作者：Dean Takahashi

游戏开发者在决定添加何种内容到游戏中时总会面临与其它媒体设计师相同的道德问题。也就是他们既需要迎合消费者的需求也需要考虑到这些内容对于用户的影响。虽然游戏能够给人类生活带来富有生气的体验，但它们毕竟也只是一种媒体和表达形式，因此会对那些玩游戏的人产生影响。

因为电子游戏是一种全新媒体，所以游戏设计师仍然在找寻一种最佳道德准则。从法律上来说，游戏作为一种表达形式是受到美国第一修正案的保护。在华盛顿曾召开的一起诉讼案件中，法官便打出了法律禁止商家向未成年人出售M级游戏的内容，特别是那些描述反对执法人员的暴力游戏。

关于游戏的道德判断标准，这是一个见人见智的问题。而这种争论的焦点主要取决于游戏类型。如果游戏只是一种娱乐形式，那么设计师便不需要像创造电影那样重视道德元素。而如果游戏是一种艺术形式，那就需要上升到更高的标准。换句话说，是设计目标为游戏设计师添加了道德限制。

International Game Developers Association（IGDA）相关负责人Jason Della Rocca表示：“关于道德的讨论是一项非常棘手的任务，因为关于这个术语的定义非常模糊且不稳定。并且每个人对道德的定义也会有所不同。”

趣味 VS 道德

游戏设计师可以根据第一修正案的规定或游戏乐趣决定在游戏中添加何种内容。但是这种方法却不足以帮助设计师摆脱困境。

Lionhead Studios（游戏邦注：代表作包括热门游戏《黑与白》和《神鬼寓言》）首席执行官Peter Molyneux说道：“游戏产业必须拥有自己的道德责任标准。任何面向大众市场而提供服务的人员都必须具有责任心。我们必须吸取各种经验教训。‘如果游戏有趣的话那就够了’这句话一点说服力都没有。当你明确这是一个虚拟世界，你不能在现实世界中执行同种操作时，这便是一种合理的设置。但是如果游戏世界与现实世界出现了交集，你便需要好好思考该怎么做了。”

“如果设计师只是在创造一款‘有趣的’游戏，但是市场中的购买趋势却是关于更具现实感和暴力的游戏，那么与主流趋势背道相驰的设计师就会落后于他人，”Oddworld Inhabitants总裁Lorne Lanning说道。“比起社交理念，暴力元素更容易让我们创造出可行的游戏机制。不以暴力终结的社交导向型理念和互动游戏是一个极具挑战性的开发项目。”

游戏设计师是否能够有效地遵守道德标准也取决于他们想要创造何种游戏。只是一款有趣的游戏？还是将在游戏中详细描写一个历史事件？或者将创造一个条理清晰的故事？还是只是复制现实事件？

2015 Studios（位于美国塔尔萨）设计总监，同时也是越南战争游戏《越战英豪》开发者John Whitmore说道：“有些人喜欢有趣的游戏，也有些人喜欢更具现实性的游戏。如果你想要尝试创造一款更具现实性的游戏，你就需要好好思考你需要做出哪些道德决策。我们并不能将《侠盗猎车手》等游戏称之为高端艺术。就像有些科幻电影虽然非常生动，但是其中的色情描述却阻碍了它的奥斯卡之路。”

因为充斥着太多备受争议的游戏，游戏行业就成了一些“道德审查员”的众矢之的。暴力总是游戏受到非议的一大导火索，而在某种程度上，性和污秽的语言也是他们所难以忍受的。不管是在最初的《格斗之王》中，玩家可以狠狠挖出对手的脊柱，还是最近的《纽约街头：胜者为王》中，说着脏话的说唱歌手能够使用撬胎棒打击别人，可见我们很容易在此找到这种受争议的游戏。在《侠盗猎车手：罪恶之城》中，玩家既可以射击警察，也可以与妓女上床，并最后杀死她而拿回自己的钱。

