concern for society; only being concerned for oneself does not imply the vice of selfishness!

“This approach is true of most button mashing shoot-up games as well.” I admit that I am picking a nit here, but to say that someone is “button mashing” implies a lack of concern for skill, gameplay, or the survival of one’s character. I don’t think games that encourage “button mashing” really lead to much, other than eventual boredom and lack of interest. At most, they represent an interest in seeing pretty lights on the screen.

I don’t think we need to fear that “We are training a generation to make decisions without any attention to the consequences for others of their actions.” If anything, this generation (to be contrasted with my generation, who grew up on single-player video games) is being trained to work cooperatively for pride, victory, and glory.

Of course, as I noted earlier, this criticism is based on an abstract, which is not expected to hold up to any sort of academic or philosophical rigor. However, I expect that this presents the premises of Gotterbarn’s arguments, and I will be surprised if the paper can stand without the mistaken assumptions present here.