Difference between revisions of "Banality of Simulated Evil"
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[[Image:Wargames.jpg|thumb|200px|The problems associated with treating simulated evil like actual evil was demonstrated in the 1983 film [[Wikipedia:War_Games_%28film%29|"War Games."]]]] | [[Image:Wargames.jpg|thumb|200px|The problems associated with treating simulated evil like actual evil was demonstrated in the 1983 film [[Wikipedia:War_Games_%28film%29|"War Games."]]]] | ||
'''"The Banality of Simulated Evil: Designing Ethical Gameplay"''' is a scholarly report written by [[Miguel Sicart]]. From the abstract, it "offers an analytical description of the ethics of game design and its influence in the ethical challenges computer games (and [[Virtual Environment|virtual environments]]) present." | '''"The Banality of Simulated Evil: Designing Ethical Gameplay"''' is a scholarly report written by [[Miguel Sicart]]. From the abstract, it "offers an analytical description of the ethics of game design and its influence in the ethical challenges computer games (and [[Virtual Environment|virtual environments]]) present." | ||
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==Conclusion and Recommendations== | ==Conclusion and Recommendations== | ||
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Sicart ends his report by laying out his five criteria for ethical gameplay design: | Sicart ends his report by laying out his five criteria for ethical gameplay design: | ||
#"Create an ethically relevant game world." | #"Create an ethically relevant game world." | ||
Revision as of 05:24, 12 December 2012
"The Banality of Simulated Evil: Designing Ethical Gameplay" is a scholarly report written by Miguel Sicart. From the abstract, it "offers an analytical description of the ethics of game design and its influence in the ethical challenges computer games (and virtual environments) present."
Contents
Introduction and Analysis
Sicart begins by summarizing a 1963 article in The New Yorker by Hannah Arendt, which documents the trial of Otto Adolf Eichmann, a German government worker during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Acting as a "cog within a vast machinery," Eichmann did not notice the consequences of his actions, focusing instead on the completion of tasks assigned to him. It is that separation of act and consequence that defines the banality of evil in Arendt's article. According to Sicart, "the Banality of Evil can be defined as a designed limitation of ethical agency in complex multi-agent, hierarchical systems." As such, Eichmann did not percieve himself as having a moral decision to make, and did not consider the end result of his actions.
Sicart then asked, "[a]re computer games systems of this kind?" His attempt at an answer focuses on popular violent and suggestively themed games such as Defcon and Grand Theft Auto IV. After analyzing these and other games and virtual environments, violent and otherwise, he draws the following conclusions:
- Games limit their players' ethical agency by isolating them from ethical judgments. Dependence or Trust for ethical judgement is placed on a closed system: the game.
- Players' knowledge of the ethicality of their present and future actions are constrained to the limits of the game, which he casts as an Infosphere.
- Players' positions on moral issues are still in play during the game.
Sicart, in the context of Information Ethics, defines a video game to be an Information System and/or Infosphere constrained within design. The player is an agent among many within the game. Scripting, if any, manipulates the moral status in the game. Internal and external values play a critical role, as games tend to be based in reality.
He defines two Gradients of Abstraction:
- Constrained to "direct interaction between agents and the state machine by means of game mechanics." (Procedural GoA)
- "The game system as simulation and agents as ethical agents." (Semantic GoA)
Here, #2 is composed from #1, and all Levels of Abstraction can then be viewed through these.
Related Analysis
There have been many studies that have been conducted in order to discover the link between violent actions and violence in video games, and the majority have concluded that playing violent video games can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior [1]. These kinds of studies help to provide evidence for Sicart and are only one of the reasons that ethical design should be implemented into game play. There is also the ethical question of recreating situations and professions in various games that involve death, such as any game oriented around military endeavors. The reality of the situation is that "Families lose fathers, sons and brothers" everyday and yet "more and more developers have decided that these conflicts should be recreated for us to ‘enjoy’ in our living rooms". These practices are ethically questionable and provide ample reason for Sigart's claim that games need to be made with ethical implications in mind.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Sicart ends his report by laying out his five criteria for ethical gameplay design:
- "Create an ethically relevant game world."
- "Do not quantize your player's actions: let them live in a world that reacts to their values."
- "Exploit the tension of being an ethical player."
- "Insert other agents with constructivist capacities and possibilities."
- "Challenge the poietic capacities of players, by expanding or constraining them."
Sicart argues that designers should consider using these principles specifically in terms of Levels of Abstraction. This translates to (1) creating a game world where ethics are important; (2) designing a game world to respond to player's moral actions; (3) presenting challenging ethical situations for the player; (4) allowing the player to enact their own ethics; and (5) giving the player more power or less power in making moral choices.