Take-Two Interactive Software（《侠盗猎车手：罪恶之城》发行商）的高管们虽然从不对游戏中的道德元素发表任何公开意见，但是私底下他们都认为游戏中的内容与限制级电影或饶舌音乐没有多大差别。就像我们也可以在艾美奖获得者《黑道家族》中找到类似的内容。所以他们认为那些专拿游戏产业开刀的政客们都是一些伪善之人。他们也同样注意到有些游戏明确了“成人”等级，也就意味着那些未满17周岁的青少年并不能接触这些游戏，或者他们的家长应该约束他们玩这些游戏。

反暴力人士认为游戏设计师应该应该正视他们的M级游戏，即避免这些游戏落入孩童的手上；因为经过研究表明，游戏中的种种暴力将对孩童造成负面影响。媒体和家庭国家中心研究部主任兼爱荷华州立大学心理学教授Doug Gentile说道，游戏设计师必须根据第一修正案的规定去创造他们想要的游戏。同时他还补充道：“设计师总是放任游戏评级不管，而留给那些向孩子出售游戏的发行商来做决定。”Gentile说道，游戏的影响多种多样，有些备受争议，也有些获得了广泛的认可，所以开发者应该重视这些影响。同时他还指出，研究也并未说明游戏能够帮助玩家避免暴力倾向。

Running With Scissors（创造出争议游戏《Postal》和《Postal 2》）首席执行官Vince Desi说道：“游戏就是游戏，所以它们必须具有乐趣。当一个人愿意玩你的游戏并认可这是一款游戏时，这便足矣。在这个产业中存在着许多伪善，而我们只想说，‘暴力只属于游戏，不应该存在于现实生活中’”。同时他还说道，对于那些将游戏当成是一种带有深刻故事的互动电影的人来说，这一说法便不再有效。

Desi表示他们公司便煞费苦心避开未成年人进行游戏宣传。但是反暴力人士却也认为游戏是属于儿童的一种媒体。美国国家媒体与家庭研究所主任David Walsh表示，尽管玩家平均年龄是29岁，并且90%的游戏是出售给成年人（取自美国娱乐软件协会的相关数据），但是的确有许多成人游戏最终落入了儿童玩家手中。他还提到，关于家长的研究表示，只有不到5%的家长理解《侠盗猎车手3》中的内容。他发现，这些游戏之所以引人争议主要也是因为它们比过去的游戏更具有现实性，即呈现出更多关于暴力的可怕描述。他也反对那些在儿童所购买的媒体中宣传M级游戏的行为。

案例：《越战英豪》

像Whitmore等一些开发便承认M级游戏很有可能会落到未成年人手中。所以这便大大限制了他们的开发团队关于《越战英豪》的设计工作。Whitmore关于游戏外观的目标是还原越南战争中的所有情感内容。而通过阅读历史记录，该团队也发现要想重现残酷的战争场景，脏话便是最有效的工具。

但是与此同时，该团队也必须向发行商明确这一决策，并且与零售商进行协商，最终通过了这一决策。Whitmore表示，该团队决定避免使用种族歧视性语言，因为这对于现代玩家来说过激了。比起直接的辱骂，该团队最终选择一些老套但具有创造性的辱骂式语言取代了脏话，因为比起敏感的种族偏见用语，这种表达的攻击性较弱。

除此之外还有其它问题存在。Whitmore说道，虽然从历史上看来，关于使用毒品的描述被认为是合理的，但是这种描述却不能帮我们创造出即时战斗的感觉。游戏中总是拥有各种暴力与血腥。玩家因为流血过多而死亡的设置更是增添了一种现实感。Whitmore还说道，如果战场上堆积了大量的生命包，那么这就是对这场战争的不敬。这可能会让游戏战术发生变化，并将鼓励玩家盲目向前冲而不是寻求其它获胜方法。另一方面，如果游戏中呈现出肢解，死刑或酷刑等元素，它便难以得到那些退伍军人的尊重与认可。

