Video games allow you to steal stuff all the time from other characters. In fact, games make it pretty easy to get away with theft. And yet…we recognize that theft is morally wrong. So what can we take away from all the stealing we do when we play games?
Tag Archives: ethics
Moral Choices: The Virtuous Player
Making good moral choices in video games is complex, and it’s easy to fall back on the simplistic. But when we rely on simple ideas, we lose the power that makes moral choices worth presenting in video games.
Moral Choices: The Consequences of Our Actions
Moral choices in games are often framed around broad concepts of right and wrong that are usually given little additional thought. But what would happen if we started to dig into more detail about what makes actions moral and immoral? In this essay I’ll explain the moral philosophy of consequentialism and how it can be used to create richer moral choices within games.
Moral Choices: The (Un)Ethics of Crunch
Crunch is an aspect of video game development that has been gaining attention in recent years. And for those who are aware of what it is, it’s horrific to even read about. In this essay I take a deeper dive to examine crunch through the lens of moral philosophy to help put into broader terms just exactly why crunch is wrong.
To Cheat or Not to Cheat?
Every now and then, the topic of cheating in a single-player game comes up, and there’s a big argument about it. But how should we understand the ethics of cheating, whether in multiplayer or single-player?
Abstracting Games 