PHILOSOPHY OF VIDEO GAMES

Sicart Reading Group, Chapter 8 - Conclusions

[Please note that all the posts related to Sicart Reading Group are gathered here.]

Here Sicart tries to sum up what he takes to be his main conclusions. Because the book is rather loosely structured and digressive, this short final chapter is quite valuable, and some of the things that get said here are actually rather surprising.

The first key point that he wants us to take away from the book is that computer games are ethically evaluable both as "objects" and "experiences." This seems to be just a metaphysical-sounding paraphrase of the obvious truth that we use the term "computer game" to refer to both the program itself and an actual run-through of that program by a player. Next, he re-iterates the stuff about the "player-subject." There is a very odd remark in this section that is supposed to justify his intuition that the issue of violence in games (his careless treatment of which Jon complained about in an earlier post) is of only "secondary" ethical importance. He says

Sicart Reading Group, Chapter 7 - The Ethics of Game Design

[Please note that all the posts related to Sicart Reading Group are gathered here.]

7.1 Failed Attempts: Ethics as Statistics (207-212)

Sicart gives two arguments here. The first is that games that explicitly measure ethical activity of avatars end up trivializing ethics. If they reward ethical activity, then the player just views the ethical activity as part of the algorithm to beat. Kant argued that there is a performative contradiction in trying to have a good will so that you can get to heaven, which would be analogous to having your avatar do the moral thing just to get a higher score.

Sicart Reading Group, Chapter 6 - Unethical Game Content and Effect Studies

[Please note that all the posts related to Sicart Reading Group are gathered here.]

6.1 Understanding Unethical Game Content (190-199)

Sicart discusses the notorious part in Grand Theft Auto where your character gets more power after having sex with a prostitute. From the perspective of doing well in the game, the optimal strategy is to have your avatar pay the prostitute for sex, have sex with her, and then kill her so that your avatar can steal his money back.

Sicart Reading Group, Chapter 4 - The Ethics of Computer Games

[Please note that all the posts related to Sicart Reading Group are gathered here.]

4.1 Virtue Ethics and Computer Games (109-127)

4.1.1 Defining Virtue Ethics for Computer Games (110-113)

I think this section reveals what is thus far the signature weaknesses of this text. First, while Sicart does theorize about the "player subject" as distinct from the actual player, his ludological bias prevents him from theorizing about the avatar as a character in the fictional world. But I don't think you can be clear about the moral status of video games unless you are clear about this. Second, when we morally evaluate video games we often first evaluate the play-through of a given game as if it were a real world, and use deontological and consequentialist thinking to do so. To even make sense of what kind of virtues are manifest by you as a player, I have to be able to engage in this moral thinking about your avatar in the fictional world. Sicart of course does this (as does anyone when talking about morality and video games), but it comes out in needlessly unclear manners. "A player can actually play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas without committing any crimes, just exploring the virtual world of the game." (112) Well the player isn't committing any crimes when her avatar kills prostitutes. And in terms of the player, the only ethics we have so far from virtue ethics restricted to the hedonistic question of whether her game play ruins the experience for herself or other players. But then Sicart can't say  (just prior to the quoted sentence) "Choosing to play this game, and to engage in the acts of simulated violence that are crucial part of the gameplay, is also an ethical action."

If your ethics just concerns virtues of players, concerning how well they produce a gradifying ludic fix for themselves and friends, then whether your avatar kills prostitutes in GTA is not an ethical issue.

Sicart Reading Group, Chapter 3 - Players as Moral Beings

[Please note that all the posts related to Sicart Reading Group are gathered here.]

I found the shout-outs to Foucault, Badiou, Heidegger, Gadamer, and work on the phenomenology of the body to in sections 3.1-3.3 to be  little bit frustrating.The stuff on Gadamer and the hermeneutic circle is picked up again in chapter 4, so we can put off discussion of it until then.