该团队还必须考虑其它有关越南战争的游戏对于玩家的影响。这些越南战争游戏包括Eidos Interactive的《Shellshock: Nam ’67》，2015 Studios便是通过在游戏中添加了性交易内容而获益。同样地，来自电影界且广受好评的《全金属外壳》也突出了类似的内容。但是Whitmore表示，团队在开发过程中必须考虑到用户能够忍受的范围，而不要一味地想着怎么做才能增强游戏的视觉冲击性并呈现出如现实般的战争场景。所以该团队最终决定放弃这些备受争议的元素。

Whitmore说道：“知道游戏有可能落入儿童的手中，我们便决定不制作那些怂恿玩家做坏事或者执行一些可能遭受谴责的任务的游戏。但是我也不是说别人不能制作这样的游戏。我同样也会玩《侠盗猎车手3》，并且也很喜欢这款游戏。但是我不会想自己创造类型的游戏，因为我认为它们降低了整个游戏文化的水准。”

根据影响来评价游戏

但我们很难评价游戏对文化或玩家的影响。每一个游戏设计师都认为自己有权创造出一款让玩家以杀人为乐的游戏。但是也有些设计师担心过多游戏在盲目推崇好莱坞大片中的暴力与性元素。如果电子游戏中的暴力性开始向好莱坞电影看齐，那这将给整个游戏文化带来一种负面影响。

老实说，我们总是很难预测游戏将带给玩家怎样的影响。Will Wright（游戏邦注：《模拟人生》开发者）表示他很喜欢玩《侠盗猎车手：罪恶都市》。他认为暴力游戏让玩家能够体验到他们在现实生活中不能做到的行为。照这么看来，这类型游戏反而能够帮助人们摆脱一些负面情绪。这便是《Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes and Make-Believe Violence》（Basic Books，2002年）中的基本论点——这是Gerald Jones关于电子游戏暴力以及它将给玩家带来何种积极影响的著作。

游戏设计师对于游戏是否会影响暴力文化这一争论做出了总结。Three Rings（总部位于旧金山，运营《Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates》这款在线益智游戏）首席执行官Daniel James说道：“我并不赞同使用暴力图像去提高电子游戏的销量。尽管我并不会天真地认为暴力游戏真的会诱发暴力，但是这种暴力元素终究会不利于玩家的身心健康。”同时，Epic Games（总部位于美国北卡罗来纳州）市场营销部副主管Jay Wilbur也表示，游戏中的暴力程度应该根据游戏世界所需求的环境进行设定。不能无端设置那些不符合游戏情境的暴力或者色情内容。

带有严肃道德原理的严肃游戏

一些开发者认为有必要尽快改变游戏的道德现状。教育类游戏比那些纯粹出于娱乐的游戏具有更高的道德水平。 Serious Games消息团体的负责人Ben Sawyer表示，游戏媒体虽然非常强大，但是关于推动玩家在现实生活中的培训，模拟与学习的能力却还未被挖掘出来。Sawyer说道：“我们需要努力创造出能够强调深层次道德原理的新游戏类型。”

事实上，大多数游戏都是以营利为目的，所以才会引出那些不满游戏牺牲玩家而赚钱的观点。Kuma Reality Games首席执行官Keith Halper表示，该公司是通过游戏媒体去传播新闻——而这与CNN或日报的做法

截然不同。该公司创造了一款插话式兼订阅式的游戏，即将新闻时事整合到他们的第一人称射击战斗中。因为其改装工具能够让该公司在几周内创造出一个新的情节，所以他们便开始在游戏中添加一些如萨达姆·侯赛因被捕等时事新闻。所以玩家能够在这些游戏中扮演现实战争中的一名士兵并进行战斗，并了解战术形势的发展——而这是只阅读新闻内容所感受不到的体验。

这些游戏事件利用新闻的方式就像CNN利用1991年海湾战争新闻而获益是一个道理。但是Halper也说道，游戏是一种强大且独特的谜题形式，它们能够帮助玩家更好地理解战术军事形势，并且这也是新闻报道所做不到的。

Halper说道：“人们可能会说，我们是在利用美国的劫难来盈利。但是不管怎么样这都不会破坏我们想要传达的价值，也就是利用电子游戏去传达有关世界的各种重要事件。我们正是通过一种信息化且情感化方式去传达即时信息。而我们挖掘并利用新闻题材则主要是为了阐述有价值的故事。”

对于Halper来说，当设计师必须明确如何平衡游戏乐趣与事件的精确性时，游戏的道德感便会开始体现出来。就像在“捕捉萨达姆的场景中，他们便添加了一个叛乱分子。虽然在现实中并没有这种场景，但是Halper表示通过安插这一事件能够更好地体现出美国士兵在接近萨达姆时的情况。为了证实自己的设想，《Kuma War》的设计师甚至成立了军事顾问委员会。而为了应对那些认为他们只是在追求收益的舆论批评，他们将部分收益捐给了退伍军人。

艺术目的

许多批评者在痛斥开发者道德感之前，都想知道后者的真正意图究竟是什么。我们尚不明确开发者是否将赚钱凌驾于其他目标（例如通过游戏开发重现历史）之上，但即使开发者明确了自己的开发目的，也仍然可能引火烧身。

让我们以基于美国陆军的第一人称射击游戏《美国陆军》为例。因为这款游戏是免费发行的，所以也就避免了从中获益的说法。而这款游戏的主要目标则是招募年轻人参军。

为了遵守陆军价值观，该款游戏的开发者适度限制了玩家的游戏行为。也就是玩家在游戏中不能向平民或自己的军队开枪。并且玩家也不能在此扮演恐怖分子的角色，因为这是陆军所不能接纳的对象。从中玩家将会清楚，一颗子弹便可以让自己毙命，也就是自己并非无懈可击。

但是也有些人认为使用游戏去招兵是一种错误的做法，因为游戏有可能误导年轻人为此轻易放弃生命。Lt. Col. Casey Wardynski（游戏邦注：一位著名的陆军经济学家）便认为游戏必须竭尽全力体现出现实性。如果你向自己的战友开枪，你便会受到联邦法院的制裁。在很多任务中，玩家的目标便是完成各种任务，如以最少的人员伤亡顺利护送车队到达目的地。尽管这种设置不会呈现出过多的血腥场面，但是它也不可能美化陆军的战斗生活。游戏只是再现真实场景，而不会将多余的时间投入在那些不了解陆军的人身上。所以，他说道，游戏并不是一种宣传工具。

但是Wardynski也表示《陆军》并不会在场景中呈现出新闻时事。游戏中的地形与伊拉克和阿富汗的地形类似，但是游戏却未像《Kuma War》那样完全复制真实事件。游戏所突出的一大内容是：任何一个家庭都不再希望看到他们的亲人在战争中死去。

Wardynski说道：“这里存在着一条我们并不想逾越的界线。我们既不想美化战争也不想利用时事。我们需要考虑的是人们可能会在战争中失去挚爱之人；或者有可能在这些内容中牵涉到一些隐私内容。如果我们阐述了过多有关时事内容，我们便还需要考虑到国家安全问题。”

给予玩家更多选择

如今的游戏设计进入了一个全新阶段，即开发者将让玩家能够亲自做出道德选择。就像在《神鬼寓言》中，玩家可以选择成为一名英雄或恶棍，也就是Molyneux将选择权交到了玩家手中。玩家可以选择屠杀整个村庄，但是最终他却需要自食其果。也就是大家都将知道你的本性，并且没人愿意再相信你。人们总是会心怀恐惧。而如果你选择成为一名好人，你便会因为自己的善行而获得来自陌生人的奖励。

Molyneux之所以喜欢这类型的游戏是因为它能够教会人们如何做出道德选择，并让他们进一步了解自己以及自己行动的后果。但是在很多游戏中，坏人与英雄一样重要。就像在《星际大战：旧共和武士》中玩家便可以选择进入“阴暗面”；或者在《罪恶都市》中玩家可以扮演坏人角色。

但是Molyneus也表示他并不会因此避开道德选择。他不能约束玩家所接触的活动类型，因为他知道即使在M级游戏中玩家也可以从一个更广的层面进行游戏。因此他便删去了游戏中的儿童角色，这样坏人就不能在学校中展开屠杀儿童的罪行。