A couple of pretty deep phenomenological points are made in these sections. In particular, the non-detached aesthetic experience we get while playing a game is often a function of the moral affectivity we have as non-players. So the model of the player-subject as something that comes entirely into being ex nihilo during play is not going to work. This has interesting consequences for an account of what's going on when you "lose yourself" in an aesthetic experience.

Sicart Reading Group, Chapter 2 - Computer Games as Designed Ethical Systems

[Please note that all the posts related to Sicart Reading Group are gathered here.]

Here Sicart is concerned with characterizing the properties of video games essential to being able to pose the questions he raised in the introduction. The ultimate definition is this:

Computer games are systems of rules that create and are experienced through game worlds in which the rules, a syntactic element, are often coupled with a fictional, semantic layer, in order to communicate with the player the ways in which she should successfully interact with the system. These rules are also coupled with a system of rewards and punishment for actions that guide the player experience. A computer game is also the space of possibility for player interaction created by those rules in that game world. (47)

2.1 Game Research and the Ontology of Games (24-37)

Sicart describes a kind of incoherence in the game XIII where narratively the player is supposed both to be a ruthless assassin yet the rules of the game prohibit the player from killing police officers. This is to show that we need to consider the fictional world of a game distinct from the rules of the game. Most of this section leads to a characterization of rules as being in some sense more primary than the fictional world.

Sicart Reading Group, Chapter 1 - Introduction

[Please note that all the posts related to Sicart Reading Group are gathered here.]

The intro was really solid. Since this is an informal group, I'm not committed to always doing book reports, but rather just raising a few issues that seem particularly interesting.

(1) Key questions Sicart will address in the book:

. . .is it the ethics of the game, or the ethics of playing the game? Is there such a difference? Do game designers have moral responsibilities? If so, how and why? (3)

(2) I'm hyped to read Sicart's argument to the conclusion that:

. . .Manhunt, a game banned in several countries, is a rich ethical experience if played by mature players. On the other hand, a game like Knights of the Old Republic, which allegedly allows players to to take moral choices and play by them, is an example of unethical game design. (4)

I have to be honest here. Part of the excitement over seeing Knights put in its place is from my childhood sense of betrayal when the Ewoks ruined Return of the Jedi, and then in the prequel's the hideousness of: (1) the demystification of the Force in terms of mitiochlorides, or whatever they were called, (2) the incredible stupidity of the premise that the Jedis would not free Anakin Skywalker's mother from slavery when (a) they are incredibly wealthy as an order, and (b) they all know that an anger management problem for Anakin could lead to galactic tragedy, (3) the dialogue, and (4) the acting. I blame Bill Moyers for interviewing Joseph Conrad at the "Skywalker Ranch" and allowing Conrad's preposterous claim that Lucas is our Homer into the video series and book for The Power of Myth (remember that?).  Apparently being a modern day Homer means never letting anyone edit out your goofiest ideas.

Informal Reading Group on Sicart's "The Ethics of Computer Games"

This is the go-to post for all posts concerning our reading group on Sicart's The Ethics of Computer Games. This group will be informal, and we can presuppose that anyone who might respond to a post is also reading the book, so nobody will be in charge of presenting book reports to start a chapter's discussion going. Ideally some set of us would post philosophical issues that arise while reading the chapter of the week and that will promote discussion. Here's a loose schedule. I'll put links on this schedule to the all the actual posts.

7/5-7/11 1 Introduction [1-20] String started by Cogburn's post

7/12-7/18 2 Computer Games as Designed Ethical Systems [21-60] String started by Cogburn's post

7/19-7/25 3 Players as Moral Beings [61-106] String started by Cogburn's post

7/26-8/1 4 The Ethics of Computer Games [107-150] String started by Cogburn's post

8/2-8/8 5 Applying Ethics: Case Studies [151-188] String started by Silcox's post

8/9-8/15 6 Unethical Game Content and Case Studies: A Critical Ethical Reading [189-206] String started by Cogburn's post

8/16-8/22 7 The Ethics of Game Design [207-222]

8/23-8/29 8 Conclusions [223-231]