Cryptic Studios（《City of Heroes》开发商）首席设计师Jack Emmert也认为需要适当约束开放式游戏，以此避免玩家做出“人神共愤”的行为。

Emmert说道：“如果你让人们脱离了社会而待在一个没有任何法律的世界中，所有的一切将会陷入混乱中。就像是在线游戏那样，那里不存在任何惩罚制度。”

而在Emmert的下一个项目，也就是《罪恶都市》中，玩家将扮演坏人的角色。但是即使在这款游戏中，他也决定限制玩家行为，如限制连环屠杀行为，以此让玩家更愿意接受游戏。

所以对于开发者创造出一系列杀手游戏，大规模的种族灭绝游戏或者下一个Postal式杀人模拟器也只是时间问题了。但是不管是谁创造出这类型游戏都不能将无知作为挡箭牌。我们必须明确这个产业的道德标准，并且多亏了市场中各种暴力和备受争议的游戏，我们已经逐渐明确了高品位与道德责任间的界限。尽管我们很难定义一款游戏是否符合道德标准，但是我相信随着时间的发展这种界限将会变得越来越明显。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2004年12月27日，所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Ethics Of Game Design

by Dean Takahashi

December 27, 2004

When it comes to the ethical choices that game developers make when they decide what to put into their creations, they face the same moral issues that artists in any other communications medium face. They must struggle with balancing their rights to free expression with the tastes of consumers and be concerned about the effects their content has on their audience. While it’s easy for games to enlighten and enliven the human experience, they are still a form of media and expression, and thus possessed of the ability to influence those that play them.

But because videogames are a newer medium, game designers are still struggling with what kind of ethics code they should adopt. Legally, games qualify as a form of expression that is protected under the First Amendment. In a recent court case in Washington, a judge tossed out a state law that restricted the sales of M-rated games to minors, particularly games that depicted violence against law-enforcement officers. The judge noted that games qualified as speech, but he also noted how ridiculous it would be to try to sort out whether violence against law enforcement occurs in games such as Age of Empires, in which Roman centurions might be interpreted as law enforcers.

Value judgments about which games are unethical depend on the eye of the beholder. And the gravity of the debate depends on what games really are. If they are just a form of entertainment, then they need not pay more attention to ethics than movies do. If they are works of art, then they should be held to higher standards. In other words, it is the design goals themselves that put ethical limits on game designers.

“Discussing ethics and morals is a tricky subject, as the terms are very vague and slippery,” says Jason Della Rocca, program director of the International Game Developers Association. “Each person’s definition of what is ethical changes.”

In Fable, players choose for themselves what is right and what is wrong.

It’s Just Commerce

Game designers can justify what they put into their games by falling back on the First Amendment or the idea that the only requirement for a game is fun. But that doesn’t necessarily get designers off the hook.

“We as an industry do have a moral responsibility,” says Peter Molyneux, CEO of Lionhead Studios and creator of hits from Black and White to Fable. “Anyone who does something for a mass market has a responsibility. You tread carefully on the lessons that you teach. That line that ‘if a game is fun, it is okay’-that sounds trivial. If it is obvious this is an artificial world and you can’t do these things in real life, then that is more acceptable. But if it parades itself as a real world, you have to be careful about that.”

“If designers just create ‘fun’ games, but the buying trends are heading toward more realistic and violent games, then the designers that refuse to move along will likely be left behind,” says Lorne Lanning, president of Oddworld Inhabitants in San Luis Obispo, Calif. “It’s also true that it is easier to create viable game mechanics out of violence than from socially oriented ideas. Socially oriented ideas and cooperative play that doesn’t end in violence are extremely challenging to achieve.”

How well a game designer has abided by a code of ethics depends in part on what the game is trying to achieve. Is it just a fun game? Does it try to depict a historical event with accuracy? Does it purport to be a self-consistent fiction? Or does it try to reproduce reality of some kind?

“Some games are supposed to be fun,” says John Whitmore, director of design at 2015 Studios in Tulsa, Okla., and co-creator of the Vietnam war game Men of Valor. “Some are trying to be more artistic. If you have the pretension of trying to be more artistic, you have to think about the ethical decisions that you make. It’s hard to call a game like Grand Theft Auto high art. Some fantastic movies are racy. But porn doesn’t quite make it to the Academy Awards.”

Would-be censors have pilloried the game industry for many controversial games. Violence is always a flashpoint, and to a lesser extent sex and foul language are as well. From the original Mortal Kombat where you could rip out the spines of your hand-to-hand combat opponents, to this year’s Def Jam Fight For New York, where ‘F’-word spouting rappers can bloody each other with tire irons, it’s easy to find controversial games. In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, you can shoot cops and have sex with a prostitute and then kill her to get your money back.

Executives at Take-Two Interactive Software, publisher of GTA: Vice City, don’t comment publicly on the ethics of the game. But privately they grouse that the content in the game is no worse than what you find in an R-rated movie or a rap music CD. It is the same kind of content you can find in an Emmy-winning episode of The Sopranos. They consider it hypocritical for politicians to single out the game industry for criticism. And they note that the game carries a “Mature” rating, meaning kids under 17 aren’t supposed to play it and parents should police what their children play.

Antiviolence advocates say game designers should pay attention to the fact that their games, while rated M, often fall into the hands of kids and that studies show this exposure to violence has its effects (industry leaders dispute those studies). Doug Gentile, director of research for the National Center for Media and the Family and a psychology professor at Iowa State University, says game designers do have First Amendment rights to create what they want. But, he adds, “Designers often wash their hands of their responsibilities in seeing that the ratings are enforced. They leave it to publishers, who market the games to children.” Gentile says games have a number of effects, some disputed, some clear, and developers should pay attention to them. He notes, for instance, that the research does not show that games have a cathartic effect on people, making them less inclined to violence.

Vince Desi, CEO of Running With Scissors, the developer that created the controversial games Postal and Postal 2, says, “Games are games and they should be fun to play.” He adds, “If a person plays a game and understands it’s a game, then that’s all it is. We absolutely don’t seek anything more or higher than a good time. There’s a lot of hypocrisy in our industry. We like to say, ‘violence belongs in games and not in the streets.’” He adds that for those who see games as interactive movies with a deep story, that statement doesn’t hold.

Desi says his company takes pains not to advertise its games to minors. But antiviolence advocates argue that games are still a kids’ medium. Even though the average player is age 29 and 90 percent of games are sold to adults (according to Entertainment Software Association statistics), David Walsh, director for the National Institute on Media and the Family, notes that many mature games wind up in the hands of kids. He noted a survey of parents showed that less than five percent understood the content of GTA3. He finds such games all the more objectionable because they look more realistic than past games, allowing for more horrific depictions of violence. And he criticizes the game industry for advertising M-rated games in media that kids consume.

A Case Study: Men of Valor

Developers such as Whitmore acknowledge that it’s likely M-rated games will wind up in the hands of minors. That, in turn, tied his development team’s hands in how they designed Men of Valor. For his artistic goal, Whitmore set as his target the depiction of the emotional content of what it was like to be in battle during the Vietnam War. Looking at the historical record, the team concluded that profanity would make the battlefield come alive. It would help deliver a more intense and faithful re-enactment.

But the team also had to clear that decision with the publisher, which in turn, checked with the retailers. The decision passed muster. Whitmore said the team decided to censor itself from using racial slurs, saying they carried too much emotional weight for modern audiences. Instead of outright slurs, the team substituted profanity laden stereotypes and creative curses, which they considered to be less offensive than the hot-button words of racial prejudice.

Other issues came up. The depiction of drug use might have been justifiable as historically accurate but it wasn’t central to recreating the sense of real combat, Whitmore said. The game has plenty of violence and blood. Players can bleed to death from wounds because that adds to the realism. If the battleground were littered with health packs, Whitmore said that would have been a “dishonor to the war.” It would also have changed tactics, motivating players to charge head-on rather than seek other ways to win. On the other hand, if the game showed dismemberment, executions, and torture, then it would not have been “respectful of the audience” which includes veterans, he said.

The team had to consider that other games about Vietnam could change the climate for what audiences would tolerate. Looking at other Vietnam games, such as Eidos Interactive’s Shellshock:

Nam ’67, the 2015 Studios team might have profited by putting prostitution into the game. Doing so would have put it on par with a movie like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, which was critically acclaimed. But Whitmore said that the team had to think about what the audience would tolerate and whether it would have truly enhanced the vision of a realistic depiction of combat. The team decided against it.

“Knowing that it falls into kids’ hands, we won’t make games where you are rewarded for being a villain and doing something reprehensible,” Whitmore said. “I’m not saying other people shouldn’t make that type of game. I play GTA3 and it’s a ball. I don’t want to contribute to that. I think it coarsens culture.”

Judging a Game by its Effects

But it isn’t easy to judge the impact of a game on culture or audiences. Every game designer feels as if they have the right to make fun-oriented games where players can kill anything they want. But some designers worry that too many games are following the same formula as violence and sex-laden movies in Hollywood. If the collective weight of violent games begins to resemble Hollywood’s content, then it becomes clearer to see the negative effects on culture.

Clearly, it’s hard to predict what the effect of a game is on a player. Will Wright, creator of The Sims franchise at Electronic Arts’ Maxis division, says he enjoys playing GTA: Vice City. He feels that violent games allow people to behave in ways that they wouldn’t or couldn’t behave in real life and explore that behavior. In that way, games are a therapeutic outlet that can clear negative emotions from a person. That’s the whole thesis of Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes and Make-Believe Violence (Basic Books, 2002), a book by Gerald Jones about videogame violence and how it can affect players positively.

Game designers draw their own conclusions in the debate about whether games contribute to a culture of violence. “I have a dim view of the use of graphic violence to increase sales of videogames,” says Daniel James, CEO of San Francisco-based Three Rings, which maintains Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, an online puzzle game. “Although I am not naive enough to think that violent games lead to violence, I think that exposure to such material is corrosive to mental health, and quite frankly rather dull.” Meanwhile, Jay Wilbur, vice president of marketing at Epic Games in Raleigh, N.C., says the level of violence in a game should fit the context that the world of the game calls for. Anything more violent or sexual than what the context calls for is gratuitous. In some ways, that suggests the creators of games with horrific plot lines have the most artistic license.

Room for Serious Games with Serious Ethics?

Some developers see the current state of game ethics as crying out for change. Educational games might be considered higher ground than games whose sole purpose is fun. Ben Sawyer, who moderates the Serious Games message group, says that the medium of games is powerful but under-exploited when it comes to exposing people to real-life training, simulation, and learning.

“We need to grow the pie and create new forms of gaming that emphasize deeper ethical issues we can explore in interesting ways,” Sawyer says.

The fact that most games are for-profit endeavors opens the door to accusers who say that games profit at the expense of others’ misery. Kuma Reality Games has tried to use this medium to deliver news in a way that CNN or daily newspapers don’t, says Keith Halper, CEO. The company has created an episodic, subscription-based game that uses current events as the basis for its first-person shooter combat. Since its modding tools allow it to come out with a new scenario within weeks, the company has begun adding current events such as the capture of Saddam Hussein and the resurgent story of John Kerry’s Swift Boat mission. Players can put themselves in the roles of soldiers fighting the actual battles and see how the tactical situation unfolds in a way that reading a news bulletin cannot.

These events exploit the news, in the same way that CNN was said to exploit the 1991 bombing of Baghdad for its own financial benefit. But Halper says that games are a powerful and unique media in terms of their ability to help someone understand a tactical military situation.

“People can say we are taking advantage of a situation where Americans are in peril,” says Halper. “That doesn’t diminish the value of what we deliver, which is using the power of videogames to communicate important facts about the world. We deliver timely information in an informative and emotionally gripping way. The exploitation issue is best served by telling valuable stories.”

For Halper, the sense of ethics kicks in when the designers must figure out how to balance the fun of the game with the accuracy of what happened. In the capture of Saddam scenario, they added a suicide charge of insurgents. While it didn’t happen, Halper says the event illustrated one of the things that U.S. soldiers might have had to face as they closed in on Saddam. To make sure they get it right, Kuma War’s designers have a military advisory board. And to deal with the criticism that they are only out for crass financial gain, they make donations to a veterans group.

Artistic Intent

Many critics want to know what a developer’s intentions really are before they lambaste her or his ethics. Whether developers really put making money above other goals such as reproducing historical events accurately is rarely clear. But even when developers make their intentions obvious, they can still draw fire.

Is Kuma War’s John Kerry Swift Boat mission exploitive or educational?

Consider the case of America’s Army, the U.S. Army’s first-person shooter game. The Army gives the game away for free so it can’t be said to profit from misfortune. But its primary aim is recruiting young people into the military.

The developers deliberately restricted what players could do because they wanted to abide by the Army’s values. You can’t shoot civilians or your own troops without consequences. You don’t get to play terrorists because that isn’t the kind of person the Army wants to train. You learn that one bullet can kill you and that you aren’t invulnerable.

However, those who believe that using a game to recruit soldiers for war is wrong argue that the game might mislead young people into giving up their lives. Lt. Col. Casey Wardynski believes that the game takes pains to be realistic. If you shoot your own side, you get to see the view from the federal prison in Leavenworth. In many missions, the goal is to complete a task, like escorting a convoy, with a minimum amount of casualties. While it doesn’t show gore, it also doesn’t glamorize or sanitize the Army life, he says. Rather, it shows what it is like so the Army doesn’t have to spend time weeding out people who don’t understand the Army. In that sense, he says, the game isn’t a propaganda tool.

But Wardynski said the Army decided to stay away from staging current events in scenarios. The terrain of the games resembles Iraq and Afghanistan, but the game doesn’t reproduce a real event the way Kuma War does. One of the concerns was: family members wouldn’t necessarily want to see where their loved ones fell.

“There is a fine line and you don’t want to step over it,” Wardynski said. “We steer clear of glamorizing war or taking advantage of current events. People may have lost love ones recently. And there is the privacy of the people involved. Another concern is national security, if you put too much detail into it.”

Putting Choices in Players’ Hands

The ethics of game design has entered a new era in which the developers offer the players ethical choices of their own. In games such as Fable, where you can become a hero or a villain one choice at time, Molyneux puts the ethical choices in the hands of the player. You can slaughter an entire village, but the consequences come back to haunt you. Word will spread about your reputation and no one will trust you anymore. People will recoil in fear. Or, if you choose to be good, your good deeds can reap rewards from total strangers.

Molyneux likes this type of game because it teaches people how to make ethical choices and lets them learn something both about themselves and the consequences of their actions. But there are a raft of games in which playing the bad guy is given equal weight as being a hero. You can play the Dark Side in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. You can play bad characters in the upcoming City of Villains.

But Molyneux says this doesn’t allow him to dodge ethical choices. He had to restrict the kind of activities the players could engage in because he knew that even with the M rating, the game would be played widely. Hence, he took children out of the game so that villains couldn’t slaughter kids at school.

Jack Emmert, lead designer at Cryptic Studios on City of Heroes, agrees that limits have to be put into open-ended games to prevent the players from descending into Lord-of-the-Flies behavior.

“If you take people, remove them from society, in a world where there are no laws, things will go haywire,” Emmert says. “That’s what an online game is like. There are no punishments in the online world.”

Emmert’s next project, City of Villains, lets players be bad guys. But even in that game, he decided he had to limit behavior, such as serial killing, in order to make the game socially acceptable.

It’s only a matter of time until a developer produces a serial killer game, a mass genocide game, or the next Postal-esque homicide simulator. But whoever actually makes these games cannot claim ignorance as a defense of their product. The ground work has been laid for the ethics of this industry, and thanks to countless violent and objectionable games that have already been brought to market, the boundaries of good taste and ethical responsibility are now known. While defining the ethics of an individual game can be difficult at the extremities, these decisions become clearer.

Consciously choosing how your game will confront these difficult issues, no matter which side of the fence you’re on, is a sign of just how mature our business has become.（source：GAMASUTRA）